Now That Trump's President... (not any more!)

  On 11/6/2019 at 7:00 PM, drillkicker said:

How do you people not realize that this constant following of Donald Trump is an absolutely brain dead activity ?  Every joke about him since Inauguration Day has been exactly the same thing over and over and over and over and over.  I don’t care how stupid the man is, you’re 100 times stupider for repeating the same thing incessantly, every day, for three years.  It isn’t funny or clever, and it certainly isn’t edgy, it’s just annoying repetitive gossip.  It’s like sitting at a jack-in-the-box and waiting for it to pop out so you can react hysterically like it’s never happened before.

You may as well be watching the Kardashians on TV if this garbage is interesting to you.

is this a copypasta?

Trump is not running the country into the ground.  The country is running itself into the ground.  The United States is and always has been a delusional attempt to manufacture an artificial utopia founded on arbitrary ideals.  Obviously that's a recipe for failure and demise.  If the breakdown of America comes as a surprise then you're placing too much faith in human reason.

  On 11/6/2019 at 9:19 PM, zero said:

Well since you're more or less attacking anyone who has posted in this thread, did you consider that responding to stories about what he's done and posting about it is an outlet for those who don't want to talk about trump IRL? I certainly avoid bringing him up or discussing anything political when I'm around friends/family.

Kudos to you if you can sit back and not let this shit show affect you in some way and don't feel the need to joke or comment on it. I'd assume most people posting here are aware we're caught in a pavlovian cycle of trump news story---post comment---repeat. But I find when I'm presented with non-stop inane news stories about him, that I have to react some way. I do wish sometimes I could just ignore it  though because as you implied, it is so self-defeating.

As far as being uninteresting - I don't see how you can't find having an openly corrupt, washed up reality show billionaire, saying & doing some of the stupidest things any elected world leader in modern history has ever said or done, not be funny/entertaining/interesting? I find a lot of it pretty funny.

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I'm not affected by these political news stories because I simply don't look at them.  It's that easy.  Nothing on those web sites is worth looking at, and the overwhelming majority of it is completely forgotten after a week.  If something actually important happens then I'll hear about it regardless of whether I want to.  This anxious addiction to new stories isn't natural and it only serves to create unnecessary stress and unhealthy distraction.  We're told in school that it's a good thing but the fruits of this system indicate otherwise.  Look at how isolating and chaotic society has gotten since the Enlightenment.  That isn't because of Trump, it's because our ideals are completely misaligned.

  On 11/6/2019 at 10:13 PM, drillkicker said:

I'm not affected by these political news stories because I simply don't look at them.  It's that easy.  Nothing on those web sites is worth looking at, and the overwhelming majority of it is completely forgotten after a week. 

people should pay more attention. and not all news is the same. a lot of it is half-assed and ratings-oriented. trump deliberately feeds them less-significant controversies in order to displace headlines about more significant misdoings. maddow, melber, and lawfare have been covering the important trump stuff well.  

  On 11/6/2019 at 10:13 PM, drillkicker said:

If something actually important happens then I'll hear about it regardless of whether I want to.  

i can understand why you would think that, but anything big will be (and has been) coincided with immediate counter-information from multiple sources, in multiple directions, and with matching or greater intensity. signal blocking has emerged as an effective weapon. under obama, the right wing went insane, and they developed an impressive bubble ecosystem for sophistic rhetoric. A lot of people live in it and a lot of people just don't pay attention so they don't know if the country is actually in trouble or not, and, if so, who is the aggressor.

  On 11/6/2019 at 10:13 PM, drillkicker said:

Look at how isolating and chaotic society has gotten since the Enlightenment. 

lol, went back pretty far there...those god damned philosophers...this is all their fault! introduced those ideas about individualism, civil society, capitalism...screwed us all.

  On 11/6/2019 at 10:22 PM, very honest said:

i can understand why you would think that, but anything big will be (and has been) coincided with immediate counter-information from multiple sources, in multiple directions, and with matching or greater intensity. signal blocking has emerged as an effective weapon. under obama, the right wing went insane, and they developed an impressive bubble ecosystem of sophistic rhetoric. A lot of people live in it and a lot of people just don't pay attention so they don't know if the country is actually in trouble or not, and, if so, who is the aggressor.

If an event is that easy to distort, then it isn't very important.  I personally don't care whether the country is in trouble.  Countries don't really matter.

  On 11/6/2019 at 11:09 PM, zero said:

lol, went back pretty far there...those god damned philosophers...this is all their fault! introduced those ideas about individualism, civil society, capitalism...screwed us all.

The Enlightenment wasn't very long ago, and all of our modern political structures are based on its ideas, so it's entirely appropriate to reference it in any discussion of modern political theory.

