#826  
Old 05-10-2017, 07:44 AM
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Default Re: Good King Trump

U.S. Census director resigns amid turmoil over funding of 2020 count - The Washington Post

You know, the thing that will determine whether or not the gerrymandering will stand?
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  #827  
Old 05-10-2017, 09:27 AM
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Default Re: Good King Trump

I couldn't have made any of this up. The Comey firing is transparently for political motivations considering just last week the shitgibbon was complaining about how Comey hadn't charged Clinton, and now Lord Smallgloves fires Comey because he was too tough on her. And Kim Jong Orange and his (thus far) unindicted co-conspirators are so fucking incompetent that they're surprised there's a political firestorm as a result. What the fuck did they expect?

Meanwhile there's a grand jury in eastern Virginia handing out subpoenas like there's an impending apocalypse, and Comey had already implicitly confirmed the FBI was cooperating with a grand jury in eastern Virginia. You couldn't make this up. No one would believe a presidential administration could be this incompetent or have such terrible timing. Manchurian Mugabe firing Comey, the guy investigating him, is its own cover-up, and the evidence came out on the very night it happened. And how fucking incompetent do you have to be to do a Saturday Night Massacre on a Tuesday? And let's not forget that Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III perjured himself, "recused" himself from the case, then called for the firing of the person running it.

Olbermann is mandatory viewing. On phone so no embed.

Twitter

This makes Watergate look like high school election shenanigans. And for that matter, the Nixon Presidential Library is clowning Tangerine Torquemada on Twitter.

(I feel compelled to note as well, since I made a reference to The Manchurian Candidate, that one of the characters in the novel/film was based on Roy Cohn. The same Roy Cohn who was later a sort of mentor to Cheeto Benito. Another case where the synchronicity is too bizarre to make up. The scriptwriter for our current season really needs to start employing a bit more subtlety.)
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  #828  
Old 05-10-2017, 05:42 PM
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Default Re: Good King Trump

Senator Wants James Comey To Be Special Prosecutor In Independent Russia Investigation | HuffPost

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  #829  
Old 05-10-2017, 05:44 PM
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Quote:
Week 25: Experts in authoritarianism advise to keep a list of things subtly changing around you, so you’ll remember.

May 6, 2017

The fabric and values of our country are transforming before our eyes. The Trump regime of billionaires and sycophants - with most Republicans cowering along in lock-step — continue to act and take actions that are greedy and cruel. As we hit Week 25, every subgroup of Americans not white, straight and male has been a target.

