US Politics Thread |OT| SAD TRUMP

[kingv]

The 'Trump was a moron who was deceived by the Russians' narrative is total bullshit. I don't have shit on hand but there's plenty of stuff that indicates that's not true at all. He knowingly did shit that was wrong from the very beginning.

Mueller comin'.

Oh don’t get me wrong, odds are that he’s dirty.

But there is a small chance that Hindu Kush and Donald Jr. we’re on some sort of independent ops with the Russians and President Trump wasn’t really involved until he started trying to cover it up... or st least he was semi oblivious.i don’t know, he seems pretty fucking dumb.

One thing is that every time a new revelation hits, go back and read that Donald Trump Jr email chain and it gets more and more damning.

Emin just called and asked me to contact you with something very interesting.
The Crown prosecutor of Russia met with his father Aras this morning and in their meeting offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father.
This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump - helped along by Aras and Emin.
What do you think is the best way to handle this information and would you be able to speak to Emin about it directly?
I can also send this info to your father via Rhona, but it is ultra sensitive so wanted to send to you first.

Talking about continuing support from the Russian government, etc. if it comes out that they knew about any of this stuff, they are fucked.

[kingv]

https://twitter.com/FoxNews/status/964863807171461121

Welp, The White House and Fox News have begun the victory lap.

Kind of stupid to do a victory lap, people are not exactly excusing Trump right now.

They don’t care about consistency. Two weeks ago they were says no Russia was innocent.

[Boredfrom]

https://twitter.com/FoxNews/status/964863807171461121

Welp, The White House and Fox News have begun the victory lap.

Kind of stupid to do a victory lap, people are not exactly excusing Trump right now.

They don’t care about consistency. Two weeks ago they were says no Russia was innocent.

But even if this is just to give Kool aid to the base, more than half of the country can see he is full of shit. Is only polarizing for the sake of it and it feels like a disaster waiting to happen.

[Nintex]

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/964944088696049666

Maybe Rosenstein and/or Mueller should say something before this gets out of hand.

[Boredfrom]

I suppose they just told him that the investigation is still going.

[Nola]

I’d say most people secure in their innocence don’t feel an obsessive need to talk endlessly and obstruct justice about it.

[kingv]

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/964944088696049666

Maybe Rosenstein and/or Mueller should say something before this gets out of hand.

I disagree.

Just let em think what they think.

[thehunter116]

I’d say most people secure in their innocence don’t feel an obsessive need to talk endlessly and obstruct justice about it.

Bingo.

[curly]

On the subject of the Damore firing, interesting article arguing the NLRB decision is the result of a Republican administration wanting to give management the most possible power to fire workers and that a Democrat-controlled NLRB would have ruled in favor of Damore:

There is almost no chance that a Democratic-controlled NLRB would have reached the same conclusion. As proof of this, consider the Cooper Tire picketing case decided under the Obama Board. In that case, picketers yelled out clearly racist statements at replacement workers and were fired for doing so. The NLRB said the termination was unlawful because the statements occurred in the context of protected activity (picketing) and the 8th Circuit ultimately affirmed the NLRB’s decision in that case. Picketing is a somewhat different legal situation than memos spread by email lists or whatnot, but the case nonetheless provides a good sense of how much Democratic boards are willing to tolerate in order to reduce the ability of employers to fire people who are engaged in otherwise protected activity.

None of this analysis is to say that the Republican position on this is necessarily wrong. The interaction of the Civil Rights Act and the National Labor Relations Act is obviously very tricky on the edges and it may make sense to lean more in the direction of the CRA where the two come into collision. But the Republican calculation here is not based on their love of the CRA. It’s based on their love of management discretion.

As I noted in my August post, cases like these are a good test for what Republicans actually care about. One might think that the Trumpian Republican party would do everything they can to defend Damore because of his self-styled bucking of “political correctness.” But one would be wrong. Republicans stay focused on the nuts and bolts of shaping an economic regime that is most favorable to bosses. And if they need to sell out culture warriors to do so, they will every time.

http://mattbruenig.com/2018/02/16/trump-nlrb-smashed-google-guy/

as always, what really matters is

[seagrams hotsauce]

https://twitter.com/josheidelson/status/964610765431934977

cultural marxism wins again

These people just have never met that 'type' of programmer before.  They really mean no harm, they just have 0 empathy or people skills.
Something works or doesn't work and if it doesn't work it needs fixing.

