U.S. Politics: The Marionette Presidency Edition

[Zorral]

The amount of Russia planning, strategizing and implementing - 2016 trump election revelations everywhere everyday is astounding.  As well as the Cambridge Analytica stuff -- they were working on slogans already in 2015.  They are the ones who came up with 'crooked Hillary'.  In 2013 they were testing 'deep state' and 'drain the swamp.'  Gotta strart really early on these things, and play the long game.  The Dems just frackin' NEVER get that.  O, and that one needs to invest a very great deal of money in support of everything, including television stations and other media.

[Zorral]

BTW -- Some Are Saying Ecuador may be about terminate Assange's asylum and give him over to the Brits (which has been Said more than once previously, right?).  So far it seems only to be in the sources that many sorts don't like, but the Ecuadorian President is arriving in Britain today.  However, the Russians are screaming:

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/07/21/assa-j21.html

Also Bannon setting up European networks to take out democratic parties, etc., just as he's done here.  They're specifically targeting Angela Merkle, 'hillaryizing' her:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/inside-bannons-plan-to-hijack-europe-for-the-far-right?

Progressives, futurists, etc. have attempted to visualize a world government for at least a century.  It looks as though the first -- and probably only one -- will be white supremacist, nazi, fascist, environment, human rights, science hating types, xtian-israel rightists etc.  Good news for nations generally and the world as a whole!

 

 

[Martell Spy]

What It Was Like to Be Called Out by Putin During the Helsinki Press Conference

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/07/bill-browder-on-being-called-out-by-putin-during-the-helsinki-press-conference.html

 

Quote

 

Of all the enemies and opponents Russia faces, of all the things Putin’s worried about, why does he come back to you again and again?

It’s real simple. Putin is a kleptocrat. It means he steals money from his government. He doesn’t steal in the tens of thousands or the hundreds of thousands. He steals in the tens of billions. He’s stealing a lot of money from his country. The money that he’s stealing from his country has to go somewhere. So he puts this money into the hands of Russian oligarchs who become his trustees, and they hold this money offshore. In order to steal this money, he’s got to commit grave crimes. Sometimes he has to kill people, like he killed my lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky.

 

 

[Martell Spy]

Michael Cohen privately questions Trump's fitness to be president

https://www.axios.com/michael-cohen-questions-trumps-fitness-to-be-president-e1ce27b0-414b-4e26-b135-4996687dc06e.html

Quote

Friends of Michael Cohen have noticed that since Trump's Helsinki press conference with Vladimir Putin he's been more openly questioning Trump's fitness to be president. "It's one thing for him [Cohen] to be concerned about his suitability to be president," a knowledgeable source told me. "It's quite another thing to be concerned about his [Trump's] loyalty to his country."

 

[Martell Spy]

Enough Already With The ‘Trump Voters Still Like Trump’ Stories

https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5b50ee0ae4b0b15aba8cea6b

Quote

When Republicans in power criticize Trump in harsh terms, they’re reflecting the president’s weakness. Unusually large numbers of people hate him, and he is unusually unpopular with Republicans in Congress. It’s not normal for a president to come under fire from his own party members as Trump has come under fire from Republican members of Congress. No Democratic senator accused Barack Obama of having “no principles and beliefs.”

 

[LongRider]

12 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

Enough Already With The ‘Trump Voters Still Like Trump’ Stories

https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5b50ee0ae4b0b15aba8cea6b

 

I swear I hear another one of these on NPR I'll puke, they are sickening.

[Jace, Extat]

6 minutes ago, LongRider said:

I swear I hear another one of these on NPR I'll puke, they are sickening.

I just like what he's doing with the economy!

[LongRider]

32 minutes ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

I just like what he's doing with the economy!

I heard one say "me and the wife watch Fox every night ". No shit, now that is news.    

[Centrist Simon Steele]

I know there's no fissure in the Democrats, but yeah, there's a fissure. Moderate Dems are starting to sound like conservatives. "You're not going to make me hate somebody just because they're rich. I want to be rich!" Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, a potential presidential candidate, said Friday to laughs."

Aside from mis-characterizing the argument of progressives, he's sounding like a Fox News host.