The beat of Trump-Russia continues, as does Trump’s mentally imbalanced leadership — for which there is increasing concern. This week the authoritarian themes of silencing dissent, and consolidating power and wealth were also front and center.
  1. Trump delivered a campaign speech in Harrisburg, PA to mark his first 100-days. One pundit called it “the most hate-filled in modern history.”
  2. Frustrated by his failures in the first 100-days, Trump took to Twitter and Fox News to demand changes in to “archaic” rules of the House and Senate, so he could consolidate his power.
  3. Trump called for a government shutdown in September to fix what he called a ‘mess.’ Republican leaders rejected this idea.
  4. Trump also blamed constitutional checks and balances for the chaos of his first 100 days, saying “It’s an archaic system … It’s really a bad thing for the country.”
  5. Trump said he is open to meeting Kim Jong Un, saying “ I would absolutely be honored to do it.”
  6. Trump ally Erdogan fired 3,900 from the civil service and military as “threats to national security” in his second post-referendum purge. Trump has filled 5% of key roles in the executive branch.
  7. Tillerson sent a survey to employees ahead of a major State Department overhaul involving significant job and budget cuts. Tillerson has yet to name a deputy, or fill the key roles vacated by early resignations.
  8. In a CBS interview, Trump denied that Russia hacked our election, saying it “could’ve been China, could’ve been a lot of different groups.”
  9. A massive coordinated hack and online leak of Macron’s emails occurred just 1 1/2 days before the French presidential election. Macron’s campaign blamed Russia for the attack.
  10. The leaks came within an hour of the midnight campaign blackout, during which politicians, media and citizens are legally required to pull back from any public election discussion.
  11. The head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency accused Russia of gathering large amounts of political data in cyberattacks ahead of Germany’s September election.
  12. Sparking shock and outrage, Trump invited Philippines President Duterte, an authoritarian known for brutality, to the WH. Trump did not clear the invitation with the State Department.
  13. According to Duterte’s spokesman, Trump praised Duterte saying “you’re doing a great job.”
  14. Amid concern with Trump’s embrace of authoritarian rulers, Tillerson said American values, such as human rights, should not be a condition for US foreign policy.
  15. Trump Tower in the Philippines continues to use videos of Trump and Ivanka as a key selling point.
  16. The Moscow Times reported that someone is throwing chemicals at Russian opposition, causing them to go partially blind.
  17. USA Today compiled a list of 38 Russians opposed to Putin who were victims of unsolved murders or suspicious deaths in the past three years. Two such deaths were related to the Steele dossier/Trump-Russia ties.
  18. McCain said he was “looking at other options” after Trump ally Corker backed off from imposing more sanctions on Russia.
  19. In violation of the Hatch Act, Secretary Ross accompanied Trump to Pennsylvania for a campaign event to raise money for Trump’s 2020 campaign, and WH staffer Sandra Sanders tweeted about it.
  20. On Tuesday, without taking questions, Spicer walked out of a room full of reporters, as the Trump regime was forced to accept most of the Democrats’ wish list in order to avoid a government shutdown.
  21. The OGE sent a letter to the WH and executive branch agency heads asking for copies of any waivers for Trump regime members from ethics rules. According to the NYT, at least two such waivers have been granted.
  22. The OGE says it wasn’t consulted about Ivanka’s job, saying she should be considered a federal employee and subject to those rules.
  23. Voice of America, a government-funded news agency, posted a story and tweeted about Ivanka’s new book, raising questions about the Trump regime’s use of government sources to promote private business interests.
  24. A State Department account (@GenderAtState) also likely violated federal rules by retweeting a post promoting Ivanka’s book.
  25. After pushback from his Cabinet, Trump started to dismantle his “shadow Cabinet” — young, inexperienced spies placed at federal agencies.
  26. The IRS is demanding $7 billion in back taxes from the Mercer’s hedge fund. The Mercers’ donations and ties to the Trump regime make it unlikely they will pay.
  27. Congress allocated a whopping $120 million for the Trump Family’s security costs. Costs include business trips to Vancouver and Dubai by Trump’s sons, and ski weekends in Aspen and Whistler for Ivanka.
  28. The WSJ uncovered that Kushner had failed to report $1bn of loans in his financial disclosure. He also omitted his stake Cadre, a tech startup with ties to Goldman Sachs, George Soros and Peter Thiel.
  29. POLITICO reported that at least nine members of Trump’s transition team have registered as lobbyists, despite a five-year lobbying ban.
  30. Wilbur Ross said the Syria strike — which he viewed with Trump and Chinese President Xi at Mar-a-Lago — was “after-dinner entertainment.”
  31. Priebus told ABC that the Trump regime “looked at” changing libel laws to go after the media for articles “that have no basis or fact,” and “writing stories about constant contacts with Russia…”
  32. A Code Pink activist who briefly laughed during Sessions confirmation hearing was convicted in Virginia. Two others will also face charges.
  33. Trump’s new FCC Chairman Pai said the FCC would investigate Colbert for a joke made about Trump and Putin and “take appropriate action.”
  34. AP reported that Republican House Chair Hensarling told dozens of government agencies to exclude communications with his committee from FOIA requests. He was widely criticized.
  35. Citing emails obtained under the FOIA, CBS reported that Trump had direct involvement in hunting the National Park Service official who tweeted photos of Trump and Obama’s inauguration crowds.
  36. Seemingly to counter his unpopularity, Trump has mentioned the election results on 39% of the days since November 8th.
  37. In an article in New Yorker, writer Evan Osnos reported that Trump’s fitness to service is “officially part of the discussion in Congress.”
  38. Breaking a tradition of 18 years, a school district in Seattle canceled its international field trip over concerns of Trump’s border enforcement.