One of the programmers at my workplace advocated for killing off everyone over 75 to fix pretty much every problem modern humanity faces.
It took us the 'grandchildren be sad when grandma dies' argument to convince him it wasn't the best idea and then he settled for just killing those with no children as they were infertile and essentially dead anyway.

We pay these people to come up with the most efficient solutions for problems, so don't be surprised when they start 'fixing' non-code things the same way.

This was just a lunch conversation but if I had asked him to make some graphs on the pro-cons and run a simulation he would've done it.
 

Stan for sociopaths, brehs

[Boredfrom]

https://twitter.com/josheidelson/status/964610765431934977

cultural marxism wins again

These people just have never met that 'type' of programmer before.  They really mean no harm, they just have 0 empathy or people skills.
Something works or doesn't work and if it doesn't work it needs fixing.

One of the programmers at my workplace advocated for killing off everyone over 75 to fix pretty much every problem modern humanity faces.
It took us the 'grandchildren be sad when grandma dies' argument to convince him it wasn't the best idea and then he settled for just killing those with no children as they were infertile and essentially dead anyway.

We pay these people to come up with the most efficient solutions for problems, so don't be surprised when they start 'fixing' non-code things the same way.

This was just a lunch conversation but if I had asked him to make some graphs on the pro-cons and run a simulation he would've done it.
 

Stan for sociopaths, brehs

I dont think that comment was particularly positive to the fired guy.

[etiolate]

It doesn't represent Damore either. He's awkward and a bit on the spectrum, but he wasn't advocating for killing senior citizens. He pointed out the flaws in HR's diversity approach and recommended hiring for more front-end jobs in Software Engineering to increase gender representation.

[Boredfrom]

It doesn't represent Damore either. He's awkward and a bit on the spectrum, but he wasn't advocating for killing senior citizens. He pointed out the flaws in HR's diversity approach and recommended hiring for more front-end jobs in Software Engineering to increase gender representation.

It was because that.

[Nintex]

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/965009332042596352

 

 

[benjipwns]

Mike Pence, Tim Tebow, Tony Dungy have all been 'Christian Shamed.' This ugly form of bigotry must stop

Is believing in God a sign of mental illness? Is praying a silly exercise in make-believe – just a big waste of time and a delusional activity?

I certainly don’t think so, nor do most Americans. But on Tuesday, panelists on “The View” on ABC TV mocked Vice President Mike Pence for his Christian faith, calling it “scary” and even saying that his religious beliefs are a kind of “mental illness.”

Such comments are an insult to everyone who holds sincere religious beliefs.

The vice president – a deeply religious man – responded Wednesday to the attack, saying at an event sponsored by Axios: “It’s just simply wrong for ABC to have a television program that expresses that kind of religious intolerance.” Pence added that criticism of anyone who is religiously observant shows how “out of touch some in the mainstream media are.”

What the media and critics haven’t done, and won’t do, is to point out that their attacks on Pence are part of a larger and very disturbing trend in American life – an ugly form of prejudice called Christian shaming. 

We also experienced this sort of Christian shaming when social media flash mobs mocked evangelicals who had called on our nation to pray in the aftermath of terrible shootings (like the one in Parkland, Florida on Wednesday), natural disasters and other harrowing events that have unfolded in recent years.

In the view of these Twitter activists, a Christian’s tweets about prayer are simply a means of avoiding the issue instead of acting upon it.

[benjipwns]

do Republicans really control the executive branch though? does anyone at this point?

spoiler (click to show/hide)

other than the deep state of course

[close]

[thehunter116]

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/965079126829871104?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fs9e.github.io%2Fiframe%2Ftwitter.min.html%23965079126829871104

Ahh the sounds of a guilty innocent man. 

