The Trump presidency

[camouflage]

The fuckin retards in charge dont whine, figure out to get the Evilous Wig Shit out
Gunshot have a hard wired place in Yankeedom

Do a decent thing for once, top yerself wiggycunt

By the way, wot's your beef with the English?

 

[Treacle Toes]

Nothing in any of those links disproves the fact that the majority of Trump's vote came from voters who are women or POC or women and POC.

How is that even possible given those voters are minorities?

 

[camouflage]

How is that even possible given those voters are minorities?

Women aren't a minority, iirc there are more of them than men. /pedant.

 

[hipipol]

By the way, wot's your beef with the English?

I'd have no probs were it not truth that yer Anglos outbred everything around then crush by violence, I mean every fuckin arseflo seepage that has claimed world dominance is based on breeding like rats and hating all else, kill the fucks, breeds like rats, build an excuse/reason later
You are well good at it, better killers than any empire has ever seen
I congratulate your murderous skills
And hope for you death
Die English, have you not yet done enough damage?

 

[camouflage]

I'd have no probs were it not truth that yer Anglos outbred everything around then crush by violence, I mean every fuckin arseflo seepage that has claimed world dominance is based on breeding like rats and hating all else, kill the fucks, breeds like rats, build an excuse/reason later
You are well good at it, better killers than any empire has ever seen
I congratulate your murderous skills
And hope for you death
Die English, have you not yet done enough damage?

Ah, your beef with the English is their history. Fair nuff.

 

[coley]

I'd have no probs were it not truth that yer Anglos outbred everything around then crush by violence, I mean every fuckin arseflo seepage that has claimed world dominance is based on breeding like rats and hating all else, kill the fucks, breeds like rats, build an excuse/reason later
You are well good at it, better killers than any empire has ever seen
I congratulate your murderous skills
And hope for you death
Die English, have you not yet done enough damage?

You might be interested in this?

Yeh, but it was still there. At one time I gave my neighbors the benefit of the doubt, but now I see a number of them saying and doing things they wouldn't have thought of a while back. Or, at least, I didn't think they would do.

I saw this pop up on my feed recently:



It was from a group called Trump 2020.

 

[coley]

Ah, your beef with the English is their history. Fair nuff.

Buggerinell, we "The English" are responsible? Let's share it out "We, the British"
Mind you, we "the British" should feel a deep sense of shame when looking at what our former colony has produced, the TTT and the GOP!?
Christ onna Crutch, he and they, make our current crop of Tories look reasonably sane and cuddly.

 

[yield]

I'd have no probs were it not truth that yer Anglos outbred everything around then crush by violence, I mean every fuckin arseflo seepage that has claimed world dominance is based on breeding like rats and hating all else, kill the fucks, breeds like rats, build an excuse/reason later
You are well good at it, better killers than any empire has ever seen
I congratulate your murderous skills
And hope for you death
Die English, have you not yet done enough damage?

As nominal englishman I'd like to take a brief repast from my rapine and pillaging

Appreciate you hipipol

 

[camouflage]

Buggerinell, we "The English" are responsible? Let's share it out "We, the British"
Mind you, we "the British" should feel a deep sense of shame when looking at what our former colony has produced, the TTT and the GOP!?
Christ onna Crutch, he and they, make our current crop of Tories look reasonably sane and cuddly.

You don't need to look at the United States to feel shock horror and shame for what the British Empire got up to. A cunt once said "the jews are responsible for all the wars that have ever been", a glance at the history of the British Empire suggests he spelt "English" wrong. You can't pass the British Empire off on the Scots or something (not that they didn't help obviously) and you can't claim it was the Irish that did all those horrible things to the Irish, nor can it be said it was the Welsh all along. The British Empire was largely run, managed and owned by the English. Personally, I reckon you could reasonably blame the Normans though, since that podcast series I listened to about, well... the Normans. The British Empire was basically their M.O.

 

[CRI]

 

[bimble]

Here is a video that Trump just tweeted, of himself doing his bit for making women great again. There be canapes and clapping and a soft focus vase of flowers. Deeply moving, I for one am inspired.

 

[CrabbedOne]

On Politico Flynn seeks 'assurances against unfair prosecution' from Russia-Trump investigators

...
The statement came after a report in The Wall Street Journal that Flynn has told the FBI and congressional committees he is willing to testify in exchange for immunity from prosecution.

