U.S. Politics 2016: It Can't Happen Here

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

This will likely be the first disagreement between Trump and Congressional Republicans. It will be interesting to see how Trump reacts and behaves and to see how much spine McConnell et al will shoe:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mcconnell-trillion-stimulus-trump_us_584ec5d4e4b04c8e2bb09e2c

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, All-for-Joffrey said:

 

Generally, when you're shouting "treason" with baseless accusations of collusion with the Russians to discredit your political opponents, you're pretty much channeling a central component of McCarthyism and the Red Scare. 

 

I did read the article. (It actually did mention communism vs. eastern orthodoxy in the context of an explanation as to why American social conservatives are now becoming more pro-Kremlin.) At any rate, McCarthyism wasn't just about suppressing communism -- it was also using a generalized Cold War fear of Russia to suppress due process, free speech, democratic norms, etc. Which brings me back to your treason allegations: 

 

Which laws have Trump/Republicans broken in relation to their relationship with Russia? Hmmm? Do tell. I'm curious. And again, your definition of treason isn't legally permissible (see Altherion's post). If you're speaking more generally and not legally then you have quite a bit of explaining to do as to why politicians and political operatives who work with countries like Israel or Saudi Arabia or Taiwan or groups like the MEK aren't guilty of "treason" but those who work with the Russians are. 

All of the news networks etc. today are talking about this and the word treason is present.

As for the redbaiting that was YOU reading into it.  I never said that and I never would Putin's a biz deal guy and none of them whether Russian, USian, from wherever have any interest in communism or socialism, but quite the opposite -- they do not want.

You also appear to to be hunching your fur all out of orders because people aren't talking here about what YOU want to talk about. Just sayin'  how it looks.  After all, YOU are YELLING at people.

 

 

[Castel]

2 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

This will likely be the first disagreement between Trump and Congressional Republicans. It will be interesting to see how Trump reacts and behaves and to see how much spine McConnell et al will shoe:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mcconnell-trillion-stimulus-trump_us_584ec5d4e4b04c8e2bb09e2c

It's  not the first. McConnell basically told him to go fuck himself on term limits.

[Kalbear]

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And again, this is what you have repeatedly refused to offer evidence for. What do you mean "we've seen this in the past?" Do you mean we've seen it with Trump, the RNC et co and Russia or do you just mean that we've seen people commit treason before? If it's the former, please enlighten me; I'm legitimate curious. If it's the latter, congratulation, you've just proven that people have committed treason in the past. Ok....

First off, please fix your quoting or don't bother quoting. It's a huge pain to respond to you at all this way. 

I was saying that giving 'aid' by conspiring to commit espionage acts has been shown to be treason in the past. So the notion that if someone aided a foreign government in hacking information is not treason is not actually accurate. You had mentioned that it can't be treason. That isn't the case. It certainly can be treason. 

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Excuse me? I almost typed a personal attack there -- that's how angry that made me. Just because someone disagrees with you doesn't make them a "Russia puppet." I've been consistently critical of Russia and Putin throughout this thread -- and in general. Clearly you haven't seen my posts in the MENA thread from a a year ago. No I am not a puppet for an autocratic, corrupt, kleptocratic, human rights violating regime. The whole reason I came into this thread in the first  place was to post about the VOA/Broadcasting Board issues, and I even mentioned the potential of the damaging Russian connection there. So I know you evidently enjoy flinging mud without evidence but you will end that fucking line of discourse right there and stop the baseless accusations that I'm a "Putin puppet." Pathetic. I'm not a "Putin puppet" for pointing out that your insinuations of treason are groundless hysterics. 

Since you care so deeply about reading comprehension, note that I didn't accuse you of being a Russian puppet - I said I have a few friends who are all about that now. 

That said, you appear to be perfectly fine accepting the behavior of Putin towards the US provided that the US has done it in the past against other countries. As long as you can yell out hypocrisy, you're good with it. And hey, that's cool. 

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As for "blaming random Democrats" this has nothing to do with that. I'm not denying Russian interference and I didn't bring up any other armchair post-election analysis -- I haven't even posted in this thread since the election. This is just like the time you thought i was Caliban and accusing me of posting something that I never posted on Facebook even though we're not even Facebook friends. Put your foot in your mouth right now and just stop. 

No, I thought you were cocomaan. Which I still believe you to be. Given your quotes in your sig, I see no reason to think otherwise. Do you claim otherwise? Odd to have so many references to Coco if not.