[Nola]

I hope there is no rain forecast at Mar A Lago for the foreseeable future, because it certainly seems like this dotty mother fucker is gonna catch another golf cart temper tantrum any day now and get us a constitutional crisis brewing.

[benjipwns]

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/02/17/world/africa/niger-ambush-american-soldiers.html

More than 16 years after 9/11 spurred a broad fight against terrorism, some Americans say it’s time to look at how the country is deploying its forces.

some say...

[thehunter116]

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/965075589274177536?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fs9e.github.io%2Fiframe%2Ftwitter.min.html%23965075589274177536

Won't someone rid me of this wicked pastor?


Jesus Christ he is a monster.

[kingv]

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/965075589274177536?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fs9e.github.io%2Fiframe%2Ftwitter.min.html%23965075589274177536

Won't someone rid me of this wicked pastor?


Jesus Christ he is a monster.

This is such a dumb tweet. Like the whole fbi is just doing theRussia investigation. He is in a position to know better butnis simultaneously too stupid to know better

[agrajag]

do Republicans really control the executive branch though? does anyone at this point?

spoiler (click to show/hide)

other than the deep state of course

[close]

He

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Bernie Sanders

[close]

can't keep getting away with it!

[Mandark]

17 people were shot to death, including 14 teenagers, within days the president is trying to use that to shield himself from an investigation, and my expectations are already so low I'm not really bothered by it.

I'm approaching some kind of faux-Zen state through sheer lack of hope. Not sure if I'd recommend or not.

[kingv]

This:
https://twitter.com/repadamschiff/status/964920178327871488

And this timeline:
https://twitter.com/_notfakenews_/status/964944318590017536

Make me go hmmm.

You can clearly see that Trump was taking action to run for President as early as 2012 or 2013, including retweeting fake Russian twitter accounts urging him to run for President.

[Boredfrom]

17 people were shot to death, including 14 teenagers, within days the president is trying to use that to shield himself from an investigation, and my expectations are already so low I'm not really bothered by it.

I'm approaching some kind of faux-Zen state through sheer lack of hope. Not sure if I'd recommend or not.

You are going to activate your Ultra Instinct

[agrajag]

But Trump says he had no clue he was going to run for president in 2014

spoiler (click to show/hide)

even though he's threatened to run for like the past 6 election cycles

[close]

 

[Joe Molotov]

Okay, enough collusion talk. Can we all just have a sensible chuckle at how this tweet reads like it was written by a 5 y/o?

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/965303158229622785

Today is the big race. It was the Daytona 500. I like to watch the cars go very fast. Brian France is my faverate Nascar person. Cells are bad. My uncle lives in a cell. The End.

[kingv]

Eh, he had better spelling than my kid? But his sentence structure is more simplistic.

[curly]

https://twitter.com/ShimonPro/status/965320802714439683

Lol

[Nola]

Last time Trump had one of these episodes, we lost the FBI's best full-time director/part-time indoor camouflage enthusiast.

[shosta]

https://twitter.com/josheidelson/status/964610765431934977

cultural marxism wins again

Did you actually read this memo?

[Phoenix Dark]

Last time Trump had one of these episodes, we lost the FBI's best full-time director/part-time indoor camouflage enthusiast.

Last time? He goes on morning twitter rants...all the time. Specifically on weekends. 

I'm sure he's mad today but he's usually mad, and I don't really see the point in parsing stuff like this and saying "oh wow he's on edge, he knows it's all over now!"

[Nola]

Last time Trump had one of these episodes, we lost the FBI's best full-time director/part-time indoor camouflage enthusiast.

Last time? He goes on morning twitter rants...all the time. Specifically on weekends. 

I'm sure he's mad today but he's usually mad, and I don't really see the point in parsing stuff like this and saying "oh wow he's on edge, he knows it's all over now!"

I think you might be taking your weekend trip to resetera a bit too much to heart PD(nice post on KCD though).   

Nothing about that post was meant in real seriousness.

