@S.C.:
Well, "genius" is a bit generous, but yes.
I’d call appointing the only “intellectual” whose written a book specifically promoting gerrymandering to “fix gerrymandering” a pretty genius move, wouldn’t you? Evil, but brilliant nonetheless.
@S.C.:
Well, "genius" is a bit generous, but yes.
I’d call appointing the only “intellectual” whose written a book specifically promoting gerrymandering to “fix gerrymandering” a pretty genius move, wouldn’t you? Evil, but brilliant nonetheless.
I’d call appointing the only “intellectual” whose written a book specifically promoting gerrymandering to “fix gerrymandering” a pretty genius move, wouldn’t you? Evil, but brilliant nonetheless.
Fair enough, but yes, to answer your question, for all intents and purposes, it would seem the modern Republican Party is the "Fuck Over Everyone Who Isn't a Rich Old Male WASP And Get Filthy Rich Doing It" party.
Here's an interesting article posted by the Daily Beast.
A senior National Security Council official proposed withdrawing some U.S. military forces from Eastern Europe as an overture to Vladimir Putin during the early days of the Trump administration, according to a former administration official in the room with him.
While the proposal was ultimately not adopted, it is the first known case of senior aides to Donald Trump seeking to reposition U.S. military forces to please Putin—something that smelled, to a colleague, like a return on Russia’s election-time investment in President Trump. The White House did not immediately respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment.
The official who offered the proposal, a deputy assistant to Trump for strategic planning, mused in February 2017 about withdrawing U.S. troops close to Russian borders as part of a strategy proposal to “refram[e] our interests within the context of a new relationship with Russia,” the former official told The Daily Beast, who heard this directly from the official, Kevin Harrington.
With a large map showing Europe hanging on a wall in a White House office, Harrington was dismissive of U.S. interests in the Baltics and wondered aloud about their importance in the context of U.S.-Russian relations. American forces have remained on the continent for 70 years to deter the Soviet Union and, later, to reassure allies nervous about a resurgent Russia near their borders. The map did not show those U.S. troop positions—but it did provide a symbolic backdrop to what Harrington’s one-time associate believed was a most disturbing proposal.
Harrington’s former colleague told The Daily Beast that Harrington asked about the prospect of withdrawing or repositioning U.S. forces from the Baltics—nations once part of the Soviet Union and periodically swallowed up by Russia ever since Peter the Great shattered Swedish hegemony in northern Europe in the early 18th century. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania gained NATO accession in 2004 to guarantee their independence, a measure stridently opposed by Vladimir Putin, who saw the transatlantic military alliance not only enlarged but encroached within what Russia considers its sphere of influence.
According to the ex-colleague, Harrington considered it a gesture to the Kremlin that would enable the nascent Trump administration to see if its desire for a friendly relationship with Russia would be reciprocated. It was included in a strategy paper that, conspicuously to the former official, made no mention of Russia as either a competitor or adversary.
The ex-colleague considered the idea dangerously naive. The Kremlin was far more likely to view a unilateral U.S. troop reduction from Eastern Europe as a green light from Washington for additional provocations, in Ukraine, Syria, or elsewhere. If that wasn’t enough, European allies were already alarmed at Trump’s tendencies to discuss the defense of Europe as a protection racket. Seeing the new administration pull back from Europe would prompt fear on the continent, and especially within the Baltics, that the U.S. was abandoning its allies to a resurgent Russia.
“I sensed we were giving something and it wasn’t clear what we were gaining in return,” said the former official.
This fit a pattern within the Trump administration, before and after Flynn’s White House tenure, of sidling up to Russia. Taken in sum, the pattern raises a question about whether Trump and his team are willing to pay Russia back for the Kremlin’s role in the election.
Federal judge gives respite to ‘dreamers’, says DACA can’t end while lawsuit is pending
Oh this is an unexpected treat. An injunction has been placed on Trump's DACA decision, meaning the program is still active while its related lawsuits are still underway.
