deskthority

In defense of the missile strike, if it was intended as a warning, then it’s better if it didn’t do excessive amounts of damage to personnel or military hardware. Think of it as a $50 million fireworks show to demonstrate that the US military is serious about chemical weapons, and can blow stuff up whenever it wants to.

Pretty silly:

A historian discusses the deep roots of racism, xenophobia, violence, and grifting running through the history of the American right, and at the heart of the Trump movement, and calls historians out (himself included) for sugar-coating their past analyses of the right and the GOP
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/11/maga ... wrong.html

Mr. T-p grasped our infant minds long before his presidency and even before Home Alone with the tower erected in NY centre and Chicago where apartments have just insane prices

After not executing anyone for 12 years due to various legal challenges after several botched lethal injection executions (“One inmate started to cough three minutes into his execution, and turned blue. The execution of another inmate took sixty-nine minutes—it took the execution team fifty minutes to find a suitable vein before administering the drugs. A third had what appeared to be a seizure. A fourth was still talking when she should have been unconscious.”), Republican-controlled Arkansas is now rushing to execute 7 people, including 4 who have severe mental disabilities or mental illness, because their lethal injection drugs are about to hit the expiration date, and nobody will sell them new ones. The legislature passed various new laws making executions easier to avoid court concerns under existing law, and as the governor says, “I would love to have those extended over a period of multiple months and years, but that’s not the circumstances that I find myself in.” http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk ... ven-people

Better to just let the viewers draw their own conclusions.

Since this thread is now banned from the spy it's time for the good stuff...

Welcome to TRUMP TRACTS - TRUMP TRACTS GET READ! -

http://www.ep.tc/trump-tracts/

fohat wrote: Better to just let the viewers draw their own conclusions.

This is the power of propaganda at work. During that first poll, GOP pundits, lawmakers, and propagandists were shouting about how the scary black president was defying congress to take us to war. During the second poll, GOP propagandists were shouting about how the dick-waving manly men of the US military were about to bomb the shit out of some evildoers.

When something like 1/4 to 1/3 of the country is made of a mix of racists and compliant ignoramuses who think whatever their talk-radio idols tell them to think, it’s easy to get huge swings of opinion like that.

Apparently what Trump meant by “drain the swamp” was “fill every executive agency with industry insiders who will profit at public expense”.
https://nytimes.com/2017/04/15/us/polit ... licts.html

Senator Whitehouse:

Jimmy Carter & Bernie Sanders 5-8-17 on human rights and democracy (starts at 5:00):
Looks like the man is starting to stumble now...

Trump’s attempt to fix the Comey crisis made it worse

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/1 ... ing-238291

This is too insightful not to pass on:

Conservative columnist David Brooks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bro ... mmentator) argues that Trump’s immaturity led to the disclosure:

From all we know so far, Trump didn’t do it because he is a Russian agent, or for any malevolent intent. He did it because he is sloppy, because he lacks all impulse control, and above all because he is a 7-year-old boy desperate for the approval of those he admires.

The Russian leak story reveals one other thing, the dangerousness of a hollow man.

But Trump’s statements don’t necessarily come from anywhere, lead anywhere, or have a permanent reality beyond his wish to be liked at any given instant.

We’ve got this perverse situation in which the vast analytic powers of the entire world are being spent trying to understand a guy whose thoughts are often just six fireflies beeping randomly in a jar.

Trump’s impeachment is looking more and more likely every day, though it still might require the Democrats winning control in congress for it to happen. He has now clearly violated his oath of office, the constitution, and various criminal statutes, and more importantly has continued to demonstrate corruption, ignorance of pretty well everything including the barest basics of US government, incompetence, profound lack of empathy, and uncontrollable impulsiveness in ways dangerous not only to himself but to the stability of the world.

Of course, most of the people who voted for Trump – and almost the entirety of the institutional GOP – continue to defend Trump, make excuses for his shameful behavior, directly lie on his behalf, and repeatedly try to change the subject. (Though as time goes on, they are spending more and more time just hiding from the public and the press instead.)

We’ll see if Trump voters ever come around, or if they have been so thoroughly brainwashed that they have no remaining respect for themselves, their stated values, their country, or their fellow citizens and the rest of humanity. Given what we’ve seen so far, I’m not holding my breath.

Yes that's my view on the situation also jacobolus. Ever since the firing of Comey the situation has developed rapidly and impeachment now seems reaslistic. The longer I see Trump in office the more I tend to believe what fohat's quote states that Trump is totally overwhelmed with the job and the entire situation. I believe the Russians knew this and took advantage the best they could. The really big joker is Trumps unpredictability possibly even to himself and anyone else. This guy never should have gotten this job the whole thing is fu***d up now.

I'm glad this thread is still going it's more important than ever! Keep posting!

seebart wrote:
Trump is totally overwhelmed with the job and the entire situation.

Yet tens of millions of Americans cling to [their concept of?] Trump with undiminished fervor.

fohat wrote:

seebart wrote:
Trump is totally overwhelmed with the job and the entire situation.

