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

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.

I reiterate the point I made during the campaign: I wouldn't want a next-door neighbor who behaved like that. Why the fuck would anyone want such a leering goblin to be in charge of the country?

https://twitter.com/intlspectator/status/808434536962924544

Yeah, Trump is truly a ghoul xp

That Lockheed thing is odd.

it makes sense insofar as Trump thinks his job as president is to bully companies/manipulate the stock market/"make deals"

What I don't understand is how Romney wouldn't have understood from the beginning that he wasn't really in the running and that the whole thing was to fuck with him. Maybe he figured he had nothing to lose playing along?

being a toadying lickspittle comes naturally to him

I think he was being punished for having faith in the system, Charlie Brown style.

Yes, probably yet another who believes the presidential election to be a process wherein the wisdom and gravity of one's forebears is mystically passed into the winner's soul. It could still happen, though. Let's give him a chance, folks.

That Lockheed thing is odd.

Simply calling it odd, instead of what it is (probable cause for an insider trading investigation implicating the President-Elect), already feels like normalization.

the 2020 election will involve ingesting the water of life and inheriting the memories of all past presnits

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/WAmjkr4RISU/hqdefault.jpg

Lol @ "presnits"

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."

― the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Monday, December 12, 2016 4:39 PM (thirty-three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is 100% the line being taken by folks at, eg, r/The_Donald

http://cdn.thedailybeast.com/content/dailybeast/articles/2016/12/12/donald-trump-interviewed-mitt-romney-to-torture-him-roger-stone-says/jcr:content/image.crop.800.500.jpg/49385962.cached.jpg

black suit = high probability of being a racist (if not a waiter)

The big tip off for me of the guy in the photo being a racist is that he's roger stone

That Lockheed thing is odd.

Simply calling it odd, instead of what it is (probable cause for an insider trading investigation implicating the President-Elect), already feels like normalization.

― El Tomboto, Monday, December 12, 2016 5:41 PM (twenty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

AFAIC, I just want to know from people who actually understand these things if there's any innocuous way to read the data (like maybe the timestamp is off somehow?), if only because I want to be sure that every scorched earth crusade against Trump is watertight. There's no need for reckless straw grabbing with someone this deeply venal, so I hope the appropriate people are dotting i's and crossing t's on this one.

The former Texas governor, Rick Perry, who wanted to eliminate the Department of Energy but could not remember its name on live television, has emerged as a leading candidate for energy secretary.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/12/us/politics/donald-trump-transition.html