Scott Adams adds a new dimension with respect to how we should look at Trump's Tweets. Interesting food for thought.
Is it possible Trump haters are missing out big time? Will Trump have the last laugh?
I often find myself laughing at Trump's reported Tweets. Adams' training and insight gives me something to think about. (See 1 below.)
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If what I have suspected all along regarding Clinton's ties to the uranium sale turns out to be as bad as I have thought and Mueller knew there was an investigation by the FBI, while he was FBI Director, and how could he not, then one should question whether he should remain as the independent counsel.
Why do I say this?
First, we have an 'independent counsel' investigating Russian collusion, which he should have known about regarding Clinton's part, and yet Mueller kept the report of such hidden from Congress.
Second, Mueller, reportedly, is expanding the collusion probe and ties, if any, to the Clinton Foundation and Clinton associates. Is he doing this in order to create the appearance of openness in view of the possible testimony of the FBI informant being un-gagged?
Third, is it conceivable Mueller could also be investigating the various alleged Clinton ties and then could find no collusion in order to wipe away his own fingerprints.
When it comes to D.C, I honestly do not know who I can trust any more. (See 2 below.)
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If I understand Trump's proposed income tax simplification, speaking personally, I doubt that I will pay less taxes.
If I have a problem with what is proposed and might be passed it is this:
a) Once the government takes away something you never get it back. First, they allowed 100% deductions for business expenses. Then they said you could only deduct what exceeded 6% of your gross. Now they may take away all personal business expense deductions .
b) The government is very good at creating the appearance of benefits but in the end you can rest assured you will be the loser. This is one of the reasons I oppose a VAT Tax. The government would start at one rate but they will raise that rate over time and they will have taken away other benefits in the process.
c) Because the government is always in need of money, in order to cover excessive political spending, no one should ever trust government. This is why I favor a smaller, less powerful government. Sad but true.
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Dick
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1)The Power of the Presidential Tweet
Trump’s online missives make his supporters laugh and even his opponents think past the sale.
By Scott AdamsAs a trained hypnotist and a lifelong student of persuasion, I’m often impressed by how much “work” President Trump gets out of his tweets. Most of them are harmless retweets about whatever is going right, and they tend to be forgettable. The good ones are something entirely different, and many are gems of persuasion.
Consider this one: “With Jemele Hill at the mike, it is no wonder ESPN ratings have ‘tanked,’ in fact, tanked so badly it is the talk of the industry!”
When Mr. Trump smack-tweets a notable public critic—Ms. Hill has called the president a “white supremacist”—it violates our expectations of his office. That’s what makes it both entertaining and memorable. He often injects into his tweets what memory expert Carmen Simon calls a “little bit of wrongness” to make it hard to look away. If the wrongness alarms you, consider that for years he has adroitly operated within a narrow range of useful wrongness on Twitter without going too far. That suggests technique. In the Twitter environment, strategic wrongness is jet fuel.
Watch for Mr. Trump’s tweets to make you think past the sale, a well-known technique of persuasion. In the Jemele Hill tweet, he makes you wonder if ESPN’s ratings really are the “talk of the industry.” And in order even to consider that question, you must imagine a world in which the primary claim—that Ms. Hill is bad for the network—is true. Even if it isn’t.
Here’s another example in which the president makes you think past the sale: “People are just now starting to find out how dishonest and disgusting (FakeNews) @NBCNews is. Viewers beware. May be worse than even @CNN!” If you find yourself wondering which is worse, NBC or CNN, you are thinking past the sale that both are bad.
Here’s another. Spot the part that is past the sale: “Art Laffer just said that he doesn’t know how a Democrat could vote against the big tax cut/reform bill and live with themselves!”
When Candidate Trump said he would make Mexico pay for the wall, he was making us think past the sale. If you’re thinking about who is paying for the wall, you’ve already imagined the wall existing. And that makes it easier to convince you it should exist.
