US Politics March 2019: “I can’t say I’m happy. I can’t say I’m thrilled”

I personally wouldn't characterize the situation exactly that way, I think "pretty face and a smile" is a little too glib, but absolutely 100% agree that pushback against Obama's cruelest and most draconian policies is warranted and frankly I'm very grateful to see someone willing to risk being a bit too strident the other way when the vast majority of mainstream liberal discourse bends over backwards to give him a pass.

couldn't find a chelsea manning thread, so

Former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning has been jailed for refusing to testify to a grand jury investigating Wikileaks.

U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton ordered Manning to jail Friday after a brief hearing in which Manning confirmed she has no intention of testifying. She told the judge she "will accept whatever you bring upon me."

Manning has said she objects to the secrecy of the grand jury process, and that she already revealed everything she knows at her court martial.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/chelsea-manning-jailed-for-refusing-to-testify-on-wikileaks-1.4327902

why you gotta bring us down when Paul Manafort's out here living his otherwise blameless life?

mao at omar’s comments on obama

― PaulDananVEVO (||||||||), Friday, March 8, 2019 10:45 AM (nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
for reference

Omar says the “hope and change” offered by Barack Obama was a mirage. Recalling the “caging of kids” at the U.S.-Mexico border and the “droning of countries around the world” on Obama’s watch, she argues that the Democratic president operated within the same fundamentally broken framework as his Republican successor.

“We can’t be only upset with Trump. … His policies are bad, but many of the people who came before him also had really bad policies. They just were more polished than he was,” Omar says. “And that’s not what we should be looking for anymore. We don’t want anybody to get away with murder because they are polished. We want to recognize the actual policies that are behind the pretty face and the smile.”

My representative!

ilhan omar i luv u

Ilhan Omar is Dr. Morbius and I claim my 5

I really admire Omar's burn it all downess.

time is a flat horseshoe

wow AOC no longer the realest Congressperson

The amount of oxygen this controversy is sucking up is kind of frustrating

friendship ended with alexandria

now ILHAN is my best friend

I see that a typical response to Omar's criticism of Obama's "mirage" is that he was

wait for it...

NOT PERFECT

not like all those other presidents the movement admires

fuck presidents

People are really weird about Obama. There was a funny moment in the Patriot Act ep about student debt where Minhaj says "Barack Obama" and the audience all cheer. Then Minhaj goes on to explain how Obama helped create the current student debt crisis by making the DoE the lender and subsidizing the debt servicing industry

it's not weird to identify how a pol serves his corporate masters

lol I meant his stans are weird, like they've never looked into a single thing he did in office

but he was a ROCK STAR

that's not really so surprising though given what he represented as the first black president, plus his whole hope + change rhetoric, plus consideration of how most Democrats feel about his predecessor and successor.

Obama is still probably the most naturally talented politicians I've ever seen, often he'll give a speech and I'll have to remind myself why I don't really like him

it's weird and sorta hilarious how Dubya has been pretty much completely written out of right-wing orthodoxy in the past couple of years. meanwhile Reagan is still lionized. and it seems like the distinction is mostly just a matter of who Trump decided to bash.

Reagan was already a sort of fictional character while he was president

exactly

he may as well have been computer generated

For the rhetoric course I teach, my students have to analyze five pieces of oratory to see how they observe Ciceronian canons of rhetoric, among which are Reagan's farewell speech from the Oval Office, Trump's inauguration, and Michelle Obama's DNC speech. I played them in class.

I felt distinct waves of discomfort during Trump's; no one wanted to discuss it much. Lots of students know Reagan by name but had never seen him; several praised how "soothing" he sounded, how hopeful (this is the Shining City on the Hill speech). After Michelle O spoke, I felt the love in the room, a sense that Something Had Been Lost.

xp
The psychology isn't hard to understand--and I agree with frogbs--it's just depressing how knee-jerk the adulation is especially since in my example the context of student debt had already been established.

What the hell:

BREAKING: Pentagon 'Thinks' the Air Force Secretary Has Resigned https://t.co/4v70060eAt

— Katie Bo Williams (@KatieBoWill) March 8, 2019

UPDATE: Air Force officials confirm that Secretary Heather Wilson has submitted resignation and will be accepting a position as president of UT-El Paso. She informed her staff earlier today. According to one member of her staff, nobody knew about this until this morning.

— Sandra Erwin (@Sandra_I_Erwin) March 8, 2019

Bill Shine has quit, per White House. The fox executive didn’t last a year in the West Wing. More to come.

— Josh Dawsey (@jdawsey1) March 8, 2019

E Pluribus Unum being changed to LOL Nothing Matters

Shucks! I'd just finished Jane Mayer's story about FOX and Bill Shine yesterday!

if everyone quits is Trump our king?

whee, typical trump friday

He's apparently being routed to a campaign role, but even so.

In baseball analysis there is the concept of "replacement-level players." I'm not sure where the baseline is when the doors revolve so quickly.

“I feel very badly for Paul Manafort,” Mr Trump said. “Both his lawyer, a highly respected man, and a very highly respected judge, the judge, said there was no collusion with Russia. It had nothing with collusion. There was no collusion.

He added: “It’s a collusion hoax, a collusion witch hoax. I don’t collude with Russia. The judge… made the statement that this had nothing to do collusion with Russia.”

it's weird and sorta hilarious how Dubya has been pretty much completely written out of right-wing orthodoxy in the past couple of years. meanwhile Reagan is still lionized. and it seems like the distinction is mostly just a matter of who Trump decided to bash.

This is ahistorical. George W Bush had already been more or less disappeared from the Republican hero chart by 2012. He didn't even go to the GOP convention!

collusion witch hoax

without looking it up I rate the probability at about 20% that there is actually a Guided By Voices album called this

Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, I was going to post literally that!

Well, 'song' instead of 'album' so I guess I'm engaging in a witch hoax of my own.

Beat me to it, both of you.

The Fall: Live at the Witch Hoaxes

It just serves to underscore the extent to which his speech has devolved into an almost meaningless patchwork of words. I suppose it's only a matter of time before he starts regularly bringing his very own neologisms into the mix.

a very highly respected judge, the judge,

what a coincidence that this very highly respected judge would be named "the judge"

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/arresteddevelopment/images/1/15/3x10_Fakin%27_It_%2867%29.png/revision/latest?cb=20130323184627

"devolved"

It's true! My gf noted that Trump sounded almost like a functional human in that Calamari clip from The Apprentice that was floating around last week. He's always been a moron, and especially so since at least the time when he started entertaining political notions, but I think it's safe to say at this point that he's firmly in the 'doddering' phase of his rapid mental decline.

I see that, but must insist on the reams of Sopan Deb transcripts during the 2016 race which gave form to the advanced written Trump impression. The decline over the last three years isn't quite as meteoric as all that.

No, I agree, it's isn't meteoric but it is progressive, like the degradation of elastin which with each passing day brings his wizened sac into measurably nearer proximity to the toilet water's surface.

nobody striking imagery that

plop plop fizz fizz oh what a relief it is