  39. Trump did away with a 16-year-old tradition of celebrating Cinco do Mayo at the WH.
  40. Sen Casey blasted Trump and his regime for deporting a mother and her 5-year-old son back to Honduras, where they would face grave danger. Despite Casey’s efforts to intervene, the deportation is moving forward.
  41. According to the ACLU, Texas is about to become the first “show me your papers” state.
  42. The Trump regime fired chief usher Angella Reid, the first woman and second African American to hold the job. The job typically involves a long tenure, so this Friday afternoon firing was viewed with curiosity.
  43. Trump said he may not fund historically black colleges, a 25-year-old program, saying the funding may be unconstitutional.
  44. In a memo, Trump ordered his regime to end Michelle Obama’s girls education program, “Let Girls Learn.”
  45. After campaigning on cracking down on drugs, a line of attack that seemed racially based, Trump proposed cutting funding for the Drug Control Office, the agency charged with cracking down, by 95%.
  46. Rape charges were dropped against an immigrant teen in Maryland. Fox News had devoted days of coverage to the case, using it to validate Trump’s immigration agenda.
  47. Several outlets reported that Gorka would accept a role outside the WH after being denied security clearance and over his associations with a Hungarian hate group. Gorka said these reports were “very fake news.”
  48. The Daily Beast reported that Trump and Bannon intervened to save Gorka, and for now, he will remain.
  49. On Wednesday, POLITICO reported that Lewandowski’s firm, Avenue Strategies, quietly signed a deal to represent Citgo, a US-based oil company owned by Venezuela, in its proposed sale to Russia’s Rosneft.
  50. Citgo has donated $500k to Trump inauguration. According to The Daily Beast, that money may have come from the Kremlin, at least indirectly.
  51. The owner of the 19.5% stake in Rosneft sold shortly after Carter Page’s July meeting with Putin allies in Russia, is still not known.
  52. A bi-partisans group of Senators called on Trump to block Citgo’s sale to Rosneft, citing concern that with control of Citgo, Russia could use its influence to counter US trade sanctions imposed in 2014.
  53. Amidst reports on Citgo and other questionable dealings, Lewandowski resigned from the Avenue Strategies, the firm he co-founded.
  54. Friday afternoon, Mark Green, Trump’s second pick for Army Secretary, withdrew as a nominee. Senators had expressed alarm at Green’s public homophobic statements, something Trump vetting missed or ignored.
  55. Rachel Maddow cited that Trump has yet to fill 57 of 58 senior level Pentagon positions which require Senate confirmation.
  56. Trump reportedly speaks to Rupert Murdoch almost every day. Some had speculated that Murdoch may be the biggest winner of Trump firing Bharara, as Fox News is under investigation in the Southern District.
  57. As the Senate Intel Committee got back on track, the Committee sent letters to several Trump insiders including Flynn, Manafort, Page and Stone, requesting records of their communication with Russia.
  58. Page said he planned to cooperate, but his records as a private citizen would be ‘minuscule in comparison’ to what the FBI had collected under a FISA warrant. Page was asked to list any Russian official or business executive he met with between June 16, 2015 and Jan. 20, 2017.
  59. WAPO reported that Trump transition staffers warned Flynn about contact with Kislyak. Flynn was warned on both Kislyak’s background and that contact with him would likely be monitored.
  60. WAPO reported Billingslea was among a small group of national security hands in the Trump transition team who were concerned about Flynn and Trump’s pro-Russia stance.
  61. AP reported the Obama administration was concerned about the request for info on Kislyak, and about Flynn’s contact with Russia. They also delayed telling the Trump team about planned sanctions against Russia.
  62. One punishment was to close two Russian compounds. AP reported the Obama administration feared if they told the Trump regime too far in advance, they might give Moscow lead time to clear information out.
  63. NBC further reported that the Obama administration gave the Trump regime only hours notice about closing Russian compounds.
  64. AP reported the Obama administration was also concerned about sharing info with the Trump transition team after classified documents were copied and removed from a secure facility.
  65. Sally Yates will testify Monday before the Senate that she gave a formal warning to Trump’s WH that Flynn was lying three weeks before he was fired. This contradicts the Trump regime’s version of what happened.
  66. Nine weeks have passed since Trump’s tweet accusing Obama of wiretapping Trump Tower. This week Trump said it has “been proven very strongly.”
  67. Rand Paul, a supporter of Trump’s false claim, also said he thinks Obama spied on him. Paul tweeted that he has requested info on whether he “was surveilled by Obama admin” or the Intelligence community.
  68. At an open Senate hearing, Comey reiterated that there was no spying on Trump Tower.
  69. On Thursday, Trump and the GOP passed a series of measures, including passage of Trumpcare/AHCA in the House, a watering down of Dodd Frank, and a ‘Religious Liberty’ EO which allows religious institutions to participate in politics, and power to decide on covering birth control.
  70. Beer was rolled in as the votes on Trumpcare were cast in the House, followed by a celebration at the WH — this, as more than 24 million Americans stood to lose healthcare coverage.
  71. After the vote and celebration, it became apparent that many House members never read Trumpcare or considered how it would impact their state/district. As House members returned home for an 11 day vacation, many hid and/or turned off their phones.
  72. Jason Chaffetz, who in Week 24 was noted to have left DC and halted his investigation of Flynn in order to get foot surgery, slithered back to DC to vote for Trumpcare.
  73. After Trumpcare passed the House, the non-partisan Cook Political Report said the vote hurt the re-election prospects of 20 Republicans.
Week 25: Experts in authoritarianism advise to keep a list of things subtly changing around you, so…
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  #830  
Old 05-10-2017, 07:05 PM
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Default Re: Good King Trump