Though Trump certainly seems to be more prone to his erratic behavior(mostly of the tweeting variety) when he feels cornered from outside pressures, surrounded with enablers, Fox News, unexpected free time, and a phone.

[curly]

https://twitter.com/josheidelson/status/964610765431934977

cultural marxism wins again

Did you actually read this memo?

No and I don't care about the controversy outside of the labor rights angle

[Oblivion]

https://twitter.com/josheidelson/status/964610765431934977

cultural marxism wins again

It's always interesting when right-wing beliefs clash and seeing which one comes out on top. In a perfect world, at-will firing would only apply to liberals, but alas.

[etiolate]

https://twitter.com/josheidelson/status/964610765431934977

cultural marxism wins again

Did you actually read this memo?

No and I don't care about the controversy outside of the labor rights angle

The thing is the judges misread the memo and used their misunderstanding as their argument. It could be motivated by backing management, but the argument they used showed they didn't read the memo or understand it. 

So the memo and the decision aren't separate.

[curly]

Do you think a Trump-appointed general counsel truly considers the Damore memo terribly offensive and discriminatory? All that matters to him is giving employers maximum leeway in firing and he'll support whatever reading of the memo allows that, he probably doesn't give a damn about this culture wars stuff.

[Nintex]

Though Trump certainly seems to be more prone to his erratic behavior(mostly of the tweeting variety) when he feels cornered from outside pressures, surrounded with enablers, Fox News, unexpected free time, and a phone.

I think it's the other way around this time. Trump held back because the Russia thing was over his head and his lawyers gave him advice on what to say and especially what to Tweet.
He thinks he has been cleared from all charges, so now he can just be himself again. Remember, during the later stages of the campaign Ivanka and Conway occasionally hid is phone if something of note happened to make sure he wouldn't distract from the Clinton (campaign) collapse.

Don Jr. is probably getting trashed by dad for meeting with the Russians in the tower.
I wonder how long Kelly is going to last in this new environment.

This is the Trump from the campaign. Using disasters for his own personal vindication and benefit, trashing Obama, Morning Joe or who else is on TV and threatening to spill the beans to Ted Cruz's wife about his affairs.

[Nola]

I dont want to go out on a limb with the armchair psychology, but nothing in his recent tweets, or him supposedly stewing with his sons at Mar-a-Lago, suggests to me this guy is just thinking himself free and clear and returning to his cocky attack mode campaign ways. The guy has tweeted like 20 times since the news dropped, about 15 of them have had to do with Russia, and in an unusual turn, looking mostly like a weak person scrambling to catch any excuse that flies by his ears and posting it. I don't know what that says, but feeling unshackled and mentally at peace that he is out of the woods is not really how I could read any interpretation of the last 48 hours.

On a side note, any appeal to wrestling the guy's phone from him at sensitive moments kinda goes out the window when he flash tweeted further evidence to obstruction to justice, only able to walk it back by getting Don McGahn to claim authorship.

[etiolate]

Do you think a Trump-appointed general counsel truly considers the Damore memo terribly offensive and discriminatory? All that matters to him is giving employers maximum leeway in firing and he'll support whatever reading of the memo allows that, he probably doesn't give a damn about this culture wars stuff.

I don't know what they secretly think. I'm just stating the reasoning they used. Some think the decision reflects a fear that anything that would bring negative attention has to be snipped in the bud, even if it reveals bias and brings other negative attention.

I can see the argument that the decision is just to protect management, but the memo threatened HR more than upper management. It was likely the HR/Diversity team that leaked it. They are the ones that gain from firing Damore.

[Nintex]

I dont want to go out on a limb with the armchair psychology, but nothing in his recent tweets, or him supposedly stewing with his sons at Mar-a-Lago, suggests to me this guy is just thinking himself free and clear and returning to his cocky attack mode campaign ways. The guy has tweeted like 20 times since the news dropped, about 15 of them have had to do with Russia, and in an unusual turn, looking mostly like a weak person scrambling to catch any excuse that flies by his ears and posting it.

On a side note, any appeal to wrestling the guy's phone from him at sensitive moments kinda goes out the window when he flash tweeted further evidence to obstruction to justice, only able to walk it back by getting Don McGahn to claim authorship.