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And for the millionth time since ya'll don't have basic reading comprehension, my stance is perfectly clear. I have repeatedly said there needs to be an investigation into Russian interference in the elections (and there will be). I've also said it's incredibly disingenuous for you to link this investigation to treason or insinuate that it will turn up in the course of the investigation because you have no fucking evidence. 

And hey, thought you weren't going to go into personal attacks. Your stance is clearly not perfectly clear since multiple people have called you on what it is, and why it's odd. 

You've claimed it's disingenuous to state that it could be treason. You've compared it to the behaviors of people who, after an investigation still yelled for someone to be jailed. How are these things remotely comparable? Again, the statement is very simple: if certain links are found, it is potentially treasonous behavior. If other links are found, it's very likely impeachable behavior. That's all! That you equate expressing the potential outcome of an investigation with wanting to punish someone after the investigation was done is itself extraordinarily disingenuous. How are these things remotely comparable? Is saying 'someone shot someone else and it could be murder' disingenuous? 

We have a lot of admittedly circumstantial evidence that has been revealed as well as a whole lot of analysis stating more is to come. It is not unreasonable to think that there is more to it there. What WOULD be unreasonable is to ignore the notion that it is treasonous behavior if it is true. 

[All-for-Joffrey]

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All of the news networks etc. today are talking about this and the word treason is present.

Oh my, if the word "treason" is shouted by talking heads and political hacks all over cable news, it MUST be true! 

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As for the redbaiting that was YOU reading into it.

You literally said: 

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It's still treason. 

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You also appear to to be hunching your fur all out of orders because people aren't talking here about what YOU want to talk about. Just sayin'  how it looks.  After all, YOU are YELLING at people.

I'm not angry because no one's talking about the VOA stuff (even though it's much more important than your treason crap). I'm angry because I have people like Kalbear and Cat calling me things like "Putin puppet" and making me repeat myself ad nausem to conceal the fact that your treason arguments have basically zero merit. 

[All-for-Joffrey]

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First off, please fix your quoting or don't bother quoting. It's a huge pain to respond to you at all this way. 

I was saying that giving 'aid' by conspiring to commit espionage acts has been shown to be treason in the past. So the notion that if someone aided a foreign government in hacking information is not treason is not actually accurate. You had mentioned that it can't be treason. That isn't the case. It certainly can be treason.

What planet are you living on?  That's the only possible instance of treason that I outlined and I never denied that it had been done in the past. If that's the case, it would certainly be treason. Again, the issue is that you have no evidence that Trump, the RNC, McConnell, Manafort, etc. have aided Putin the hacking. And it's a ludicrouss conspiracy theory. Putin is perfectly capable of hacking US email servers without inside collusion. I can't tell if you're being deliberately obtuse to obfuscate the lack of evidence you have to support your allegations that Republicans may have helped Russia hack.

 

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Since you care so deeply about reading comprehension, note that I didn't accuse you of being a Russian puppet - I said I have a few friends who are all about that now. 

That said, you appear to be perfectly fine accepting the behavior of Putin towards the US provided that the US has done it in the past against other countries. As long as you can yell out hypocrisy, you're good with it. And hey, that's cool.

You said I "deeply want to appease Russia for some reason." So yeah, you basically lumped me in there with the Putin puppets and you need to stop that shit right this instance. And again, back to reading comprehension, I have said over and over again in this very thread that it's an issue and that it needs to be investigated. And yet you and Cat are trying to smear me as trying to "appease" Russia because I'm not sufficiently screaming about treason allegations. You seriously don't see how childish that is?

I explicitly said that CIA intervention in other elections does not justify Russia doing it to us. However, I said that in the context of Cat asking why I wasn't "outraged" so I explained that other countries have had it a lot worse and yet Americans don't care as much when we do it to other countries but are all besides themselves when it happens to them and their candidate loses. Also, there's also the element of how effective it was. I don't think it was very effective because I doubt that the nature of the material they released really changed any minds so much as solidified people's stances. I'd be much more "outraged"/"disturbed" if they were hacking voting machines, etc. As I said, the disturbing part is their intent to meddle in US elections. The way they did it (hacking private emails and making them publicly available) isn't that concerning when you put in the perspective of the grand scheme of things -- particularly juxtaposed with the fact that the CIA has literally orchestrated coups to overthrow democratically elected governments -- up until this very century mind you. 

