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

Nah, 'cuz the Mohammedan religion is not a real religion.

How many posts are we at here? At this rate this should get a weekly reboot.

Heard most of the daily briefing from Josh Earnest (who eerily mimics Obama's halting speech cadences). A reporter asked him if he was directly claiming on behalf of the White House that the hacks/leaks/cyber-meddling were explicitly done to help Trump, at the expense of Clinton, or if this latest news undermines his incoming presidency. and while he wouldn't exactly say yes, he did go on at length with a litany of all of Trump's (familiar to us) connections to Russia, emphasizing, repeatedly (and I paraphrase), that all this stuff was out there and reported on for months, how none of it was secret or stemmed from the intelligence community, that none of it had yet to be disputed, and that all of Trump's supporters in the GOP who backed him knowing full well his ample connections to Russia now have to justify that support in the face of belatedly acknowledging this suspicious at the least and damning at worst stuff.

as alarming as this all is---and deserving of investigation---nothing even suggested would actually make trump's electoral win illegitimate in a legal sense, right? the russians didn't hack the voting machines, and they didn't invent the electoral college. short of demonstrated and provable-in-court collusion with moscow, i don't see how a trump presidency is avoidable. and somehow i doubt that the FSB would be dumb enough to actually work with trump directly---he's just a useful idiot

I'm wondering if McConnell approving the investigation is just a tactic to blame Obama for Russia's meddling

i wouldn't doubt it! if he had taken a firmer stance w russia this never would have happened, etc

I'd assume gamesmanship to work on keeping Trump in line with Congress's designs.

Don't want him acting like a populist again if his poll numbers dive when they start trying to privatize Medicare.

what's the point of blaming obama more at this point

KM, I would love if we (the people) could both talk about how fucked US foreign policy has been AND acknowledge the bullshit game Russia is playing, but attention is in short supply as always and I would hate to see the latter get subsumed by a thoughtful exegesis of the former. I've seen just a few too many responses that were quick to dismiss the situation which is happening right now and which seems the most important in terms of immediate scrutiny.

what's the point of blaming obama more at this point

obviously because it shifts blame away from Trump

acknowledging that our foreign policy was bad and wrong does, you know, shore up the morality of the point yr trying to make w/r/t russia

The nonsensical Fox News headline: 'Sore loser Obama turns to Russian hacking to delegitimize Trump's triumph'

I actually have no idea what the accusations even fully comprise, or at least if there is anything more to them than just the Podesta/DNC stuff. Like, clearly there is classified info that the public is not privy to. But hearing a summation of all the Russian connections laid out as they were by Earnest was pretty surreal, just so many individually bad sounding things in a row, all related to Russia, none contradicted, all having preceded the election by months, topped by more recent news (however redundant) that Russia had a direct role, to some extent, in influencing the election, consensus revelations which came within days of Trump floating a guy for SoS who has full-on Russian ties and considers Putin a friend. It's just all too much.

or at least if there is anything more to them than just the Podesta/DNC stuff

the info that they hacked GOP servers too is new, afaict

what could be more embarrassing in GOP emails than the shit the candidate said openly, is the question

the info that they hacked GOP servers too is new, afaict

― Οὖτις, Monday, December 12, 2016 7:37 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I haven't seen this confirmed yet.. I dont think the RNC would cop to it either, if it actually happened.

Given the relatively unprecedented CIA announcement, I wonder if there's anything more serious than the Podesta/DNC stuff going on to justify the agency coming forward and putting that much pressure on pols.

And RNC stuff, if accurate.

as alarming as this all is---and deserving of investigation---nothing even suggested would actually make trump's electoral win illegitimate in a legal sense, right? the russians didn't hack the voting machines, and they didn't invent the electoral college. short of demonstrated and provable-in-court collusion with moscow, i don't see how a trump presidency is avoidable. and somehow i doubt that the FSB would be dumb enough to actually work with trump directly---he's just a useful idiot

― jason waterfalls (gbx), Monday, December 12, 2016 1:23 PM (thirteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there's a really dumb tendency among liberals at work here: this attraction to silly, sorkin-esque long shots. jill stein and her recounts aren't going to prevent what's coming. leaning on the appointed state electors isn't either.

again, russian hacking of american state entities, and publishing that material to move public opinion, is bad! but i don't think it was *determinant* of our election more than a dozen other things. it's not even the top thing that brands the election as crooked or rigged or suspect. i don't think revealing that putin did what he could to help trump and damage HRC is enough to void the election, not hardly

also, let's be real, if the EC pulled any last minute games and didn't ratify trump, there would be blood in the streets instantly and it really would be some kind of crumbling republic pre-caesar moment for us

THAT SAID: legitimacy isn't just a legal technicality. it's not totally quantifiable. DJT is going to be the president, constitutionally. he won the states to give him the electoral votes. but is he legitimate? we're stuck with him, but anything that makes his time appear tenuous and unearned is GOOD imo

yeah would def agree w that

For sure. Even if the recount, for instance, didn't have much immediate material impact, it drew the president-elect into declaring the election that he won rigged. Hell, when in doubt, set him up to undermine his own legitimacy.

goole otm, all of that

Distraction works both ways. Anything that gets under his skin is probably a good thing, too.

yup goole otm

xpost I've thought for a while that people should only be responding to his tweets with unflattering caricatures.