I love the potential headache this will cause for Trump (and yeah he already tweeted about it). This is a humiliation, and maybe it'll affect those budget talks. I look forward to seeing how this goes.
My generally down-the-middle legal twitter isn't finding a very good legal reason for the injunction. Could backfire.
Darrell Issa's taking the coward's way out and retiring rather than losing his seat in the Mid-Terms.
Tuesday’s DACA negotiation stunt showed how dangerously we’ve lowered the bar for Trump
Donald Trump’s entire political career has been a bizarre exercise in large-scale lowering of the bar for what’s considered acceptable conduct in a high-ranking public official. But we as a society somehow reached a new low Tuesday afternoon after Trump staged a pointless, unproductive televised discussion of immigration policy with several members of Congress and successfully earned media plaudits for the feat of not suffering from any obvious symptoms of dementia.
Even that's being charitable since he actually had to be reminded of his own previous position on that issue.
Some stories from https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/2018/01/10/day-356/ that caught my eye and I haven't seen here yet:
The Trump administration waived fines for Deutsche Bank and four other multinational banks convicted of manipulating global interest rates. Trump owes Deutsche at least $130 million in loans. The German bank was also fined $425 million by New York State for laundering $10 billion out of Russia.
The White House plans to destroy the data collected for Trump's voter fraud commission instead of giving it to the Department of Homeland Security. White House Director of Information Technology Charles Herndon added that the commission did not create any "preliminary findings," despite Sarah Huckabee Sanders' previous assertion that such findings would also be turned over to DHS.
A Senate Foreign Relations Committee report says the US is not prepared to defend against possible Russian meddling in the 2018 midterm elections or the 2020 presidential contest.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/10/politics/us-russia-election-meddling-cardin-report/index.html
Trump's companies sold more than $35 million in real estate in 2017, primarily to shell companies that obscure the buyers' identities.
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Pete Hoekstra gets burned alive at his first official presser:
A little more detail on that: http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/us-ambassador-netherlands-grilled-2015-comments-52256477
The White House plans to destroy the data collected for Trump's voter fraud commission instead of giving it to the Department of Homeland Security. White House Director of Information Technology Charles Herndon added that the commission did not create any "preliminary findings," despite Sarah Huckabee Sanders' previous assertion that such findings would also be turned over to DHS.
I'm curious if this is a situation of "we found something that show literally the opposite of what we are saying and will hurt us" or "OK we're getting nothing from this, just scorch the whole project and hope everyone forgets".
And I'm assuming this is the data those few States submitted. Yes?
I've seen a few folk I respect considering the possibility that the investigation may be wrapping up sooner than they thought after the movement to get Trump to sit for an interview with Team Mueller.
This would indicate otherwise: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/mueller-adds-veteran-cyber-prosecutor-to-special-counsel-team/2018/01/10/860f3364-f585-11e7-b34a-b85626af34ef_story.html?tid=ss_tw&utm_term=.5efd7c7abdee
I'm curious if this is a situation of "we found something that show literally the opposite of what we are saying and will hurt us" or "OK we're getting nothing from this, just scorch the whole project and hope everyone forgets".
And I'm assuming this is the data those few States submitted. Yes?
The ONLY reason you'd burn the paperwork is if it showed something bad. Otherwise there'd be zero harm in turning it over since the money is already wasted on the legwork anyway. There's no point in destroying it if its merely useless, it has to actually be harmful.
Similar, it might be why they cancelled the investigation because their preliminaries revealed the oops. What that harm could be, I don't know, but it's generally the only reason to shred documents.
See also the fact that they were going to burn the ballots in alabama to avoid recounts in the event of a close race.
The ONLY reason you'd burn the paperwork is if it showed something bad. Otherwise there'd be zero harm in turning it over since the money is already wasted on the legwork anyway. There's no point in destroying it if its merely useless, it has to actually be harmful.
