Mourning in America - Trump Year One: November '16 to

"Treason" is not a word I would've imagined trending among Portlandia types a year ago.

I wonder if Trump's boredom with repetition will extend to "Hail to the Chief," saluting the Marine detail, etc.

Whatever the deal is with Russian interference, I can't really argue with it being investigated, and I hope the investigation does some damage to Trump and GOP credibility.

"Treason" is not a word I would've imagined trending among Portlandia types a year ago.

this is such a weird claim, as if basic matters of state were something one leaves behind past a certain lefterly point on the political spectrum

LOL but its Morbs, what do you expect?

the real villain always has to be dems or popular modern comedy

reforms which were _not_ portrayed as "revolutionary" but as a restoration of the ancient system

so...make rome great again?

― a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.)

hahaha, augustus was a deeply charismatic political genius who put in place a system that survived close to 200 years of blatant misrule. i doubt history will judge a certain d. trump as favorably.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/mcconnell-backs-congressional-investigation-into-russian-interference-232504

heh

this is such a weird claim, as if basic matters of state were something one leaves behind past a certain lefterly point on the political spectrum

― though she denies it to the press, (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi)

oh, it's the whole post-truth thing. "the center-left and the right are doing the SAME THING!". like all that matters is tactics and strategy, not facts.

so this 'Russian interference,' so far as we know, amounted to uncovering the Podesta & Co emails, as far as we know? Which were read only by political junkies and TP types who wouldn't vote for Clinton in a million years. They didn't reveal much besides Camp Clinton struggling to make it look like their candidate believed in something/anything, which about half the ppl who voted for her knew was a problem.

the real villain is the rich, who need to be boiled and eaten.

hahaha, augustus was a deeply charismatic political genius who put in place a system that survived close to 200 years of blatant misrule. i doubt history will judge a certain d. trump as favorably.

― increasingly bonkers (rushomancy), Monday, December 12, 2016 1

was he? Gibbon and SPQR posited Augustus as a kind of anti-charismatic ruler – a man who subsumed his personality for the sake of an idea of Rome.

Either way, not Trump.

well, it's arguable (as is most of ancient history), but i'd say that you don't get augustan levels of auctoritas without charisma. but yeah. most definitely not trump.

the real villain is the rich, who need to be boiled and eaten

no fuckin' way boiling is a waste of good meat. they need to be marinated then slow-cooked, i really wanna relish the taste of their flesh

A point that has definitely been made already but not nearly enough is that, AFAICT, Trump doesn't have a bad word to say about Putin or Russia. This is someone who has insulted almost everyone, even his allies, over the smallest slight, who has lambasted his own party and told us all for months how broken and fucked up America is, but who also deflects any and all criticism of Russia and who insists that the election he won was rigged but pooh-poohs overwhelming evidence that Russia was a prime suspect in any rigging that's been uncovered.

Shame on everyone who has the power to stop this fucker and fails to use it.

see ya at the Clinton donor soiree, hope you have a kitchen pass. xp

it's almost like russia has some kind of power over the man, some might say xp

Trump called for Russian planes to be shot out of the sky if they buzzed US warships again, fwiw.

as if basic matters of state were something one leaves behind past a certain lefterly point

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIhVR2OolWk

FOR YEARS, members of Congress have fumed about what they regard as ineffective U.S. public diplomacy, including the failure of broadcasting operations such as the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty to match the reach and apparent influence of networks such as Russia’s RT and Qatar’s al Jazeera. A frequent and arguably fair focus of criticism has been the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the body created to supervise government-funded media outlets while serving as a firewall between them and the political administration of the day.

A radical change to that system is now coming — and it looks like one that Vladi­mir Putin and Qatar’s emir might well admire. An amendment quietly inserted into the annual National Defense Authorization Act by Republican House leaders would abolish the broadcasting board and place VOA, RFE/RL and other international news and information operations under the direct control of a chief executive appointed by the president. The new executive would hire and fire senior media personnel and manage their budgets.

With a confirming vote by the GOP-controlled Senate, President-elect Donald Trump will be able to install the editor of Breitbart News or another propagandist of his choice to direct how the United States is presented to the world by VOA, or how Russia is covered by RL. If Congress’s intention was for U.S. broadcasting to rival the Kremlin’s, it may well get its wish.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/a-big-change-to-us-broadcasting-is-coming--and-its-one-putin-might-admire/2016/12/09/6c6d5786-bcb7-11e6-91ee-1adddfe36cbe_story.html?utm_term=.ce496f9b3f5c

fuck that's genuinely chilling

Amazing that it only takes a month for a 240-year-old country to unravel.