General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit,” said Flynn’s lawyer, Robert Kelner. But Kelner said there had been “vicious innuendo" against Flynn in the news media and that “no reasonable person, who has the benefit of advice from counsel, would submit to questioning in such a highly politicized, witch hunt environment without assurances against unfair prosecution.”
...

Tout-a-doodle-doo!

 

[CrabbedOne]

On Politico Trump’s team eager to woo Democrats on tax reform

Interestingly initiative led by Treasury Secretary and housing crash profiteer Steven Mnuchin. Can Dems demonstrate solidarity and continue to obstruct Trump in every move or fail to resist something nicely regressive like a juicy corporate tax cut? The tax code is probably the single subject that Hill lobbyists are most excited by. One tweak can make an interest group billions. It's quite likely that Trump's swamp creatures will find some bipartisan support here.

 

[bimble]

Protesters raise more than $200,000 to buy Congress’s browsing histories

This is properly upcheering isn't it.
One of the campaigns with a stated $10k target has raised $186,000 so far.

edit: oh. it might be impossible to actually do what they want to do, says the article, so we may never know what pence googles in the middle of the night whilst his wife is asleep.

 

[8den]

Mike Flynn 2016: "LOCK HER UP, LOCK HER UP!!"

Mike Flynn 2017: "I can't go to prison do you know what they do to 3 Star Generals in there!?!"

Mike Flynn indicates he would testify in Trump-Russia inquiry in exchange for immunity

 

[TomUS]

Mike Flynn 2016: "LOCK HER UP, LOCK HER UP!!"

Mike Flynn 2017: "I can't go to prison do you know what they do to 3 Star Generals in there!?!"

Mike Flynn indicates he would testify in Trump-Russia inquiry in exchange for immunity

Russiagate grows and grows.....media smells blood and is in a feeding frenzy and they hate Trump for the abuse he has laid on them. Much of the intelligence community is his enemy and will furnish plenty of damaging leaks. It's fun to watch and would be delightful if this scandal drags him and his gang down.

 

[Tankus]

No point in watching the repeats of the "thick of it"..anymore... the trumpshow is way more darkley funny

 

[Ungrateful]

Russiagate grows and grows.....media smells blood and is in a feeding frenzy and they hate Trump for the abuse he has laid on them. Much of the intelligence community is his enemy and will furnish plenty of damaging leaks. It's fun to watch and would be delightful if this scandal drags him and his gang down.

I am beginning to hope that he hangs on in there until 2020. He's a lame duck, for all the reasons you identify (media, intelligence community, his own party, significant sections of the business community and a unifying left-ish opposition). He's a businessman who can't make a deal or deliver on his programme. But replace him with someone less tainted - and the opposition starts to fall apart. An effective Republican will pursue most of Trump's programme with much less hindrance. The liberal-left will be too busy congratulating itself on getting rid of Trump.

 

[likesfish]

Flynn made it clear how he felt about people who seek immunity.

"When you are given immunity, that means you have probably committed a crime," Flynn said during an interview with MSNBC commentator Chuck Todd.

yeah usually an administration gets in the shit for something it did with power not as it trys to take control

 

[camouflage]

Russiagate grows and grows.....media smells blood and is in a feeding frenzy and they hate Trump for the abuse he has laid on them. Much of the intelligence community is his enemy and will furnish plenty of damaging leaks. It's fun to watch and would be delightful if this scandal drags him and his gang down.

Dangerous though, the scandal is an attempt at regime change, the best dealers never get high off their own supply, but the collective face of the United States is deep inside a huge pile of its own white stuff. If Trump is impeached it will mean that the United States has at that point become ungovernable and no POTUS will ever expect to be reasonably safe from the machinations of the court again. Certainly not unless they are extremely deep-seated in the establishment.

I kind of feel sorry for the American electorate really, they tried voting for the black democrat and that didn't work, they tried voting for the white billionaire popular with the rednecks and that isn't going to work. The US system just doesn't seem capable of producing any solution that will work, and once Trump is overthrown they will hardly be able to produce a political leader of any kind. All that will be left will be the tender mercies of the CIA.