The bill, the First Amendment Defense Act, would ban the federal government from revoking tax exemptions from or denying grants to individuals or corporations with religious or "moral" beliefs opposing same-sex marriage.

Oh fucking great, we're back to the Carter years. The whole starting point for the Moral Majority was thrashing back for the Carter-era IRS for pulling tax-exemption from white evangelical schools like Liberty Univ or Bob Jones that maaaaaaybe didn't like black students all that much.

I don't really blame liberals for the wing and a prayer hopes right now - it's a fallow period without concrete actions from Trump and the GOP to oppose. It's the dread of knowing something terrible is around the corner but you're not sure if it's Cthulhu or Freddie Krueger.

silly, sorkin-esque long shots.

I'm wondering at what point is Sorkin is a symptom or a cause

one of a very long list, but I say the latter

i hate him so i'll credit him with too much probably

what's new guys ?

under the circs i'd classify this as Not Helping, especially from this guy

https://twitter.com/johnpodesta/status/808398457140609024

ps. what is the "elector's letter" he's referring to here?

china's english propaganda media arm calls Trump 'ignorant as a child' - this can only end well

Many people might be surprised at how the new U.S. leader is truly a 'businessman' through and through. But in the field of diplomacy, he is as ignorant as a child.

What an insult to children.

it's a fallow period without concrete actions from Trump and the GOP to oppose

^^^ this. my wife is in a constant state of "why isn't anybody DOING anything to stop Trump?!" and I'm like well technically he hasn't done anything we can actually do anything about yet

ps. what is the "elector's letter" he's referring to here?

― goole, Monday, December 12, 2016 2:29 PM (seventeen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Electors demand intelligence briefing before Electoral College vote

love how the majority of those are Democratic electors who don't want to vote for Hillary rmde

^^^ this. my wife is in a constant state of "why isn't anybody DOING anything to stop Trump?!" and I'm like well technically he hasn't done anything we can actually do anything about yet

― Οὖτις, Monday, December 12, 2016 3:39 PM

do town halls take place over December? I'm wondering if Schumer's bold words are translating to backroom scheming to bring down the Ryan-McConnell agenda.

https://twitter.com/AmichaiStein1/status/808407221616918528

SEC/NYAG should see if anybody shorted lockheed stock prior to trump's tweet

Does 'the president elect is going to make a snarky tweet in six minutes' count as actionable insider information?

my wife is in a constant state of "why isn't anybody DOING anything to stop Trump?!" and I'm like well technically he hasn't done anything we can actually do anything about yet

lol, otm. the extent to which are chomping at the bit is encouraging though

“Dear Donald,” the bizarrely prescient correspondence from Nixon, dated Dec. 21, 1987, reads. “I did not see the program, but Mrs. Nixon told me that you were great on the Donahue Show. As you can imagine, she is an expert on politics and she predicts that whenever you decide to run for office you will be a winner!”

http://www.politico.com/blogs/donald-trump-administration/2016/12/richard-nixon-letter-oval-office-wall-232517

Do we think Trump and his people coordinated with Russia or not? His defensive aversion to a "probe" into Russia's interference looks... bad

Why not say, "if Russia intervened in any way I condemn them. I don't have any idea why Putin would think a Trump presidency would be in his interest but I can assure him, right now, that nothing is more important to me than the integrity of our electoral process. If it turns out his government undermined this, even to my benefit, there will be consequences."

A friend of mine pointed out that he can spin this as "All they did was release the DNC's emails. If they were so bad that it made people not want to vote for Hillary, that's not my fault."

Yeah. But instead he tries to deny there was any Russian interference at all. It's weird.

I suspect people in his campaign were in touch with wikileaks and Russian state actors, yeah

It sounds crazy but the evidence points that way

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/12/12/donald-trump-interviewed-mitt-romney-to-torture-him-roger-stone-says.html

explains trump's creepier-than-usual smile in that photo

i mean, it was obvious from the start

Yeah. I have no love for Romney, but that was painful to watch.