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

i was being sarcastic obv

i have no idea how that's not a clickhole article

it's a shame because he seems like he'd be a LOT of fun at parties

can't stop loling at this:

"In fact, I went further. I told my tennis group..."

You can join the revolution for 2 cents a word.

https://knoxville.craigslist.org/wri/5925876980.html

Us retaliation, as such, for Russian hacking puts Trump in a very funny position, especially if the Kremlin counter retaliates. If Trump reverses sanctions or punishment, then it makes him look even more like he is in the pocket of the Russians. If he reverses sanctions and Punishment after the Kremlin counter retaliates, it makes it look even worse. If he reverses sanctions and punishments and then the Kremlin retaliates anyway, he looks just as bad.

Haha yeah he's p much cornered here.

Odds are on the first option, i think.

well that's the position you put yourself in when you decide to go against your own intelligence agencies and just go, "naaaaah"

ya but trump voters wont rly care will they

that said he's already made his Russian connection look really blatant and has faced no consequences for it, so does it really matter

The new sanctions are virtually meaningless - the key actions are that US companies won't be allowed to do business with the Russian security services (which they presumably either aren't or don't know they are doing), the expulsion of 35 replaceable diplomats and a new round of allegations against two people who are already on the FBI's most-wanted list for commercial hacking crimes. Russia might expel some diplomats in return - or even sanction the CIA if it can be bothered - but it's barely worth doing with one working week until Obama leaves. There is nothing much for Trump to overturn so he's not boxed in - probably only access to the two diplomatic compounds mentioned in the report. It's all very minor compared to the bigger question of the continuation of sanctions over Ukraine.

Judith Butler on Trump

http://www.versobooks.com/blogs/3025-trump-fascism-and-the-construction-of-the-people-an-interview-with-judith-butler

otm throughout

nah she thinks the electoral college should be abolished, clearly somebody needs to bring that space cadet back down to earth

https://twitter.com/ericgarland/status/814584522230628352

tombot i think you'd like this guy if you're looking for more delusional optimism

every single post you make is predictable, sniveling, cowardly and dull all at the same time. I can't figure out the point of you at all

other than to push my buttons, I guess

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGS029Peq7k

tom i'm just messing with you bud come on lighten up a bit

that game theory guy is srsly unhinged funny stuff tho

I hate nerds in every form and fashion and the game theory guy fits the bill.

Pretty sure everyone here agrees that the EC should be abolished.

Issue is that no one has offered up a pathway to it happening. Small states aren't willing going to acquiesce power and if it became possible that would be because the math has started working for Democrats again and they're never going to change it when that's the case.

Calling everyone defeatist ninnies because they can't see how it's going to happen is ridiculous.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/rampage/wp/2016/12/28/americans-especially-but-not-exclusively-trump-voters-believe-crazy-wrong-things/

The headline to this is absurd. Exactly one question where Clinton voters are more gullible than Trumpies but "both sides do it."

No, that's a fair headline - as you say Trump supporters are more wrong ("especially") but the findings are still 19% of Clinton voters believe vaccines cause Autism, 21% believe the number of medically uninsured has gone up.

#doomed

If there's one thing we've learned to trust in all this, it's polls

Fascinating Russian Judo, Putin says he will not deport American diplomats in order to cultivate Trump relationship. You go, no overt retaliation. Which allows Trump to save face. Whether there is truly something there or not, there must be more to the relationship between the two of them that we do not yet know. Unless Trump is a moron and Putin is just messing with us, with Occam's razor says is the right answer.

good mourning!

Trump is a moron.

I don't know whether to blame the phone or voice-to-text - likely both - but apologies for my jumbled posts these days. They're like dada sound poems.

TPM:

One of the most interesting explanations I ever read of the CIA's behavior after the Kennedy assassination came from, of all people, Norman Mailer.