It's what Conway said and Javanka leaked to Axios.

Personally this worries me more:
https://twitter.com/thomaswright08/status/965139583125028864

[curly]

Do you think a Trump-appointed general counsel truly considers the Damore memo terribly offensive and discriminatory? All that matters to him is giving employers maximum leeway in firing and he'll support whatever reading of the memo allows that, he probably doesn't give a damn about this culture wars stuff.

I don't know what they secretly think. I'm just stating the reasoning they used. Some think the decision reflects a fear that anything that would bring negative attention has to be snipped in the bud, even if it reveals bias and brings other negative attention.

I can see the argument that the decision is just to protect management, but the memo threatened HR more than upper management. It was likely the HR/Diversity team that leaked it. They are the ones that gain from firing Damore.

You're thinking too narrowly. This decision isn't significant because of Google's internal politics, it's significant because of what it mean's for a corporation's freedom to fire employees going forward. Whether it was the HR department or management that wanted him fired doesn't really matter. What's important about this ruling is it enhances capital's power over labor.

[Boredfrom]

Doesn’t feel that Trump is in campaign mode, but his rethoric is not different of what he usually does. Is just that this is his standard MO: attack everything and hope that the right people buy it.

The real difference is that in attack mode he sounds cocky and in the other he sounds desperate

[Nola]

I dont want to go out on a limb with the armchair psychology, but nothing in his recent tweets, or him supposedly stewing with his sons at Mar-a-Lago, suggests to me this guy is just thinking himself free and clear and returning to his cocky attack mode campaign ways. The guy has tweeted like 20 times since the news dropped, about 15 of them have had to do with Russia, and in an unusual turn, looking mostly like a weak person scrambling to catch any excuse that flies by his ears and posting it.

On a side note, any appeal to wrestling the guy's phone from him at sensitive moments kinda goes out the window when he flash tweeted further evidence to obstruction to justice, only able to walk it back by getting Don McGahn to claim authorship.

It's what Conway said and Javanka leaked to Axios.

Personally this worries me more:
https://twitter.com/thomaswright08/status/965139583125028864

I'm not doubting they have attempted, and at times been successful at getting him to put down the phone, but that is a far cry from inferring that somehow the only time to worry about something with Trump being serious is when his phone goes silent, which isn't really borne out by the reality since that Axios piece.

Trump went comparatively nuts over that weekend that it leaked about the Flynn guilty plea and turning witness. Tweeting out about prosecuting his political enemies, attacking the justice Department and FBI, attacking Democrats, culminating in Trump admitting to obstruction of justice once again.

I see this weekend much more in line with that, than anything deeper. Probably because it is going to be what Fox News is talking about all day and that is kinda where Trump gets himself worked up the most often.

[Mandark]

You're thinking too narrowly. This decision isn't significant because of Google's internal politics, it's significant because of what it mean's for a corporation's freedom to fire employees going forward. Whether it was the HR department or management that wanted him fired doesn't really matter. What's important about this ruling is it enhances capital's power over labor.

Yeah, the idea that the NLRB would be trying to protect a particular department within Google is just odd. Its bailiwick is labor-management disputes.

[Nintex]

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-rick-gates-plea-deal-20180218-story.html

Gates to testify against Manafort.

Pretty crazy to think that if Manafort had not joined the Trump campaign he and Gates would've walked away with everything he had done in Ukraine. 

[Trent Dole]

I dont want to go out on a limb with the armchair psychology, but nothing in his recent tweets, or him supposedly stewing with his sons at Mar-a-Lago, suggests to me this guy is just thinking himself free and clear and returning to his cocky attack mode campaign ways. The guy has tweeted like 20 times since the news dropped, about 15 of them have had to do with Russia, and in an unusual turn, looking mostly like a weak person scrambling to catch any excuse that flies by his ears and posting it.

On a side note, any appeal to wrestling the guy's phone from him at sensitive moments kinda goes out the window when he flash tweeted further evidence to obstruction to justice, only able to walk it back by getting Don McGahn to claim authorship.