 

[CrabbedOne]

On War On The Rocks TROLLING FOR TRUMP: HOW RUSSIA IS TRYING TO DESTROY OUR DEMOCRACY

...
But most observers are missing the point. Russia is helping Trump’s campaign, yes, but it is not doing so solely or even necessarily with the goal of placing him in the Oval Office. Rather, these efforts seek to produce a divided electorate and a president with no clear mandate to govern. The ultimate objective is to diminish and tarnish American democracy. Unfortunately, that effort is going very well indeed.

Russia’s desire to sow distrust in the American system of government is not new. It’s a goal Moscow has pursued since the beginning of the Cold War. Its strategy is not new, either. Soviet-era “active measures” called for using the “force of politics” rather than the “politics of force” to erode American democracy from within. What is new is the methods Russia uses to achieve these objectives.

We have been tracking Russian online information operations since 2014, when our interest was piqued by strange activity we observed studying online dimensions of jihadism and the Syrian civil war. When experts published content criticizing the Russian-supported Bashar al Assad regime, organized hordes of trolls would appear to attack the authors on Twitter and Facebook. Examining the troll social networks revealed dozens of accounts presenting themselves as attractive young women eager to talk politics with Americans, including some working in the national security sector. These “honeypot” social media accounts were linked to other accounts used by the Syrian Electronic Army hacker operation. All three elements were working together: the trolls to sow doubt, the honeypots to win trust, and the hackers (we believe) to exploit clicks on dubious links sent out by the first two.
...

Well the useful idiots of Breitbart and InfoWars by themselves do pretty well on this list of Russian objectives:

...

• Undermine citizen confidence in democratic governance;
• Foment and exacerbate divisive political fractures;
• Erode trust between citizens and elected officials and democratic institutions;
• Popularize Russian policy agendas within foreign populations;
• Create general distrust or confusion over information sources by blurring the lines between fact and fiction

...

The Russian Info Ops are just spreading a layer of icing on a very big cake of rampant bullshit. And I don't think they are on the FSB payroll; that pack of deranged assholes are as American as apple pie and breast fixations.

You need to be pretty worried about US democracy when a large section of the US electorate wilfully risks putting a utterly unqualified, deceitful and treacherous critter like Trump in the Oval Office for mostly for hardwired partisan reasons. The Russians may be pushing it with all their cyber doodads but there is something really rotten and irresponsibly paranoid there already. Trump's political rise was spring boarded off baseless lies about Obama's birth that I found my GOP mates embracing as Gospel truth was the canary in the coal mine as they then all rushed towards various convenient denialisms. It's not the easily twisted base of identity politics bigotry that is worrying it's the waning critical facilities of mainstream Republicans that's frightening.

 

[camouflage]

On War On The Rocks TROLLING FOR TRUMP: HOW RUSSIA IS TRYING TO DESTROY OUR DEMOCRACY
Well the useful idiots of Breitbart and InfoWars by themselves do pretty well on this list of Russian objectives:
The Russian Info Ops are just spreading a layer of icing on a very big cake of rampant bullshit. And I don't think they are on the FSB payroll; that pack of deranged assholes are as American as apple pie and breast fixations.

You need to be pretty worried about US democracy when a large section of the US electorate wilfully risks putting a utterly unqualified, deceitful and treacherous critter like Trump in the Oval Office for mostly for hardwired partisan reasons. The Russians may be pushing it with all their cyber doodads but there is something really rotten and irresponsibly paranoid there already. Trump's political rise was spring boarded off baseless lies about Obama's birth that I found my GOP mates embracing as Gospel truth was the canary in the coal mine as they then all rushed towards various convenient denialisms. It's not the easily twisted base of identity politics bigotry that is worrying it's the waning critical facilities of mainstream Republicans that's frightening.

Hanlons Razor + Occams Razor, consider them.

 

[CrabbedOne]

In The Moscow Times Trouble Translating Trump

...
Most amusingly, sometimes Russian publications seem to forget what language Trump speaks. Take this recent tweet about Crimea: For eight years Russia "ran over" President Obama, got stronger and stronger, picked-off Crimea and added missiles.

For some reason, a slew of translators — or perhaps it was the Russian media they worked for — became obsessed with the phrase “picked-off” (sic). Трамп подобрал новое слово для перехода Крыма к России (Trump chose a new word for the transfer of Crimea to Russia). Раньше он назвал его “захватом” (Before he called it a land grab.) One publication claimed that because of his use of the word захват он потерял симпатии российского телевидения (he lost popularity with Russian television).