Dang xp

Wrong to lump in Al Jazeera w/ pure propaganda channels like RT, but that's beside the point here. This is some scary shit.

I feel so distant from these changes as opposed to the risk that, like, people who I know might be deported, that I can mentally grasp that it's a bad thing but I can't comprehend what it means really.

Like, I've never heard of Voice of America. Does anyone listen to it? Who cares?

well, i guess it means that you might see footage of your friends being deported as part of a go-get-em rah-rah report on state that looks like a bulletin out of starship troopers xp

*on state tv

No worries, it'll be blasting from loudspeakers on the street soon enough.

I might've previously hesitated in positing any seemingly-OTT fascist undertakings during Trump's presidency but then that thing happened where all of my sense organs have been functioning since he was elected.

Like, I don't think there's any percentage in predicting how bad things will get, but I don't really see any bottom limit on how bad things could get.

Like, I've never heard of Voice of America. Does anyone listen to it? Who cares?

VOA is the official US broadcaster everywhere from Serbia to South Sudan. It's not really intended for a US audience.

I figured, and I'm not trying to be dismissive, I'm just saying do you think most Americans (of whatever demographic?) are going to understand the significance of that Republican-sponsored amendment sufficiently to have any idea what it means or care about it?

no, which is what makes it particularly evil imo

VOA is the official US broadcaster everywhere from Serbia to South Sudan. It's not really intended for a US audience.

― Bubba H.O.T.A.P.E (ShariVari), Monday, December 12, 2016 10:30 AM (eleven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Under § 501 of the Smith–Mundt Act of 1948, Voice of America was forbidden to broadcast directly to American citizens until July 2013[3] when it was repealed in the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act provision of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2013.[4] The intent of the legislation in 1948 was to protect the American public from propaganda actions by its own government.[35]

Isn't VOA already a propaganda operation?

yes, and one that until recently was explicitly forbidden from broadcasting to american citizens, and insulated from direct executive control

i have no idea how many people around the world pay any attn to RFE/VOA

http://www.voanews.com/z/1456.html

Hey folks, in recent years I have listened to this on occasion here:

Music Time in Africa is VOA’s longest running English language program. Since 1965, this award-winning program has featured pan African music that spans all genres and generations. Ethnomusicologist and Host Heather Maxwell keeps you up to date on what’s happening in African music with exclusive interviews, cultural information, and of course, great music -- including rare recordings from the Leo Sarkisian Library of African Music.

the insanity of the reaction to the wapo CIA/putin story is really not encouraging.

(if you still think sam wang has any cred) it looks like the comey announcements about hillary's lingering server issue had an effect on opinion:

http://election.princeton.edu/2016/12/10/the-comey-effect/#more-18959

but did wikileaks dump of podesta/DNC emails? these two things keep getting run together. it's a much more gradual drip-effect if so. it's important to figure out if russia was trying to tip public opinion in an election -- i just don't know if they actually did.

and no, nude spock, it's not "red baiting" to pin blame on putin, the autocratic nationalist

it's also not putin's fault that hillary left herself in striking distance across the midwest

enjoying all these headlines talking about a risk of war with china!

never thought I would be thankful for Marco fucking Rubio but if he, McCain and Graham (and I would suspect Paul, as well?) come out against Tillerson that's his nomination sunk

Paul opposes him and Bolton:

During an interview on ABC's "This Week," Paul said that he would oppose Bolton's nomination to serve under Tillerson.

"I do know that John Bolton doesn’t get it. He still believes in regime change. He’s still a big cheerleader for the Iraq war. He’s promoted a nuclear attack by Israel on Iran. He wants to do regime change in Iran," he said. "So, I think John Bolton is so far out of it and has such a naive understanding of the world. If he were to be the assistant or the undersecretary for Tillerson, I’m an out automatic no on Bolton. He should get nowhere close to the State Department if anybody with the same worldview is in charge."

oh shit iago is nude spock? that makes so much sense

@tinyrevolution
It's an emergency if Russia interfered with the election or if the CIA's making bogus claims it did. Obama must declassify everything.

I hope at this point we can all acknowledge that America has a deep state and its game is on point

Feel like there are a lot of surprising 'enemy of my enemy' moments to come over the next several years.

hey it happened during the New Deal

oh shit iago is nude spock? that makes so much sense

haha wow I hadn't put this together either

:O

@DougHenwood
This is just too damn funny

Ex-CIA operative Robert Baer made headlines on CNN insisting that the breach was grounds for a new election in the United States. "But I'll tell you, having worked in the CIA, if we had been caught in interfering in European elections or Asian elections or anywhere in the world, those countries would call for new elections,"

https://twitter.com/DougHenwood/status/807952268918226944

oh ffs

what you mean like Chile