Similar, it might be why they cancelled the investigation because their preliminaries revealed the oops. What that harm could be, I don't know, but it's generally the only reason to shred documents.
These guys weren't stupid, just evil. They had all the carefully documented evidence showing that most claims of voter fraud were fabricated well in advance. Had to burn the documents because it would be very clear the intent was strictly political.
Can guarantee they produced no actual scientific studies during their work.
Darrell Issa's taking the coward's way out and retiring rather than losing his seat in the Mid-Terms.
His seat should be a clean pickup for Democrats since he held on by about a percentage point in 2016.
And also because California hates Trump.
Kelly sent out an internal memo going over the new policies for electronic devices in the White House as well as the penalties for leaking material.
The memo was, of course, leaked to ABC.
Looks like we could start seeing the effects of the new tax law in paychecks by next month. If you value your tax refunds, this might be a problem for you.
http://www.kmov.com/story/37240190/governor-greitens-admits-to-extramarital-affair
Disgusting. This should lead to either his resignation or his removal from office if he doesn't do so himself.
Trump being told about the existence of terrain must have been a wonderful fly-on-the-wall moment.
So has anyone read Fire and Fury? Highly controversial Sargon of Akkad reviewed it, and I'm kinda hoping someone whose a little more left wing is willing to fact check his summary of the key parts, and provide a counter-narrative where he's misrepresented the content of the book… I mean I could read it myself but I'm lazy :ninja:.
Seriously if anyone's got 40 odd minutes to watch it and has read the book, let me know if there's any outright misrepresentation of the book's content in this vid - I'd usually look at the yt comments but Sargon's fans are utter cultists.
Pretty much every professional article about the book mentions that 30% of it is likely false. But the broad strokes (Bannon, unqualified president with dementia) are true.
Pretty much every professional article about the book mentions that 30% of it is likely false. But the broad strokes (Bannon, unqualified president with dementia) are true.
I know that much, I was more curious how much of what Sargon said in summarising the book is actually in the book. Particularly, does the book actually have a section dedicated to discussing how the White House was divided between "Jews (Kushner and Goldman sachs jews kushner brought in to help) and non-Jews (Bannon, Kelly-Anne and co)" on policy? Really, that's the terminology? And did members of the white house actually think with the mentality of "let the jew(kushner) take care of the jews (israel)"? Does Wolff actually say these things, or is that just Sargon spinning a much more nuanced quote into something that appeals to the Alt-right?
Does Bannon actually describe president-elect Trump as a "soothing, friendly monkey that made funny jokes moreso than before?". Is everything framed as the media's reality vs trump's reality in the book, as Sargon claims? Does the book actually have a part where it describes Bannon telling Ivanka "I will fuck you" (not literally).
The book says that Trump actually works? The book says Bannon works non-stop? The book says Trump is less of a person, more of a combination of damaging personality traits? Trump as a god with a short attention span, whom you have bried moments to pray to in the hope that he remembers what you said and acts upon it as if he thought about it?
It all seems so… over the top. Is that just the way the book is, or is Sargon spinning it to seem that way.
I know that the Bannon vs. Javanka thing is constantly brought up, but I think it's referenced as Nationalists vs. Globalists (which is just a dog whistle for Jews anyway).
Ever since Fearless Leader decided to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank have tripled.
Ever since Fearless Leader decided to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank have tripled.
http://images.yuku.com/image/gif/35c1659feb36ba6585beceffd449a034fc1e3fb2_r.gif
I don't like the hypocrisy on display on this issue. That said, if I've been tricked by fake news or something and this isn't what all 3 preceding presidents stated on the campaign trail, I'd like to be called out on it.
News dump courtesy the WTF Just Happened Today Twitter. More detail on the site itself.
The Trump administration will let states require people to work for Medicaid.
The House reauthorized the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows the US intelligence community to collect Americans' email, text messages, photos, and other electronic communication without a warrant.