Mailer thought that the CIA resisted any probing of its possible role in the assassination not because they were involved but because they couldn't be certain they weren't. In the early 1960s, the CIA was tied up with so many sketchy players and bad guys (certainly in the swirl of the mob, anti-Castro emigres, the Texas far-right and left-wing moles) that they couldn't be totally sure it didn't somehow connect back up to them. They didn't want to find out. Certainly they didn't want anyone else to find out.

Whether this was true as a factual matter or not I don't know. But as a theory it provided a plausible explanation of odd behavior, a shrewd take on human and bureaucratic nature, all while making no outlandish factual assumptions.

An interesting 'innocent' explanation of Trump's behaviors with regards to the Russian hacking is similar.

Say you're Trump. You have nothing to do with this. You know nothing about it. But think about all the crooks and gamers and sleazeballs around your campaign. There's Manafort, Stone, Page ... all their associates, not to mention your business associates with ties to Russian organized crime. (Stone publicly said he had some sort of a backchannel to Wikileaks.)

If you're Trump, how confident are you that a real investigation wouldn't turn up anything weird? Probably not very.

I do love how months and months later, Trump's concession is, fine, I'll sit down for an intelligence briefing. It's all very
http://www.liveforfilms.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/they-live.jpg

Woodja lookit these two BFFs

http://pixel.nymag.com/imgs/daily/intelligencer/2016/12/29/29-glenn-greenwald-tucker-carlson.w710.h473.jpg

"We will not expel anyone," Putin said in a statement on Friday. "While keeping the right for retaliatory measures, we will not descend to the level of 'kitchen', irresponsible diplomacy."

He even invited the children of U.S. diplomats to a party in the Kremlin.

https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2016/01/23/17/putin-boy-kiss.jpg

Vladimir Putin kissed child like little girl

The diplomatic children thing is because CNN reported that the school most of them go to was being closed by the government in retaliation, incorrectly as it happens.

So THAT's how he sucks out the souls of children.

so a number of prominent republicans (Ryan, McConnell, McCain, Graham) have responded critically to the Russia sanctions, saying that Obama did not act quickly enough or harshly enough. I think this response is interesting because it seems like these criticisms may be aimed at Trump as much as at Obama. In other words, rather than attacking Trump's position on the topic directly, it's almost as if they are using Obama as a stand in to let Trump know he's on notice if he doesn't take the Russian issue seriously.

I feel like whatever happens to go wrong in the coming years, the spin will be relying on speaking about what wasn't done during the Obama presidency until whoever is asking just gives up and drops it.

tom i'm just messing with you bud come on lighten up a bit

yeah when I find myself getting the Morbs on these threads I need to remind myself to learn how to use the "second thought" thread

yesterday was indeed a very long day though

What merit does Putin even have when he says they won't retaliate? The country that did secret hacking spy stuff and was discovered promises not to do any more top secret hacking spy stuff?

I feel like whatever happens to go wrong in the coming years, the spin will be relying on speaking about what wasn't done during the Obama presidency until whoever is asking just gives up and drops it.

this is what Cameron and Osborne did in the UK for 6 years and sadly it worked like a dream

An interesting 'innocent' explanation of Trump's behaviors with regards to the Russian hacking is similar.

Say you're Trump. You have nothing to do with this. You know nothing about it. But think about all the crooks and gamers and sleazeballs around your campaign. There's Manafort, Stone, Page ... all their associates, not to mention your business associates with ties to Russian organized crime. (Stone publicly said he had some sort of a backchannel to Wikileaks.)

If you're Trump, how confident are you that a real investigation wouldn't turn up anything weird? Probably not very.

This is why he isnt taking briefings imo. He doesn't want to inadvertently say something incriminating. Helluva way to kick off a presidency.

I think it has more to do with the fact that he can't concentrate for more than 30 seconds at a time. Hasn't he already said things that would be incriminating if they weren't made up?

Woodja lookit these two BFFs

I was waiting for this moment to reveal itself.

Lol trumps tweet today. Openly praising Putin for his response to the sanctions.

We'll all be speaking Russian this time next year.

This has been a pretty good prank on America, you have to admit.