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[Max™]

Ok now I laughed at the idea that I would read that book, even to clip a quote from it, holy gods, I have so much other stuff to do which would be a better use of my time, including literally doing nothing but staring blankly at the wall. I am guilty of the same error many made regarding his run: not taking him seriously, but I refuse to start now.

[Playergamer]

That's alright. It's not like you need a personal understanding of the 45th president's thought process, after all.

[Max™]

By Thor, that is a terrifying conviction you have, I didn't need a personal understanding of any of the ones before, and knowing the crap going through his head won't help me get people to stop voting for him.

[Playergamer]

By Thor, that is a terrifying conviction you have, I didn't need a personal understanding of any of the ones before, and knowing the crap going through his head won't help me get people to stop voting for him.

That's...what I was saying, dude. You don't need to know what he's thinking, but it's a very interesting look inside.

Also. This.

[Sheb]

That's alright. It's not like you need a personal understanding of the 45th president's thought process, after all.

It's funny, because I'm reading a longish piece about the Art of the Deal gohstwriter. Doesn't seem like a good place to get any hindsight into Trump's though process, since the writer seems to agree that there doesn't seem to be that much though behind the process.

Lots of neat quotes:

After chatting briefly about the party, Trump informed Schwartz that, as his ghostwriter, he owed him for half the event’s cost, which was in the six figures. Schwartz was dumbfounded. “He wanted me to split the cost of entertaining his list of nine hundred second-rate celebrities?” Schwartz had, in fact, learned a few things from watching Trump. He drastically negotiated down the amount that he agreed to pay, to a few thousand dollars, and then wrote Trump a letter promising to write a check not to Trump but to a charity of Schwartz’s choosing.

Schwartz says of Trump, “He’d like people when they were helpful, and turn on them when they weren’t. It wasn’t personal. He’s a transactional man—it was all about what you could do for him.”

”Schwartz reminded himself that he was being paid to tell Trump’s story, not his own, but the more he worked on the project the more disturbing he found it. In his journal, he describes the hours he spent with Trump as “draining” and “deadening.”   Schwartz told me that Trump’s need for attention is “completely compulsive,” and that his bid for the Presidency is part of a continuum. “He’s managed to keep increasing the dose for forty years,” Schwartz said. After he’d spent decades as a tabloid titan, “the only thing left was running for President. If he could run for emperor of the world, he would.”

In his journal, Schwartz wrote, “Trump stands for many of the things I abhor: his willingness to run over people, the gaudy, tacky, gigantic obsessions, the absolute lack of interest in anything beyond power and money.” Looking back at the text now, Schwartz says, “I created a character far more winning than Trump actually is.” The first line of the book is an example. “I don’t do it for the money,” Trump declares. “I’ve got enough, much more than I’ll ever need. I do it to do it. Deals are my art form. Other people paint beautifully on canvas or write wonderful poetry. I like making deals, preferably big deals. That’s how I get my kicks.” Schwartz now laughs at this depiction of Trump as a devoted artisan. “Of course he’s in it for the money,” he said. “One of the most deep and basic needs he has is to prove that ‘I’m richer than you.’ ” As for the idea that making deals is a form of poetry, Schwartz says, “He was incapable of saying something like that—it wouldn’t even be in his vocabulary.”

Lying is second nature to him,” Schwartz said. “More than anyone else I have ever met, Trump has the ability to convince himself that whatever he is saying at any given moment is true, or sort of true, or at least ought to be true.”

“It’s implicit in a lot of what people write, but it’s never explicit—or, at least, I haven’t seen it. And that is that it’s impossible to keep him focussed on any topic, other than his own self-aggrandizement, for more than a few minutes, and even then . . . ” Schwartz trailed off, shaking his head in amazement. He regards Trump’s inability to concentrate as alarming in a Presidential candidate. “If he had to be briefed on a crisis in the Situation Room, it’s impossible to imagine him paying attention over a long period of time,” he said.

I don't really get why someone complaining that Hillary look like a power hungry political machine could turn to Trump.

[Playergamer]

Oh man, that's funny. If you expect me to care about what an irrelevant ghostwriter's willing to say in front of a camera to make a buck....

[smjjames]

Trump being a self seeking narcssissicist is already well known though Sheb. While we have had presidents who were a bit of a narcsissicist (Bill Clinton a little bit, the Kennedys, though that was more of a cultivated image sort of thing, FDR maybe), but those were on a more healthy level, we've never had one with that much narcissisim.

Heck, Trumps narcissicism is more comparable to Caligula and some other Roman Emperors. Edit: Maybe not Caligula per se, but you guys get what I mean.

[Max™]

Oh man, that's funny. If you expect me to care about what an irrelevant ghostwriter's willing to say in front of a camera to make a buck....

...didn't you just point me at the book to "get some insight" on the guy?

Did I misread the situation, are you actually trolling about Trump being president and I should read the tongue-in-cheek implied there?

[Sheb]

The guy doesn't seem like he needs to make a buck (he did get half of the book's royalties, and has been quite successful since). You also don't go to the New Yorker to make a buck.

And given that he pretty much wrote the book on his own (Another quote from that piece: Trump's Editor saying "He didn't write as much as a postcard for us"), you should at least care that the book cannot be a guide to Trump's though process.

[Loud Whispers]

Oh man, that's funny. If you expect me to care about what an irrelevant ghostwriter's willing to say in front of a camera to make a buck....

Damn, dude, I think you gave me whiplash.

It's just like that anime, House of cards

[Orange Wizard]

Gj pg

[Strife26]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2016/07/19/turkey-extradition-gulen-united-states/87284860/?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=usatoday-newstopstories


Turkey is demanding the US extradite Gulen. Other sources have thrown around much more heated rhetoric. Inner-NATO war when?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Won't count as intra-NATO if the US goes through with its threat and kicks Turkey out.

[Sheb]

The amount of purging going on really is impressive.

[Strife26]

Won't count as intra-NATO if the US goes through with its threat and kicks Turkey out.

Well yeah, but that's much less fun. Selective reading of Article 5 is allowing me to assume that an attack on a NATO member by a NATO member requires everyone to declare war on everyone else, including themselves, then take actions appropriate to support everyone against everyone else, in line with individual and collective self-defense. Meanwhile, everyone should be reporting everything to the Security Council too.




On the less absurd note, let's kick Turkey the poisonous ally the flying fuck out of NATO, then go full-bore behind a Kurdistan.