  On 11/7/2019 at 12:01 AM, drillkicker said:

If an event is that easy to distort, then it isn't very important.  I personally don't care whether the country is in trouble.  Countries don't really matter.

i disagree with your premise that "If an event is easy to distort, then it isn't very important."

a lot of things are important, like

• abusing and orphaning immigrant children
• blowing the potential of talks with north korea
• leaving the iran nuclear deal
• provocations destabilizing relations with iran
• starting a trade war
• multiple instances of obstruction of justice
• extorting ukrainian president to publicly announce investigations into biden by withholding us aid they needed to defend themselves from an ongoing active war with russia
• bribery
• self-enrichment
• abandoning our allies the kurds, resulting in assad recovering control of one third of syria
• not defending the US against ongoing russian attacks on our elections
• legitimizing and helping the putin oil mafia
• helping mbs get away with murdering an american journalist
• leaving the paris accord

The only thing on that list that's important is the abusing children one, and that isn't something that I have the power to prevent or mitigate.

A pretty good summation of ever fucked up thing Betsy Devos has done in office, and her whole "fuck every student I was hired to help" attitude of inaction:

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/betsy-devos-education-secretary-171431586.html

i didn't even realize the kurds controlled a third of syria until someone mentioned it in a podcast last month. i think it was this oct 19 What's Going on in Syria episode of the lawfare podcast.

source: good wapo article from oct 15

what an amazing foot-hold. it could have laid the groundwork for a sovereign kurdish state in the future. people have been saying a kurdish state makes more sense than the arbitrary borders drawn by europeans after ww1. the kurdish people are great, progressive, and were good allies. they actually did fight with the allies in ww2, and they fought with the US in iraq in a big way. what a good outcome it would have been if the kurds had maintained control of a third of syria. 

the US forces there weren't even taking losses. they were special forces who would just ninja into select operations to take out ISIL targets and they were doing a good job of it. all they had to do was be there, in order to prevent assad/russia and turkey from incursions into kurdish territory. 

but, before anyone even knew what was happening over there, trump initiated a sequence of events that resulted in the kurds inviting assad back in, in order to protect them from genocide by turkey, because the US left.

some are theorizing that this concession to turkey may have been influenced by vulnerability to the trump camp posed by reporting of trump admin involvement in US journalist's Kashoggi's murder by Saudi Arabia in a Saudi consulate in Turkey. trump also owns towers in turkey.

the move benefitted putin as much or more than turkey. assad is a russian proxy and syria is a strategic ally for putin for multiple reasons. furthermore, the area is close to the russian border and putin dislikes their neighborhood becoming more west-friendly.

known financial links between trump and putin include:

• suspicious real estate deals with oligarchs
• suspicious loans from kremlin-linked lender deutsche bank
• suspicious trump PAC infusions by lev and igor
• suspicious russian donations to the inauguration committee
• moscow tower negotiations that cohen lied to congress about at the behest of trump
• putin funneling money through the NRA

probably others i'm forgetting.

  On 11/7/2019 at 12:55 AM, drillkicker said:

The only thing on that list that's important is the abusing children one, and that isn't something that I have the power to prevent or mitigate.

So have you just excepted we now live in an authoritarian dictatorship? Last time I checked, we were able to vote, protest, inform our representatives and use our freedom of speech. Those are things you actually can AND SHOULD do because you have the right and freedom to do so, in this country... for the time being. 
Saying you can’t do anything is foolish. Even if you only don’t agree with one thing on very honest’s list (which I feel is leaving off quite a few other things), you still should realize you actually can do something about it. 
May I add, posting our political thoughts, jokes, and criticisms is something you actually cannot do in some countries. We can do it here so enjoy that. 
 

The U.S. government is a closed system.  It can't simply be changed into something good.  This is the nature of government.  It's always imperfect and corrupt because it's made by imperfect and corrupt creatures, and all we will ever accomplish is death.  I'm not going to waste my time trying to force a different system that isn't going to be any better than the current one because I'm not capable of making such a system, and I don't believe any individual or group on earth is.  Every nation state that exists at this moment is crumble and give way to something else, because that's the nature of the world.

  On 11/7/2019 at 12:55 AM, Rubin Farr said:

A pretty good summation of ever fucked up thing Betsy Devos has done in office, and her whole "fuck every student I was hired to help" attitude of inaction:

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/betsy-devos-education-secretary-171431586.html

Reminder: her brother is war profiteer blackwater CEO and the real world equvalent to Cobra Commander Erik Prince

  On 11/7/2019 at 3:58 PM, very honest said:

i didn't even realize the kurds controlled a third of syria until someone mentioned it in a podcast last month.

 

 

source: good wapo article from oct 15

 

what an amazing foot-hold. it could have laid the groundwork for a sovereign kurdish state in the future. people have been saying a kurdish state makes more sense than the arbitrary borders drawn by europeans after ww1. the kurdish people are great, progressive, and were good allies. they actually did fight with the allies in ww2, and they fought with the US in iraq in a big way. what a good outcome it would have been if the kurds had maintained control of a third of syria. 

the US forces there weren't even taking losses. they were special forces who would just ninja into select operations to take out ISIL targets and they were doing a good job of it. all they had to do was be there, in order to prevent assad/russia and turkey from incursions into kurdish territory. 

but, before anyone even knew what was happening over there, trump initiated a sequence of events that resulted in the kurds inviting assad back in, in order to protect them from genocide by turkey, because the US left.

some are theorizing that this concession to turkey may have been influenced by vulnerability to the trump camp posed by reporting of trump admin involvement in US journalist's Kashoggi's murder by Saudi Arabia in a Saudi consulate in Turkey.

the move also benefitted russia as much or more than turkey. assad is a russian proxy and syria is a strategic ally for russia for multiple reasons. furthermore, the area is close to the russian border and russia dislikes their neighborhood becoming more west-friendly.

known financial links between trump and the kremlin include suspicious real estate deals with oligarchs, suspicious loans from kremlin-linked lender deutsche bank, suspicious trump PAC infusions by lev and igor, suspicious donations to the inauguration committee, moscow tower negotiations that cohen lied to congress about at the behest of trump, putin funneling money through the NRA, and i'm sure others i'm forgetting.