Trump sent a series of confusing tweets about his position on the bill after a Fox News analyst appealed directly to Trump on-air, urging him to oppose the bill.
Democrats plan to invite sexual assault victims to Trump's State of the Union address later this month to highlight the issue of sexual misconduct.
https://t.co/TstWO5uhFk
My immediate thought is this feels a bit like inviting Bill Clinton's accusers to the presidential debates.
Steve Bannon hired a lawyer in preparation for his interview with the House Intelligence Committee next week.
https://t.co/bfVWRoLYpO
Not really noteworthy so much as expected, but it was in the feed so shrug
poll/ Trump is losing ground with women, in particular Millennial, white-collar, and blue-collar white women.
"Saying it on the campaign trail" and "giving full diplomatic recognition of Israel's capital being Jerusalem with plans to move the embassy there" are two very separate things.
@Cyan:
"Saying it on the campaign trail" and "giving full diplomatic recognition of Israel's capital being Jerusalem with plans to move the embassy there" are two very separate things.
Smh, you say this, but to me this just mystifies the american understanding of "what democracy is" even further. In the UK at least, Prime ministers that don't go through with their campaign pledges are vilified by the media for being liars. See the lib dems increasing tuition fees, or the labour party's comical "engraving campaign pledges into stone" in 2015. Why is the American standard for truth while campaigning so much lower than anywhere else :getlost:
I think there's a certain amount of "they'll say whatever they have to to get elected" mixed with a certain jadedness on seeing these campaign promises often forgotten once in office and the general "politicians are ask crooks anyway" preventing us from taking most campaign promises seriously. Especially if it's something the world at large would recognize as a stupid thing to ACTUALLY do.
I don't like the hypocrisy on display on this issue. That said, if I've been tricked by fake news or something and this isn't what all 3 preceding presidents stated on the campaign trail, I'd like to be called out on it.
When you have that kind of conviction about where you stand on an issue. How could someone not be curious about how you respond to news like, an increase in terrorist activity, within the region tied directly to your stance? I, an American ppl, think that's a question worth asking.
Israel is the ultimate posturing issue in American Politics. We just now have an administration that is willing to ignore practical impacts in order to adopt a more aggressive posture.
Kinda liked Nikki when she started in the role (at least seemed intelligent in a land of idiots), but ETTD.
Nikki Haley was always completely unqualified to be ambassador. The only reason she was appointed is to get her out of the way and appoint a cultist as SC governor.
So has anyone read Fire and Fury? Highly controversial Sargon of Akkad reviewed it, and I'm kinda hoping someone whose a little more left wing is willing to fact check his summary of the key parts, and provide a counter-narrative where he's misrepresented the content of the book… I mean I could read it myself but I'm lazy :ninja:.
Seriously if anyone's got 40 odd minutes to watch it and has read the book, let me know if there's any outright misrepresentation of the book's content in this vid - I'd usually look at the yt comments but Sargon's fans are utter cultists.
Something that you might find helpful
Fact checking website Politifact did an article on the book. It doesn't go into extension detail but it does offer a few points and issues that might affect how seriously to take it.
Something that you might find helpful
Fact checking website Politifact did an article on the book. It doesn't go into extension detail but it does offer a few points and issues that might affect how seriously to take it.
Seems like the "f*cking liar" part is actually in the book. Hah. That sounds like fairytail bs to me, no way someone as family driven as Trump would let another man insult his daughter. No, no, no. If Bannon had done that, he'd be fired on the spot.
Seems like the "f*cking liar" part is actually in the book. Hah. That sounds like fairytail bs to me, no way someone as family driven as Trump would let another man insult his daughter. No, no, no. If Bannon had done that, he'd be fired on the spot.
Trump really isn't as family-driven as he appears. He likes Jared and wants to fuck Ivanka, but he doesn't even interact with Don Jr. (didn't even wish him a happy birthday), has barely any contact with Tiffany and Barron consistently looks absolutely miserable despite having, by all accounts, a very caring mother.