No, really, you cannot fire the man who is investigating you.
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  #831  
Old 05-10-2017, 07:58 PM
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Default Re: Good King Trump

Quote:
Originally Posted by Keith Olbermann
"Trump is effectively guilty today of an impeachable offense, and if enough of the Republican members of the House and Senate are anything other than political whores and the fully-owned lickspittles of corporations and other special interests, Trump will be impeached."
The truly terrifying thing is that this doesn't seem like it will be treated as an impeachable offense by Republicans in the House and Senate, given how many of them have already made clear that they're perfectly a-okay with Trump's firing of Comey, and that they don't see why the Democrats are making a fuss about it.

Even Susan Collins -- who I always thought was relatively sane, for a Republican in Congress -- has stated that she doesn't think there's any link at all between the FBI investigation and Comey's firing.


Sadly, I think it's pretty clear that the great majority of our Republican Congresscritters are nothing more than "political whores and the fully-owned lickspittles of corporations and other special interests."
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  #832  
Old 05-10-2017, 08:02 PM
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Default Re: Good King Trump

This is definitely the sort of thing that merits calling one’s elected representatives and senators, and probably writing and emailing them as well. There are so many outright dangerous aspects of the current situation that I’m not even certain I can elucidate them all, so I’m posting this here for feedback to make certain I’ve covered everything before I craft my message and call people. Feel free to provide suggestions.
  • As Olbermann said, firing the man who’s investigating you is banana republic tinpot dictator stuff. It’s completely unacceptable in a democracy.

  • The firing came out on the same day as a slate of new grand jury subpoenas appeared, and it’s clear the firing is related. This is a clear case of obstruction of an ongoing investigation.

  • The firing occurred on the recommendation of AG Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, who had already perjured himself regarding the case and claimed he would “recuse” himself from it. If he is recommending the firing of the FBI agent in charge of it, he has clearly not recused himself.

  • Comey had recently asked for additional funding and manpower for the Russia investigation. The firing is clearly linked.

  • It’s already public knowledge that Twitler was personally enraged that Comey insisted on continuing the investigation, and that this was his primary motivation for the firing. It’s impossible not to conclude that he is mentally unfit for the office of president. He is not sufficiently stable to lead, and his temperament poses a danger not merely to the country but to the globe. Someone in such a mental state cannot be trusted with the launch codes.

  • The Republicans’ response to this leads one to question whether they, too, are implicated. What doesn’t McConnell want us to know? His wife has a position in the Trumpov administration. Are they compromised by the Russians?