 

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What WOULD be unreasonable is to ignore the notion that it is treasonous behavior if it is true.

 

Yes. It would be unreasonable. It's also unreasonable to throw around baseless, illogical insinuations based on conspiracy theories. Again why would Russia need help hacking the DNC/RNC? It makes no sense. Politicians and political operatives aren't exactly skilled hackers. Russia's proxy groups (Fancy Bears, etc) know how to do it on their own and have done on their own repeatedly in other countries without inside help. Jesus, just apply a little common sense. Or not. I guess it's just easier to paint me as a Putin apologist or w/e. 

ETA: Didn't mean to mess up the quoting again, but the quote system is crap and I don't feel like figuring out how to deal with all that right now. Deal with it. 

 

[Altherion]

23 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

As pointed out, the skeletons didn't really matter here. They were typical politics, and it is likely that if Sanders, Obama, or any one else had been hacked there would be 'outrageous' comments about random people here and there.

I don't think so. The DNC wasn't breaking the rules by feeding Sanders debate questions and Sanders has no neoliberal dreams. There might have been something in his correspondence, but it would not have been anywhere near as effective.

26 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

And while the concept of people meddling in our elections is not a particularly outrageous concept, it does make the US a significantly lower class of country compared to what it was. This was something that had been fairly unthinkable prior to this year. Yes, it's perfectly understandable that other countries want to do it, but the outrage is not 'meddling with election' and is instead 'meddling with US election'.

You know, that Guardian article I linked earlier has a video which shows Donald Trump saying practically the same thing, albeit in different words. He phrases it as Russia, China and the other significant powers no longer having any respect for the US and thinking of us as weak.

32 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

The real concern I have is the asymmetry of this kind of attack. The US, being a Democracy, is vulnerable to this in a way that Russia is not. There's very little the US can do that is of a similar vein of attack. That concerns me quite a bit, and makes me think that democracies are going to die because they're simply too vulnerable to manipulation from external sources.

There exist means of destabilizing and manipulating nearly every political system from the outside. In fact, it can be argued that the more corruption there is within a system, the more vulnerable it is to manipulation -- although authoritarianism does counterbalance this to some extent.

[Bennis of the Brown Shield]

6 minutes ago, Altherion said:

I don't think so. The DNC wasn't breaking the rules by feeding Sanders debate questions and Sanders has no neoliberal dreams. There might have been something in his correspondence, but it would not have been anywhere near as effective.

You know, that Guardian article I linked earlier has a video which shows Donald Trump saying practically the same thing, albeit in different words. He phrases it as Russia, China and the other significant powers no longer having any respect for the US and thinking of us as weak.

There exist means of destabilizing and manipulating nearly every political system from the outside. In fact, it can be argued that the more corruption there is within a system, the more vulnerable it is to manipulation -- although authoritarianism does counterbalance this to some extent.

Which is also a good explanation for why Russia looks the way it does today. They had their fill of liberal democracy after US-supported idiots like Yeltsin and his kleptocrat friends totally messed up their country. 

[Fragile Bird]

7 hours ago, Crazy Cat Lady in Training said:

I don't know what's worse. That the RNC and Republicans weren't hacked at all, or that yes they were but the Russians didn't release it to blackmail them. 

Maybe I understood Priebus wrong but I don't think I did. Our media people are such spineless morons--no way Chuck Todd should have let that go and and let him get the last word. No way in hell. 

so...now I understand the RNC was not hacked, some of their contractors and associated groups were hacked.

[OldGimletEye]

21 minutes ago, Altherion said:

You know, that Guardian article I linked earlier has a video which shows Donald Trump saying practically the same thing, albeit in different words. He phrases it as Russia, China and the other significant powers no longer having any respect for the US and thinking of us as weak..

So is Donald Trump lookin to win a medal in the Chicken Hawk Olympics?
He's certainly got some stiff competition in many of the categories:
1. In the talk big, carry a little stick competition there is  - John Bolton
2. In the college deferment decathlon there is - Dick Cheney.
3. In the blow off the sound advice of the army chief of staff competition  there is - Paul Wolfowitz
4. In the parade around like your Horatio Nelson and you've just won at Tralfagar competition there is - Dubya.
5. In the I'll order the Sixth Fleet towards the mid-east, but have no idea what they are going to do when they get there competition, there is - Carly Fiorina.