Almost every insider account from people who've known the man up close says that his entire existence is about looking out for #1. Family is largely incidental.
He probably has a higher tolerance for pushback if it's coming from Ivanka vs. random staffer, but I have zero doubt that he would throw any member of his family under the bus in a heartbeat to save his own skin. And we'll get to test that theory when Mueller closes in on Jr., Eric, Javanka, etc.
"Eric? Barely know the guy. Used to bring me my slippers sometimes. More like an intern, really."
Melania looks like she constantly wishes she was back in Slovenia, as well.
@S.C.:
Melania looks like she constantly wishes she was back in Slovenia, as well.
Just a few more painful years and he'll have a heart attack. Then, she'll finally be free to do whatever she pleases as first trophy widow of America
The least racist person ever:
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Official White House statement isn't even going to deny he said it:
Just a few more painful years and he'll have a heart attack. Then, she'll finally be free to do whatever she pleases as first trophy widow of America
If the mods will excuse my venom, hopefully sooner rather then later.
The least racist person ever:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DTSqwkNV4AAPV_L.jpg:large
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Official White House statement isn't even going to deny he said it:
This is going to sound very callous, but him calling third world countries "shitholes" isn't going to lose him any votes on the right. It might even gain him some. It fits well into his "anti-pc" "shooting from the hip" "say it like it is" brand, and while the way he said it was certainly horrible, the sentiment of "only allowing the best people in" is precisely what the right wants, and its what most countries (the UK and Canada for example) actually have as their policy (refugees aside).
What I'm trying to say is that once you cut through the offensive words, he's just saying standard republican policy points, the only people who'll find this "horrifyingly bad" are the left wing people whom would disagree with right-wing policy anyway, and the media that's always looking for the next thing to be outraged at. To the average right winger… this is standard stuff, to be encouraged even.
I don't think you'll find anyone here who denies that Trump is the most generic of Republicans at the end of the day.
There's a pretty big difference between allowing the best people in (which often includes people from Asia) and wanting Norwegians over shithole AIDS people who live in huts (all things said by Trump in the last couple weeks).
Gotta say, one thing I was completely wrong about with Trump: didn't think he was actually a virulent racist. Thought he had no problems dabbling with it, but figured he'd like anybody of any race as long as he or she praised him. Also didn't think he had developed feelings about anything other than himself or money.
But nope. Flat-out bad grandpa racist.
One of the only areas where I did not assume worst-case with Trump. Have learned my lesson.
Good reminder that the only reason Puerto Rico is a shithole right now is because the Trump administration purposely let it rot.
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"43% of immigrants from “shithole” African countries have a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared to 33% of the overall American population.
“Nigerian-Americans, for instance, have a median household income well above the American average."
Here's an update on how Fearless Leader feels about Lil' Rocket Man.
“I probably have a very good relationship with Kim Jong Un, ” Trump told the Journal in a 45-minute sit-down at the White House. “I have relationships with people. I think you people are surprised.”
“You’ll see that a lot with me,” Trump said, “and then all of the sudden somebody’s my best friend. I could give you 20 examples. You could give me 30. I’m a very flexible person.”
lol CNN is going nuts at the moment.
And you know Trump has no loyal people under him. Presidents say terrible things all the time behind closed doors(though this one is super terrible), but Presidents usually have loyal employees who keep that stuff amongst themselves. With Trump everyone around him is probably racing to be first to the reporters. Thats funny.
You don't get to call a third world country a shithole unless you survive in them for at least 4 years.
lol CNN is going nuts at the moment.
And you know Trump has no loyal people under him. Presidents say terrible things all the time behind closed doors(though this one is super terrible), but Presidents usually have loyal employees who keep that stuff amongst themselves. With Trump everyone around him is probably racing to be first to the reporters. Thats funny.
This one was to several Congressional folks, so probably came from there. So many people there in this case that staff aren't even trying to deny.