I also see the president as employing a modern version of humor. When he goes after one of his high-profile critics, his supporters laugh and reach for the popcorn. This is gonna be good! Voters who preferred Hillary Clinton are not laughing, of course. But they aren’t the audience for his tweet humor. And that makes it even funnier for his supporters. His base is in on the joke, whereas his detractors don’t even know humor is happening.
In the 1940s, humor was mostly about corny jokes with punch lines, and loads of slapstick. By the ’70s, humor evolved to be whatever the public found most inappropriate and shocking. Half the fun of watching “Saturday Night Live” in those days was waiting for the naughty parts. By the late ’90s, humor evolved into more of a reality-focused art. When you watch your favorite reality TV show, you’re probably laughing. When you read comics, you laugh hardest at the ones that speak to your personal experience.
Reality and humor have effectively merged. President Trump came to us through the reality TV world, and apparently he has a good grasp of modern humor. His critics will wince at my suggestion that his tweets are intentionally humorous, or even funny. But ask one of his followers about them. Notice the reflexive smile when you bring up the topic. They see it as weaponized humor. Likewise, they recognize Mr. Trump’s sticky nicknames, such as “Low Energy Jeb” and “Rocket Man,” as both intentionally humorous and effective.
Humor is an extraordinary tool of persuasion. Things that are funny are easier to remember, and humor creates a bond with anyone who shares the laugh. In my opinion as a professional humorist, Donald Trump is the funniest president in the history of the republic. Perhaps Abe Lincoln was second.
Again, there are no jokes of the old-fashioned punch-line variety in the president’s tweets. The humor comes from our shared reality, their inappropriateness and—for his supporters—the fun of watching their shared critics take pies in their faces.
Mr. Trump also has a knack for getting into his critics’ heads. Consider this tweet: “Why is the NFL getting massive tax breaks while at the same time disrespecting our Anthem, Flag and Country? Change tax law!” The odds of a tax law change targeted at the NFL are low. But are they zero? Once that risk is in your head, you reflexively treat it as real even if your rational brain says it isn’t.
See a similar technique in the next tweet: “Network news has become so partisan, distorted and fake that licenses must be challenged and, if appropriate, revoked. Not fair to public!” It is deeply unlikely any major network will lose its station licenses, but now the idea is in their heads. Everything I know about persuasion tells me it will nudge the networks toward friendlier coverage out of self-preservation.
If you think Mr. Trump’s tweets are nothing but thin-skinned reflex, you’re missing a great show. Historians and trained persuaders will be analyzing his extraordinary Twitter game for hundreds of years, wondering how much of it was based on training and how much was pure instinct.
Did you catch me making you think past the sale just then?
Mr. Adams is the creator of the comic strip Dilbert and author of “Win Bigly: Persuasion in a World Where Facts Don’t Matter,” out next week from Portfolio/Penguin.
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2) Mueller Opens Criminal Investigation Into Clinton Fundraiser Tony Podesta in Russia Probe
Special Counsel Robert Mueller has broadened his investigation, originally focused on Donald Trump's ties with Russia, to a major Hillary Clinton bundler who worked for Ukraine's Party of Regions, a political group backed by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Donald Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, also worked for this party.
Recent reports have implicated Mueller in an alleged FBI cover-up. The FBI had been investigating the Russian firm Rosatom for years before the Obama administration approved its acquisition of 20 percent of U.S. uranium in the Uranium One deal. The FBI kept the investigation secret, even when it could have prevented such a monumental purchase.
At the same time, Hillary Clinton (who was on the very board which approved the Uranium One deal) stood to benefit from the deal, as a Russian bank promoting Uranium One stock had paid her husband half a million for a speech (and directed millions to Clinton Foundation-linked companies). At the same time, the FBI acted quickly to bust a Russian spy ring because it got too close to Clinton.
Mueller — who as head of the FBI seems likely to have known about the Rosatom investigation and covered it up, just as the FBI switched into overdrive to protect Hillary Clinton — has broadened his investigation of Trump-Russia into a line of questioning that might finally implicate the other side of the 2016 election, Clinton herself.