[Fragile Bird]

3 hours ago, Rippounet said:

Debunked already. Trump started blasting the F35 a couple of days ago:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/trump-says-keystone-xl-news-coming-soon-blasts-f-35-costs-and-the-cia-1.3891799

 

<NVM>

The shares dumped were too small a quantity.  Coincidence, I'd say.

 

[Kalbear]

Yeah, sorry @All For Joffrey/Coco but I'm going to stop responding to you until you can fix your quotes. Good luck with that, Will. 

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There exist means of destabilizing and manipulating nearly every political system from the outside. In fact, it can be argued that the more corruption there is within a system, the more vulnerable it is to manipulation -- although authoritarianism does counterbalance this to some extent.

I think the opposite now. The corruption hurts, sure, but exposing corruption in, say, Russia doesn't matter. We saw as much with the Panama papers - Putin and his cronies were repeatedly mentioned, and aside from Putin being pissed off it didn't actually change anything.

Whereas a Democracy can be manipulated fairly easily with or without corruption. You don't even need corruption; you simply need people that think it might be the case, and are willing to buy fake news. Brexit, for instance, didn't win because of corrupt officials at all. And Trump got fed debate questions and apparently that doesn't matter, either. 

Corruption matters to specific people, as it turns out. It doesn't tend to matter to conservative voters, who only care about corruption if it makes their person not part of their in group or makes them less valuable as an authority figure. You'll see this all the time - excuses are fine once they've said sorry or done their time or done some kind of repentance, and from then on the group will bend over backwards attempting to apologize for them. It matters to liberal voters because that goes directly against one of their two primary values - fairness. And being seen as unfair is profoundly offensive to liberal-minded people, far more so than conservative-minded people. And since there is less protection of ingroup, they're a lot more willing to kick that person out. 

[Mexal]

What a surprise. No chance Trump was going to hold a press conference prior to the electors voting. He gets praise for announcing he's working on figuring out how to avoid conflicts of interests with his business then pulls out last minute with limited fanfare or criticism.

[All-for-Joffrey]

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Yeah, sorry @All For Joffrey/Coco but I'm going to stop responding to you until you can fix your quotes.

Jesus Christ, for the second time, I'm not Cocomon. I don't know how you got that in your head. You really need to stop conflating me with your Facebook friends (whether that's calling me Cocomon or calling me a Russia appeaser/apologist). Easy there John McCain. 

ETA: I mean, my Facebook pic is right there as my profile pic. Do I look like him or something? What gives? 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

I've never known Coco to be a Russia apologist.

[Kalbear]

4 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I've never known Coco to be a Russia apologist.

I don't think AfJ is either. Him being a muslim studies guy with a vendetta against RhaegarTar, now that he was. 

[Yukle]

27 minutes ago, Mexal said:

What a surprise. No chance Trump was going to hold a press conference prior to the electors voting. He gets praise for announcing he's working on figuring out how to avoid conflicts of interests with his business then pulls out last minute with limited fanfare or criticism.

That's unsurprising. As he pointed out, he could shoot somebody and it'd make no difference.

He has essentially appointed the White-Man's anti-Christs to his cabinet and they still love him for some reason. If they think things were bad under Obama, well they can suffer no wage increases for the rest of forever under this lot - if they keep their jobs at all.

[Altherion]

Jill Stein's recount quest is more or less over:

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In a 31-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Paul Diamond in Philadelphia said it “borders on the irrational” to suspect hacking occurred in Pennsylvania. He also emphasized that the deadline to certify the state’s electoral votes is Tuesday, making it impossible to hold a recount in time.

...

In Wisconsin, Trump’s margin over Clinton increased by 131 votes to 22,748 from 22,617 following the recount, according to the state elections commission.

So, out of the three states that she went after, only Wisconsin had a recount... but it wound up very slightly increasing Trump's margin of victory. On the bright side for her, the Green Party is now flush with cash as two of the recounts did not take place and she's not obliged to return the money.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

8 minutes ago, Altherion said:

Jill Stein's recount quest is more or less over:

So, out of the three states that she went after, only Wisconsin had a recount... but it wound up very slightly increasing Trump's margin of victory. On the bright side for her, the Green Party is now flush with cash as two of the recounts did not take place and she's not obliged to return the money.

She paid the fee in Michigan, despite them not completing the recount.

[Swordfish]

12 hours ago, larrytheimp said:

Make America Snorkel Again!

Ha!