US Politics November 2017

deplorables have a point that liberals are stuck-up

well they shift debate nominally to the left rather than to the right which has its own pragmatic benefits and someone like corbyn, who lost the most recent election, is i think a very positive development for the labour party (and for the UK more widely)

not sure generalizable rules can be extracted from the nader farrago

lol dlh ty

I actually think Tracer's speculation has some merit, in that the impulses that led Trump are primarily around domestic politics, rather than foreign policy.

But generally you can't change one variable and assume every other one stays the same. Would we have gone from Gore to Obama in that timeline?

labour gained power and vastly outperformed expectation so not really comparable to a US situation, also don't know if you noticed but corbyn is the prime minister

deplorables have a point that liberals are stuck-up

Have said it before that we are living a snobs vs. slobs comedy, except 1) the good guys are the stuck up ones, and 2) it's not funny.

well they shift debate nominally to the left rather than to the right

Twitter customer support cannot, however, access customers’ private direct messages, nor can they tweet on behalf of other users, these people said.

this at least is good, I always wondered if some rogue employee could just tweet "I hereby order a missile strike on NoKo" and plunge the world into Wargames-style annihilation

the unbroken string of nicer mass murderers/unionbusters who've run the show gave us Dubya and Trump

also don't get your "center" on my "left"

that said it's kind of amazing that no one's guessed his Twitter password yet

12345

Morbius demonstrating his strong grasp of elections once again

http://hodgespart.com/gong_images/_gong/spaceballs.jpg

just watched that last weekend with the kids, it is the best

Very Important Tweeters, or VITs

I want to love you (VIT!) Twitter Trump Thing!

I do understand elections, Tom. I've already said if I'd lived in a swing state I'd have voted for Rodham-Kissinger, and you people would never have heard the end of it.

https://www.thenation.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Hillary_Kissinger_AP_img.jpg

does the ongoing breakdown in our spiritual/civic/material life alluded to in that vox piece mirror the spectre of the onset climate change? like in addition to dealing with megahurricans when i'm 70 am i also going to have to look out for pepe greenshirt brigades

I do think there's some correlation. As people slowly start to realize we're on a collision course that can only be reversed or even slowed through the application of will that just doesn't seem to exist, they understandably stop giving as much of a fuck.

that would confirm my theory that a lot of those folks secretly do believe in climate change but are just petrified and would rather ignore it and succumb to nihilism

Colon cancer is fake news (dies)!

Never underestimate people's capacity for compartmentalization, particularly when they're frightened.

oblivious liberal stuck-up-ed-ness tends to irritate as much as naked conservative neo-feudalism does both 1) weaponized fox-deplorables and 2) people who grew up and persist paycheck-to-paycheck who aren't quite politicized / ideological; "meritocratic" liberals not realizing that (and ignoring group 2 altogether) is a tragic american flaw, a 'dunning-kruger effect' of the left, as it were

xpost

Trumps phone has two-factor authentication, keyed to his non-reproducible butthole mouth; every morning he kisses it to sign in.

Whomp whomp

Bloomberg: Authorities in Cyprus gave Manafort’s bank records to Mueller’s team just before he was indicted. https://t.co/KEUZtbhC6Q

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) November 3, 2017

succumb to nihilism

nihilism is comforting tbh

love nihilism

When you believe in nothing you've got nothing to lose.

President Trump has posted his first golf score to his USGA handicap page since June 2016. It says he shot a 68 last month.

— Darren Samuelsohn (@dsamuelsohn) November 2, 2017

gtfo

relax, he was just playing the par threes

i heard that kim jong-un played putt putt last year and got a hole-in-one on all 18 holes. it was amazing, no one had even heard of that before

the dotard's tax return reveal is gonna be epic

I predict his tax returns come in well under par.

imo spoilers from the Greens are pragmatically no different than Richard Spencer

the US Greens are barely a party and Jill Stein is a moron, but electoral reform is the problem, not genuinely well-meaning people wanting to improve constituents' lives

i'm all about learning what's in the tax returns

but, just curious, does anyone think it will matter at all what's in there, no matter how bad or shocking? it's why the scenario in the david roberts/vox thing posted a little upthread was so terrible to think about, because it seems so likely.

like, America is profoundly broken by being a two-party system, but the last two days have shown how futile it can be attempting to effect change from within, and independent candidates do get elected in the US. sometimes.

DJT probably drew little penises in all the boxes when he did his taxes, and the people who dislike him will be outraged, and the people who like him will hoot and holler and continue drinking furniture polish or whatever it is that makes their brains like that.

"those penises were already on the boxes when i received them, your honor"

there's nothing on the page that says you can't draw penises in the boxes

It never stops with him!

Carter Page tells @jaketapper he told a few more people on Trump campaign beyond Sessions about his trip to Moscow in 2016. Won't say who

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) November 3, 2017

Orwell quote comes to mind, from Wigan Pier:

The ordinary man may not flinch from a dictatorship of the proletariat, if you offer it tactfully; offer him a dictatorship of the prigs, and he gets ready to fight...

does anyone think it will matter at all what's in there, no matter how bad or shocking?

yes. i've become less flippant about don's teflon-ness since paul manafort and rick gates were indicted by former FBI director robert mueller. that's a batshit crazy development in US history. if the GOP can't pass ALEC's income tax cut for the Kochs and their seditious ilk, 2scoops might be in a bit of trouble

And I should say I use my quote refers to the comment “oblivious liberal stuck-up-ed-ness”

i forget - did anyone know carter page before he suddenly appeared on the foreign policy team? i know it's kind of a mystery how some of the 5 people on the team were selected, and who recommended them. but was carter page an unfamiliar name before landing on the team, too?

the ken burns documentary event on this period is going to have to be at least 40 hours long, there's so much

Yeah I first remember Page's name surfacing around that time, and a couple of American reporter/policy types noting his Moscow trips and speeches -- I remember following one real time moment of coverage -- and them thinking he was all about bootlicking garbage.

https://s.yimg.com/uu/api/res/1.2/JRdoNqTii6kGVV7V3VxrQQ--~B/Zmk9c3RyaW07aD0zODg7cHlvZmY9MDtxPTk1O3c9NzIwO3NtPTE7YXBwaWQ9eXRhY2h5b24-/http://media.zenfs.com/en/homerun/feed_manager_auto_publish_494/876f0cd80a4a192d06ec76c4b5260fc9

this photo makes it look like Donald Trump was hiding behind a corner waiting to jump out so he could yell at Bowe Bergdahl.

xpost

first impressions were very accurate in this case. somehow i've managed to avoid video of him until this week. he is kind of fascinating. everything about him seems very unreal and unlikely, yet here he is, talking to everyone, no filter

miserable-looking soldier otm

The video of Carter Page’s speech in Moscow in June 2016 is one of the top Google results when you search for his name and it was widely covered at the time (partly because he tried to do part of it in Russian and ended up talking gobbledegook). The idea that none of Trump’s team recall him mentioning it before he went is vaguely plausible but the idea, which Sessions seemed to hint at, that he didn’t know about it afterwards is magnificently silly.

He is a nobody - no real business experience, no academic credentials and no expertise in Russian affairs bar having lived there for a few years iirc. He seems to have a minor talent for grifting.

Given that last point he should have been Trump's AG.

genuinely well-meaning people wanting to improve constituents' lives

that in no way describes nader or stein when they ran afaict

pretty sure sic was talking about Greens below the presidential level, like some who are winning offices

so this Asia trip should go well, huh