It's what Conway said and Javanka leaked to Axios.

Personally this worries me more:
https://twitter.com/thomaswright08/status/965139583125028864

I'm not doubting they have attempted, and at times been successful at getting him to put down the phone, but that is a far cry from inferring that somehow the only time to worry about something with Drumpf being serious is when his phone goes silent, which isn't really borne out by the reality since that Axios piece.

Drumpf went comparatively nuts over that weekend that it leaked about the Flynn guilty plea and turning witness. Tweeting out about prosecuting his political enemies, attacking the justice Department and FBI, attacking Democrats, culminating in Drumpf admitting to obstruction of justice once again.

I see this weekend much more in line with that, than anything deeper. Probably because it is going to be what Fox News is talking about all day and that is kinda where Drumpf gets himself worked up the most often.

Come on man he was just mad that he couldn't golf and thus had more time to shitpost than usual.

[Nola]

That’s pretty much what I am saying. Except that they have all been primarily about one topic, and notably more desperate than usual.

So to me the guy doesn’t appear to be in some place of post Russia euphoria, he’s just locked in mar-a-lago with enablers, Fox News, a phone, and free time to get worked up over this investigation that is not going away.

[Joe Molotov]

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/965676314576543744

#VeryReflective

[Nintex]

The exports have apparently concluded that President #Winner is actually the worst

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/02/19/opinion/how-does-trump-stack-up-against-the-best-and-worst-presidents.html

Still this the swamp, fake news etc

Trump managed to do this without starting a war or crashing the economy.

[thehunter116]

He's worse than a guy literally responsible for a civil war.

 

[seagrams hotsauce]

He's worse than a guy literally responsible for a civil war.

 

Yeah but so is literally every other president according to that list

[curly]

those lists are so bad. Reagan top 10, W not bottom 10. Clinton mad overrated because he was lucky enough to get a boom economy.

[TakingBackSunday]

Also Jackson being that high

[shosta]

he's the father of american democracy

[thehunter116]

he's the father of american democracy

Nixon?

[benjipwns]

35. G.W. Bush   +5
beginning to be redeemed by history as he promised

[benjipwns]

William Henry Harrison got the same score across all three partisan groups, despite being in office for only a month and dying before Congress even came into session (other than a temporary one to approve his cabinet before he got sick), you can't give him 19 for that, you either leave him off or score him perfect, no inbetweens.

We're never going to get Wilson below 50% are we. 72/62/61 smh

They never ask for reasons on these, even if just for top five or so, plus recent W. and Obama or whatever. I still like that WSJ book for at least having someone write a case for every President which was an unique take on it.

Other than Trump, Democrats didn't rank a two term President lower than #31 (Nixon) and Republicans didn't rank a two-term President lower than #29 (Nixon) while Independents ranked one all the way down at #36 (Nixon). Next were W. Bush (#30 for D, #31 for I, and #23 for R's) and then Cleveland (#23 D's and I's) while Republicans went Madison (#22) before Cleveland (#20).

The highest ranked defeated after one-term Presidents are Adams (#15 D's and #10's I's, probably because of that HBO series) and H. W. Bush (#11 I's and #11 R's, though they didn't vote for him like that 25 years back). Republicans went for Taft next (#14) before Adams (#17). Democrats went for H.W. and J.Q. (#18 and #20). I's third place was also J.Q. but at #24. (Although technically, Obama at #6, #12 and #16 is the highest ranked non-legally elected President, as Hayes is down at #28 among all three groups.)

[benjipwns]

Respondents were asked if they were to add one president to those currently represented on Mt. Rushmore, who would it be, and then allowed to select any past or current president. The number and percentage of times each president was selected was then calculated.

how many said none? how many said we should blast that eyesore made by a guy who ran out of Klan funding for Stone Mountain off the face of it? i'll compromise and let us blow just the two on the right off

lmao i didn't know this sign had been put up:

[Himu]

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/01/republican-rising-stars/551657/

Worth noting and taking notes for this primary and mid-terms.