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Turkish invasion of Rojava was one of the most disillusioning things to happen recently. It's disheartening and tragic, so dire the SDF has allied with Assad for survival. 

  On 11/6/2019 at 8:11 PM, BobDobalina said:

Here's a feel good story for your Wednesday!

Virginia elects woman who gave president the finger:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-50315490

West Virginia elected a Democrat governor over the right-wing Trump bootlicker (and out of state corporate shrill) who was in office. This is the same state Trump won by 30% in 2016.

Virginia swept both of their state houses as well. Another encouraging pre-2020 election overall.

^^ he was also in kentucky just before the election where he begged people to vote for the republican candidate for governor because it would send "a very bad message" if they lost. they voted for a democrat.

Trump tweeted that he wants Biden and his son to testify at the public hearings next week. I imagine that the democrats will try to fix it so this doesn't happen, but it would be interesting to see. 

They keep wanting to turn this into a Biden investigation, guess what, he's not President.

  On 11/7/2019 at 7:01 PM, Rubin Farr said:

They keep wanting to turn this into a Biden investigation, guess what, he's not President.

he was vice president, though.

election results.. always more nuanced than anyone wants to admit.. except this guy!  good analysis.. his commentary starts around 3:50 but the whole segment is about elections


https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/the-nationwide-trends-tuesdays-off-year-election-results-reinforced

  On 11/7/2019 at 7:05 PM, Drum Up said:

he was vice president, though.

There is no evidence of any criminal wrongdoing by the Bidens, but lots of evidence (proof)of the Trump administration actually engaging in corruption in Ukraine. The mobsters that paid the president’s personal lawyer to fire a US diplomat so they could continue their corruption got indicted. 

They needed to continue their corruption so badly, that they held Ukraine hostage with military aid $ if they didn’t shift the blame onto the Bidens. And they did it in full view of several career govt officials who didn’t feel like getting wrapped up in something illegal, and are now testifying against them. And even W Bush wasn’t this retarded. 

I'm not trying to provoke. If the Biden's testify it will not look very good for them or the democrats. It seems like his son enriched himself in a less-than-even-handed way and that he was given the opportunity to do so because of his father's ability to get him a position. If the priority is to defeat Trump, then the Biden's testifying will not be helpful and it might even hurt. 

  On 11/7/2019 at 7:37 PM, Candiru said:

There is no evidence of any criminal wrongdoing by the Bidens, but lots of evidence (proof)of the Trump administration actually engaging in corruption in Ukraine

You're conflating individuals and administrations. I'm not trying to defend Trump, but like other president's doing shady shit, he can probably finagle plausible deniability regarding the thing you mention as proof (which I guess isn't to say that the corruption of his administration won't be grounds for approving of impeachment for the average voter). 

  On 11/5/2019 at 11:15 PM, Nebraska said:

^^^ who in god's name is still voting for biden? 

also: love this; from the crowd wearing the 'read the transcript (sweatshirts?) and trump's "good job" confirmation nod to rand paul's committed "here's is me keeping my end of the bargain" look of determination and simple 'to-the-point' accusations. this is really good stuff

 

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as "good" of a job rand paul did of kissing ass, can we please give a hand to john 'neely' kennedy coz he's going full boot licking for trump. 

lol at bolton's sep 10, 2019 resignation letter

sept 13 is when zelensky had an interview scheduled, on CNN (Fareed's GPS show), in which he was going to concede to the trump demand and announce investigations into the bidens. before it happened, aid was released and he cancelled. leading up to that:

• aug 12 - Intelligence Community Inspector General Atkinson passes Director of National Intelligence Maguire the whistleblower complaint
• sept 1 - sondland informs ukraine that us aid has been withheld contingent on public announcements of investigations (confirming the implicit statement in the jul 25 phone call)
• sept 9 - IC IG Atkinson alerts congress to the existence of the whistleblower complaint, which should have been passed to congress by DNI Maguire
• sept 10 - Bolton resigns
• sept 11 - whitehouse releases US aid to ukraine and zelensky cancels the interview

  On 11/8/2019 at 4:36 PM, very honest said:

lol at bolton's sep 10, 2019 resignation letter

from the Simpsons episode where homer becomes garbage commissioner and screws everything up, and the more experienced former commissioner says:

You know I'm not much on speeches, but it's so gratifying to leave you wallowing in the mess you've made.
You're screwed.
Thank you.
Bye.

That the last readable line on that butthurt twit starts careening into the Clinton Foundation...