  • We know the Russians acquired access the Republicans’ email server, but we don’t know what they know. How many prominent Republicans are compromised? If they’re clean, why are they obstructing an investigation? What don’t they want us to find out?

  • Is Russia blackmailing Twitler or other Republicans? Is that why they don’t want the investigation to proceed? Given today’s meeting with Lavrov, this is an extremely important question.

  • Rosenstein’s memo didn’t recommend Comey be fired; it merely criticised him. Why is his report being used disingenuously as pretext for firing? Was he aware it would be used in this fashion? More here.

  • The shitgibbon apparently demanded Comey end the grand juries investigating his Russian connections or be fired, according to Dave Bernstein. This is yet another cover-up in a long list of cover-ups, if true.

  • The IC apparently warned France before its election that Russia was attempting to compromise the election results. But somehow, they couldn’t pull that off here. Why? What is being done to prevent the compromising of our elections from happening again?

  • The WH press was barred from a meeting between Trumpovich, Lavrov, and Kislyak (whose connections to Flynn led to the latter’s firing), but the Russian press was allowed in. What were they hiding from us?
Help me out here. I’m certain I haven’t covered all the bases yet.
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  #833  
Old 05-10-2017, 09:20 PM
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Default Re: Good King Trump

I’m making another post for this, because human rights lawyer Scott Horton, based on reporting by the Financial Times, just dropped the mother of all bombshell reports, based on three FT stories.

Donald Trump Was Bailed Out of Bankruptcy by Russia Crime Bosses | Alternet

Haven’t even finished reading this, but the rabbit hole goes far, far deeper than I ever expected it to. I sort of feel like I almost owe the FT a subscription for their reporting here, and should also throw Horton some cash. This is the kind of investigative reporting the American press should have done last cycle, and completely failed to do (with a few notable exceptions, such as Fahrenhold, Eichenwald, and David Cay Johnston). It’s full of specifics and it’s incredibly damning.

Horton appears to have posted some of his conclusions on Facebook, and I will probably be closely following his feed for awhile (though I mostly pay little attention to the site).

e: apparently this story is actually a few months old, which I didn’t notice earlier, but it’s pretty pretty convincing evidence that the Russia stuff isn’t going away no matter what tactics Lord Smallgloves tries.
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  #834  
Old 05-10-2017, 09:56 PM
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Default Re: Good King Trump

As has been noted by many others, Trump's administration is like a cross between House of Cards and Veep. But I'd also add a dose of The Manchurian Candidate.

Here's hoping that we don't also get a dose of Dr. Strangelove.
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  #835  
Old 05-10-2017, 10:58 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir View Post
Here's hoping that we don't also get a dose of Dr. Strangelove.
The degree of absurdity is already there.
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  #836  
Old 05-10-2017, 11:10 PM
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Default Re: Good King Trump

You have to understand Montgomery country to understand why those rape charges were dropped.

You also have to believe the 14 year old child wanted to be penetrated and mouth fucked by and adult male and a 17 year old male in the school bathroom.

Liberals will blame the victim if there is a bigger political message to make.

Though they are going for the child pornography charges, because these predators took pictures of their victim...

So they are removing the rape charges because it became a national story that doesn't fit their worldview political message, but they are still going after the rapists.

Liberalism is a mental disorder.
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  #837  
Old 05-10-2017, 11:13 PM
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Default Re: Good King Trump

Keep in mind that the white liberals that work in DC and live in Montgomery country, with their $300,000 household incomes, don't send their kids to these public schools with the illegal immigrants, they send their white liberal rich children to private schools.

lol @ the hypocrites
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  #838  
Old 05-11-2017, 01:23 AM
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Default Re: Good King Trump

Amazingly, the front-page story in today's local newspaper has the headline: "Trump fires FBI director over handling of emails."

The accompanying story is all about how this is all due to Comey's handling of the Clinton email "scandal." The article stresses over and over again that this is about the Clinton emails, and how Trump did this at the urging of the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General -- as if there was nothing suspicious or inappropriate about that.