Yet tens of millions of Americans cling to [their concept of?] Trump with undiminished fervor.

I know and let's not forget he was elected until proven otherwise. Elected on the promise to "clean up" Washington and it's estabishment. His campaign was in some abstract way based on the same emotions as Obamas original election; an angry and emotional vote for change. And Trump was pretty good at telling his particular voters over and over again what they want to hear. And even this Russia investigation won't change anything for many:

Trump supporters: 'People are sick and tired of media'

http://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-can ... d-of-media


BTW I jusrt recently learned that the slogan "make America great again" was stolen from the Regan campaign:

seebart wrote:
the slogan "make America great again" was stolen from the Regan campaign:

Everything was stolen from the Reagan campaign. The election of Reagan in 1980 was the benchmark and everything the Republicans have done since is a direct linear progression from it.

His other, and far more sinister sound-bite from that time: "Government is not the solution to the problem, government IS the problem."

Lol, this thread has the most recent reply, but it doesn't show it on the front page.

I think that it has been censored, cloaked, or stealthed somehow.

webwit was deeply offended by it (or maybe offended by my lack of tears in response to his repeated abusively insulting tirades), and found that the only way to control his impulsive rage about it was to add custom code to the forum software to explicitly hide this thread from various pages around the site. Since that was effective in getting him to give up on visiting here, I’d still call that an overall winner of a trade-off.

* * *

I think some proportion of GOP voters will start coming around once more of the dirty laundry has been aired, someone starts handing down criminal convictions, and a few more of the GOP elected officials start to run for their political lives. We’ll get a bit of a feedback loop, and with any luck the Democrats will win enough seats in the midterms to take back the House.

fohat wrote: I think that it has been censored, cloaked, or stealthed somehow.

Yes webwit blocked it from showing in the spy after him and jacobolus shared much love for each other. So in some way this is like a private thread now.

Anyway this headline is sooo good I cannot refrain from posting it here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/tru ... mg00000009

Jeff Sessions lied on his security clearance form http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/24/politics/ ... -meetings/

That’s a felony. Maybe he can prosecute himself.

I'm waiting for the moment when somebody comes back into the thread and rants against all the liberals or Democrats or circle jerk or whatever. Those are the ones that provide the most entertainment.

Anyways, I wouldn't get too excited about impeachment, even though there seems to be about a half dozen potential cases for impeachment at this point. Get rid of Trump, then you get Pence, who is either a robot or puppet, I can't tell. And he generally sucks and surrounds himself with dolts, syncophants, incompentants, blow hards, and general shit. Get rid of Pence, and you get Ryan, who is basically the ultimate corporate lobbyist and also sucks.

Best chance for anybody putting the brakes on the Trump nuttiness and GOP agenda is the Democrats taking back Congress in 2018. Efen if that occurs, it doesn't address the deeper issues with the political and electoral system, and the circus continues.

Our new congressman from Montana everyone: That’s right. We shouldn’t have a concept of retirement because Noah was 600 years old when he built the Ark, still working.

(This is also the same guy who grabbed a Guardian reporter by the neck, threw him to the ground, and started punching him, because he didn’t want to answer questions about the GOP healthcare bill, the day before the election. As we all know well by now, modern Republican voters don’t really give a shit about their own health, the US Constitution, politeness, Christian morals, or basic human decency.)

jacobolus wrote: Our new congressman from Montana [says w]e shouldn’t have a concept of retirement because Noah was 600 years old when he built the Ark, still working. […]

On the other hand, in Genesis 2.1.3 the Bible says (please note that unlike him, I don't even believe in all this stuff )

[…] And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.

If there ever was one classic Trump moment that summarizes this jack-ass it's this:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/25/us/p ... .html?_r=0

jacobolus wrote: Our new congressman from Montana everyone:

Yes this guy is good. Very entertaining.

jacobolus wrote: .. As we all know well by now, modern Republican voters don’t really give a shit about their own health, the US Constitution, politeness, Christian morals, or basic human decency.)

Lol. You're assuming that American voters actually care about these things. There is one main thing that matters in US elections (and maybe elsewhere, I don't know): HOW YOU MAKE THE VOTER FEEL. Make them feel good, get them fired up, angry, excited, whatever elicits an emotional response that puts them in your camp. Don't delude yourself in thinking that voters are rational, logical, or really on verifiable evidence to make voting decisions. All that matters very little when dealing with humans, which are more subject to emotional and biological whims than anything else.

What we need more of is clever memes, a little more humor and entertainment in this shitball political environment. I think The Donald and this new body-slamming Congressional representative out of Montana will make a great wrestling tag team duo. Create and share them while we still have our nominal freedom of speech.

After the very damped G7 summit Merkel made some quite "historic" comments about US-German relations, the first time any German leader has made such comments since 1945. This is a pretty big deal over here;

Following Trump’s trip, Merkel says Europe can’t rely on ‘others.’ She means the U.S.

http://www.politico.eu/article/what-ang ... beer-hall/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/fo ... ge%2Fstory