On Monday, NBC News reported that Tony Podesta and the Podesta Group are now the subjects of Mueller's federal investigation. NBC News cited three unnamed sources, who may have leaked the information on Mueller's orders — in order to suggest impartiality after these recent stories implicated Mueller.
The Podesta probe grew out of Mueller's inquiry into Manafort's finances, NBC News reported. Manafort had organized a public relations campaign for the non-profit European Centre for a Modern Ukraine (ECMU). The Podesta Group also worked on that campaign.
According to NBC News' sources, the Podesta investigation began as a fact-finding mission about Manafort's role in the ECMU, but later broadened into a criminal inquiry into whether or not the firm violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). [An allegation PJ Media reported last April.] That act requires those who lobby on behalf of foreign governments, leaders, or political parties to file disclosures about spending and activities with the Justice Department.
The Podesta Group filed a FARA registration for ECMU work only after the payments were reported by the media. Manafort's firm did the same.
The ECMU was reportedly backed by the Party of Regions, the pro-Russian party of Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovych. Yanukovych has been referred to as Putin's puppet in Ukraine, and his party was funded by Russian oligarchs. He was president of Ukraine during the ECMU campaign between 2012 and 2014.
As chairman of the Podesta Group, Tony Podesta is now under Mueller's eye. His brother John Podesta, who served as Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign chairman in 2016, is not currently affiliated with the Podesta Group and is not part of Mueller's investigation, NBC News reported.
A spokesman for the Podesta Group told NBC News the firm "is cooperating fully with the Special Counsel's office and has taken every possible step to provide documentation that confirms timely compliance" to FARA.
Despite NBC News' caveat that John Podesta is not under investigation, the news of Mueller probing Tony Podesta still directly connects the Trump-Russia investigation to Hillary Clinton's campaign. The chairman of the Podesta Group was one of Clinton's big bundlers during the 2016 campaign.
Podesta's work with ECMU is not the only connection between him and Russia. Last March, Politico reported that the Russian bank Sberbank hired Tony Podesta and other lobbyists at the Podesta Group — to petition the U.S. government over "the scope of U.S. sanctions against Russia for its role in the Ukraine conflict and whether relief is possible."
Sberbank is not just some random Russian bank. Owned by the Russian government, the bank controls 30 percent of Russia's banking assets and employs over 250,000 people.
Furthermore, the bank was prominent in the "Panama Papers" leak, which revealed the extensive network of financial fraud Putin used to enrich his cronies. It has ties to companies used by members of Putin's inner circle to funnel state resources into lucrative private investments, as reported by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.
The "Panama Papers" leak implicated Podesta. The ledger of the Party of Regions, unearthed by the "Panama Papers" leak, also revealed millions paid to Paul Manafort.
The Ukrainian government has accused Sberbank of perpetrating Russian aggression against its country. In 2014, Ukraine's Security Service charged Sberbank with "financing terrorism," alleging its financial branches distributed millions of dollars in illegal aid to Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine.
Western intelligence has broadly supported these allegations, according to the Observer's John Schindler.
"Sberbank is the Kremlin, they don't do anything major without Putin's go-ahead, and they don't tell him 'no' either," a retired senior U.S. intelligence official with extensive Eastern European experience told Schindler. Russia's Central Bank holds the majority stock in Sberbank, making it an unofficial arm of the Kremlin, even though it is still legally private.
Mueller's investigation into Tony Podesta and the Podesta Group has been a long time coming, and it is heartening to see the special counsel turn his eye toward the Russian connections of some prominent Clinton backers for once.
None of this frees Mueller from the stain of the FBI keeping the Rosatom investigation secret during the Uranium One deal, however. It is not enough to merely expand the Russia investigation into actors on Clinton's side — he needs to fully investigate Russia ties on both sides of the aisle.
If Mueller's investigation is truly nonpartisan, evidence suggests he will find a great deal more dirt on Clinton's side of the ledger. Perhaps the Trump-Russia meme will die a slow death. The Podesta investigation is the first inkling that Clinton-Russia is just as much on Mueller's radar as Trump-Russia, and it may burst open the floodgates.
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