In fairness, the article does very briefly mention that "some" have suggested that the firing might be linked to the ongoing investigations regarding Russian involvement in the election, but it immediately goes back to insisting that it's all about Comey's "inappropriate behavior" regarding the Clinton emails.


Oh, and it mentions that this might be a problem for Democrats, since they tend to regard Comey as an ally against Trump. Really?


The entire article sounds like it's a word-for-word reprint of a White House press release. Heck, it wouldn't entirely surprise me to find that it is.

Talk about "Why the Mainstream Media sucks"!
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  #839  
Old 05-11-2017, 01:34 AM
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Default Re: Good King Trump

How you guys havn't figure out its a TV reality show yet, idk.

Its bad soap opera writing.
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  #840  
Old 05-11-2017, 01:37 AM
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Default Re: Good King Trump

Back during the campaign, I half-seriously suggested that Trump might have been a plant, intended to make the Republicans look bad. At times like this, I wonder if maybe that really was the case, and that he has succeeded beyond anyone's wildest dreams.
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  #841  
Old 05-11-2017, 01:47 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger View Post
Back during the campaign, I half-seriously suggested that Trump might have been a plant, intended to make the Republicans look bad. At times like this, I wonder if maybe that really was the case, and that he has succeeded beyond anyone's wildest dreams.
He and Clinton are pals, they have been for decades.

His job was to be as absurd as possible to make Clinton with her terrible decades long corruption baggage look appealing. Unfortunately, she really is sick, so they had to go with Trump.
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  #842  
Old 05-11-2017, 01:55 AM
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Default Re: Good King Trump

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Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger View Post
Back during the campaign, I half-seriously suggested that Trump might have been a plant, intended to make the Republicans look bad. At times like this, I wonder if maybe that really was the case, and that he has succeeded beyond anyone's wildest dreams.
A rather small part of me still thinks that at some point he’s going to pull off a mask and reveal he’s really Andy Kaufman and has been trolling us for the last several decades.

I mean, it’s an absurd conspiracy theory without a single shred of supporting evidence, but the last couple of years have been so strange that it wouldn’t completely surprise me if it turned out to be true anyway.
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  #843  
Old 05-11-2017, 02:10 AM
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Default Re: Good King Trump

See, poorly written soap opera.

No consistency in the characters.

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Maxine Waters: I Don't Support Trump Firing Comey, I Would Support Hillary Clinton Firing Comey
Maxine Waters: I Don't Support Trump Firing Comey, I Would Support Hillary Clinton Firing Comey | Video | RealClearPolitics
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Old 05-11-2017, 02:29 AM
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Default Re: Good King Trump

In some ways, I regard Trump "winning" the election as more an indictment of the Democrats than of the Republicans.

Why? Well, the Republicans have been running candidates on a policy of racism, sexism, and blaming the poor and middle class for their own problems (while doing everything they can to stack the deck against the poor and middle class and in favor of the wealthy) for decades now. Trump was simply willing to be a lot more open about it than most.


I mean, Trump ran a campaign in which he continually demonstrated that he had neither the intelligence, the education, nor the temperament to be President. He ran an openly misogynistic, racist, and nativist campaign. At times, it seemed like he was going out of his way to offend and insult as many potential voters as possible. He lied -- oh sure, we expect political candidates to lie, but Trump did it so blatantly and outrageously that even Ronald Reagan must have been spinning in his grave and muttering "Dayum, that's some brazen shit right there!".


True, there were some complicating factors. It didn't help that the complicit and dishonest "Mainstream Media" kept playing up "concerns" about Clinton while pretty-much ignoring far more serious concerns about Trump -- and meanwhile pushed the lie that Clinton and Trump were equally "problematic" candidates. And Comey probably did cost Clinton the election.


But with all this, if the Democrats couldn't manage to field a candidate who would utterly destroy a boob like Trump in November, this is proof-positive that the Democratic National Committee needs to be razed to the ground and rebuilt from scratch, if you ask me. Sadly, I see little evidence that they've learned any sort of lesson from any of this.
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  #845  
Old 05-11-2017, 04:09 AM
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Default Re: Good King Trump

You know... most of the DNC staff HAS been replaced. So... I mean... But either way, I don't think of Clinton's campaign as an abject failure.