So what new word did Trump use? Перехватить. The word can mean intercepting someone or something — getting it first. Here the implication is: Russia grabbed Crimea before the Americans could.

That is, indeed, a highly significant admission by the U.S. President.

But wait a minute. Donald Trump doesn’t speak Russian. He didn’t write захват or перехват. He wrote “picked-off.”

Unless… they know something we don’t? Maybe Trump’s problems with English are because he’s really a native speaker of Russian? Hold onto your hats.

 

[gosub]

Republicans held a fake inquiry on climate change to attack the only credible scientist in the room



They've got time and money for bullshit like this, but not to investigate dubious links between Trump and the Russian leadership? Yeah.

"too much uncertainty to consider global warming a threat" Is that before or after they deleted the evidence?

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

FLASHBACK: Trump during campaign: If you’re not guilty, why do you need immunity?

 

[CrabbedOne]

From Ian Walsh Trump Signals He’s About To Blow His Foot Off

A NAFTA that's modestly changed to be more like TPP which Trump dumped. TPP was in part a renegotiation of NAFTA so this is not a surprise. Walsh thinks Trump buckled when Mexico threatened to get tough on US corn exports which previously swamped Mexican farmers. Interesting point in the WSJ article this links to:

...
Jeffrey Schott, a trade scholar at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a free-trade think tank, said that the measures reimposing tariffs—called a “snapback” in trade lingo—was also sought by the Clinton administration 24 years ago. It became a side deal to Nafta, but didn’t have much effect, he said.
...

I do wonder if Trump's slowly beginning to realise messing with complex trade arrangements that often benefit large sectors of the US economy a great deal is just very difficult and could consume his entire administration without much hope of political rewards in eight years.

 

[Tankus]

✔@realDonaldTrump
Mike Flynn should ask for immunity in that this is a witch hunt (excuse for big election loss), by media & Dems, of historic proportion!

the rabbit hole now has a dual carriageway into it

 

[bimble]

He is not going to like this.

 

[CrabbedOne]

On TSG IntelBrief: Investigating Russian Active Measures Against the U.S.

...
It suits Russian interests that the investigation—and indeed the very matter of Russian active measures as whole—be framed as ‘fake news,’ a political issue or, best of all, a conspiracy. The U.S. is already so politically divided that Russia and its online army do not have to do much more than plant a conspiracy theory, fan the flames, and then watch as it burns across social media and into the belief systems of millions of Americans. The inability to agree on seemingly indisputable facts has led to a situation where a sizable segment of the U.S electorate finds it easier to believe that a child trafficking and pedophilia ring involving high-level politicians was run out of the basement of a D.C. pizzeria than it is to believe Russia attempted to foment mistrust in the fundamentals of the U.S. political system. Even if the Senate investigation is able to avoid the partisan rancor of its House counterpart, it is unclear whether the investigation’s conclusions will persuade those who do not like the findings, no matter how explicit the evidence is one way or the other. Indeed, the underlying goal of the Russian disinformation efforts centered on precisely that point; the larger goal was not simply to influence the election, but rather to foment suspicion and mistrust in the overall system.

My bold.

We did have a situation where a large part of the US electorate (72% of Republicans and ~15% of Dems) doubted Obama was an American and 41% of Republicans were sure he wasn't. Add on the Dems who thought that and it's nearly half the damn electorate. This was despite an authenticated birth certificate being produced.

And don't make this about poorly educated or even stupid people. What I encountered was folk with PHDs and Economics Degrees and one with a Major in Native American Studies (for fuck's sake) eagerly agreeing that a Kenyan had staged an illegitimate coup to take over the Whitehouse and was probably a stealth Muslim to boot. It made no damn difference if you where from the globalised coastal elite or a redneck in flyover country it was an article of faith:

And the guy who was the GOP nominee for President was for years a prominent booster of this fairly obvious racist dog whistle of a lie who would finally disown it with zero political damage. This wasn't even being tired of experts. This was a plain mental willingness to believe in any old expedient bollocks. Is it actually surprising they then put this appalling Queens jerk off in the Oval Office?

I haven't seen anyone suggesting this was the work of an FSB cyber campaign; at least not yet.

 

[J Ed]

This was a plain mental willingness to believe in any old expedient bollocks.

Now pretty clearly a bi-partisan position.