We can look at what the campaign did and evaluate not just based on the final outcome...
  • Clinton and the Democrats put on an excellent convention (in my opinion), much better than Trump's. Both the polls and the news coverage seemed to support this.
  • Clinton dominated the debates. Again, this was supported by polls and much coverage (and my personal view - particularly the first debate). She set a trap for Trump in that first debate that had him flailing for a week.
  • Clinton had many good policy proposals. While people still whine that Democrats need to move to the left, on the whole her/the DNC's platform was the most progressive ever run by a Democrat.
  • She had a fundamentally competent and professional campaign (it did not leak damaging info like a sieve, like Trump's). This is not to say it was amazing, it wasn't as good as Obama 2012, say, but compared to campaigns generally it seems to have been fine. We've seen plenty worse.
  • She won the popular vote by 2% and only barely lost in the tipping point states. As far as "losers" go,
    only Al Gore can really claim to have lost by less.

There were plenty of mistakes, of course. She is not the greatest speechifier, and her ads may have focused on the wrong issues, resource allocation was probably not optimal (although spending more time in Wisconsin would not have saved the election - she spent plenty of time and money in PA and FL, and without those two WI was irrelevant). Clinton's baggage in combination with a ratfucking campaign by Russia, Wikileaks and elements within the FBI (building off years of work by the GOP to smear her) and a feckless both-sides media that amplified those efforts was enough to BARELY deliver the election for the GOP.

This in a year that should've favored them anyway: the Democrats were seeking a third term and the economy was just ok. You can also see that political polarization (tribalism) has steadily increased over time - a clue being that the GOP surely should've lost in 2008 by more than a measly 7 pts! They imploded the economy, failed disaster response, lied us into a war and then bungled it, tried to destroy Social Security and had many, many scandals. In a sane country, it would've been a rout. Yet nobody argues that Obama and the 2008 DNC were hopelessly incompetent.

Tribe trumps rational evaluation of the parties for enough voters to keep it close by historical standards, even when they have completely screwed the pooch (2008) or are running a bigoted, ignorant, impulsive, pussy-grabbing narcissist.

Also I think you're underselling the appeal of Trump's racism and misogyny. It was the continuation of a trend within the GOP, sure. But it was a significant difference from McCain and Romney. Surveys found a significantly stronger correlation between sexism/racism and support for Trump than for Romney, for example. I'd also see this:
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger View Post
the Republicans have been running candidates on a policy of racism, sexism, and blaming the poor and middle class for their own problems (while doing everything they can to stack the deck against the poor and middle class and in favor of the wealthy) for decades now.
As evidence that beating Trump shouldn't have been a gimme. Republicans won quite a few elections with that formula, after all! But where Trump differed (although an informed reading of his history and statements would've revealed it to be obvious bullshit) was that he promised not to cut the social safety net and ran a significantly more economically centrist campaign. It was all lies, given his statements elsewhere, and his behavior being in contradiction to much of it, and the media should've made that clear. But instead it was Clinton's emails and unfiltered footage of Trump's podium.

Anyway, it doesn't look like an abject failure to me. There wasn't a magic formula to get an LBJ-style landslide, IMO, given the political and media environment. Utterly destroying Trump was not an easy lift, as disturbing as that conclusion is.

Which isn't to say they don't need to think about a lot of things and make changes. But I don't see why you would conclude that they need to be razed to the ground. That relies on basically viewing the election as a gimme, and I really don't think it was. And crucially, the Russian ratfucking campaign only began after the primaries were over. In hindsight we can say that Sanders was less vulnerable to Russia's attacks/they may have been less motivated to attack him, but there was no hint of that during the main part of the primaries.
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  #846  
Old 05-11-2017, 09:53 AM
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Default Re: Good King Trump

I think the difference of opinion lies here: "She won the popular vote by 2% and only barely lost in the tipping point states. As far as "losers" go, only Al Gore can really claim to have lost by less."

Absolutely true. But look who Al Gore lost to, and look who Hilary lost to. She lost to Donald Trump, who suffered from the very reverse of everything you ascribe as a positive to Hilary: a worse convention, terrible in debates, terrible policies, and a terrible campaign that was surrounded by scandals at every turn.

And she still lost!

I agree with much of what you say, but it's hard to look at that and not wonder what the hell happened here. It seems too easy to write-off her loss to Trump's appeal to racism. Hilary had some unique downsides, and they were maybe more important this election than they would have been in any other.
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  #847  
Old 05-11-2017, 01:55 PM
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Default Re: Good King Trump

I think the tribalism is probably the single biggest factor. Even with a candidate as heinous and obviously full of shit as Trump, only a few of the more consistent conservative intellectuals and a significant minority of Mormons were willing to take a hard line against him up to and after the convention. This may be difficult to imagine, but you could almost certainly have fielded a candidate worse than Trump and still taken home 40%+ of the vote, so long as they had the (R) next to their name on the ballot. So, no, I don't see any scenario for destroying Trump that election, regardless of the Democratic candidate. You were never going to get that 30-40% of the voters that votes for party regardless.

I do think Clinton's "unique" weaknesses helped tip it from a narrow win to a narrow loss, but I find a lot of that particularly irritating to acknowledge or listen to people point out, since so many of those "weaknesses" are based on utter bullshit conspiracy theories. Trump may have laid it out in stark, horrifying relief, but the reality that appearances so often matter more than facts, especially in politics, is not new, and is a continuing source of frustration to me.
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  #848  
Old 05-11-2017, 03:40 PM
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Default Re: Good King Trump

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Originally Posted by Dragar View Post
But look who Al Gore lost to, and look who Hilary lost to. She lost to Donald Trump, who suffered from the very reverse of everything you ascribe as a positive to Hilary: a worse convention, terrible in debates, terrible policies, and a terrible campaign that was surrounded by scandals at every turn.

And she still lost!

I agree with much of what you say, but it's hard to look at that and not wonder what the hell happened here. It seems too easy to write-off her loss to Trump's appeal to racism. Hilary had some unique downsides, and they were maybe more important this election than they would have been in any other.
"Terrible policies" is assuming a bit much. A number of Trump's policies were popular and helped him do as well as he did.

On a number of issues, he took both positions and the media didn't make him pay a price (this is partly what makes me a little skeptical that a more economically focused ad campaign would've been a winner - Trump might have simply lied even more about his economic plans and the media would have played along). And a number of those were areas where he took quite popular positions, that I would actually say were good: no cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, for example. Tax the rich more. Capital gains taxes are too low. Healthcare for everyone, don't let people die in the street, it'll be terrific.

Well, he also said he was open to entitlement cuts (he said it to movement conservatives), Obamacare has to go (with Paul Ryan and McConnell, it was always obvious what that would mean) and as a consistently greedy conman who'd be working with the Congressional GOP, raising taxes on himself was not going to be a thing either.

But there were a lot of people out there who believed it. His anti-trade stance (based on xenophobia, IMO, not concern for workers) was helped by the left, who used trade to attack Clinton and likely furthered the impression that he would be good or better than Clinton on that issue.

And like Kael, this leads me to believe that polarization/tribalism is perhaps the most important factor here. If you can see how terrible his campaign was, and to me it strains credulity that the only reason she didn't have a landslide was I dunno, Goldman Sachs speeches... My conclusion is that some of those things just didn't matter as much as we think they would.

Note the result in France: tribalism was not put into play in the same way as it is in the US. The center-right lined up behind Macron, and against Le Pen. The right-wing establishment in the US has no such principles. They were behind Trump because he had the R next to his name. Their team followed. The end.
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  #849  
Old 05-11-2017, 06:22 PM
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Default Re: Good King Trump

I think firing Comey is just going to make it that much harder for Trump to hire experienced, qualified staff. If Trump values subservience over anything else, including past favors, people who can't feign this level of loyalty won't want to work for him.
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  #850  
Old 05-11-2017, 06:38 PM
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Default Re: Good King Trump

Even Spicer is looking to be at his limit.

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