Others say progressive, medicare for all policies may work where Ocasio-Cortez comes from, but not for the rest of America. They say this thinking needs to end--they're tired of losing. Which is interesting because the Dems aren't losing on ASO and Sanders' platform. They're losing on their moderate platform. These guys are doomed.

[Mexal]

1 hour ago, Simon Steele said:

I know there's no fissure in the Democrats, but yeah, there's a fissure. Moderate Dems are starting to sound like conservatives. "You're not going to make me hate somebody just because they're rich. I want to be rich!" Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, a potential presidential candidate, said Friday to laughs."

Aside from mis-characterizing the argument of progressives, he's sounding like a Fox News host.

Others say progressive, medicare for all policies may work where Ocasio-Cortez comes from, but not for the rest of America. They say this thinking needs to end--they're tired of losing. Which is interesting because the Dems aren't losing on ASO and Sanders' platform. They're losing on their moderate platform. These guys are doomed.

They're not winning on ASO/Sanders' platform either. Winning a primary on less than 10% of the vote in a highly democratic district doesn't mean you have a winning platform that will work across the country. In most areas in the country, Sanders' backed candidate has gotten whooped.

At end of the day, the midterms will be a referendum on Trump and the Republican Congress. Turnout and enthusiasm will win the day and that will be driven by the desire to check Trump. The national Dem platform won't really matter.

[Zorral]

As if anyone will bother turning out to vote for Biden, etc.

The overall win by  Ocasio-Cortez win was more like 15% in the Queens district -- where her opponent is the Chair of the Dem party.  This win, against an incumbent so incumbed that no one had bothered to even run in the primaries against him for the last elections, in a campaign that no one in the media covered (with the exception of one young woman at the NY Times, the Times never printed anything though), and no one else paid attention to in the state and city's Dem establishment -- is not a thing to discount, one might well think.

And dayem, she's so much more articulate and photogenic than Crowley.  And a lot harder working.

I do wish though that the media didn't immediately anoint her a media superstar.  That's never good, especially when one won a primary, and not the election (yet).  Especially in a country that continues to become more overtly and publicly racist and white supremacist by the day.

 

 

 

[Morpheus]

Joe Crowley is still going to be on the ballot, even though he claims he is not running. And The WORST Democrat, Joe Lieberman, is pushing for voters to go for Crowley. Chuck and Nancy aren’t really helping either.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

3 hours ago, Mexal said:

They're not winning on ASO/Sanders' platform either. Winning a primary on less than 10% of the vote in a highly democratic district doesn't mean you have a winning platform that will work across the country. In most areas in the country, Sanders' backed candidate has gotten whooped.

At end of the day, the midterms will be a referendum on Trump and the Republican Congress. Turnout and enthusiasm will win the day and that will be driven by the desire to check Trump. The national Dem platform won't really matter.

I wonder about the argument of Sanders and Ocasio Cortez though. Isn't she asserting that she had to work hard to get people to turn out? I don't know about Sanders backed candidates or how they approached their campaigns--or what problems they had, but I think we don't know what this message will look like as it couples with candidates people like. Like Ocasio Cortez or Sanders. 

Either way, my bigger point is that the rift in the party is real.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

1 hour ago, Morpheus said:

Joe Crowley is still going to be on the ballot, even though he claims he is not running. And The WORST Democrat, Joe Lieberman, is pushing for voters to go for Crowley. Chuck and Nancy aren’t really helping either.

This kind of thing makes the infighting look worse. I doubt anything will come of it, but if Lieberman were to get his way, imagine the trouble it will cause--if somehow Crowley ended up winning over her.

[Martell Spy]

2 hours ago, Morpheus said:

Joe Crowley is still going to be on the ballot, even though he claims he is not running. And The WORST Democrat, Joe Lieberman, is pushing for voters to go for Crowley. Chuck and Nancy aren’t really helping either.

Yeah, I saw a story about the Lieberman thing. It gave me a good laugh. I don't think Lieberman is a good endorsement for a Democrat to have in 2018. It's like getting kissed by the grim reaper.

[Seli]

5 hours ago, Simon Steele said:

I know there's no fissure in the Democrats, but yeah, there's a fissure. Moderate Dems are starting to sound like conservatives. "You're not going to make me hate somebody just because they're rich. I want to be rich!" Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, a potential presidential candidate, said Friday to laughs."...

Which shouldn't surprise anyone, because the Democratic party is a centre-right party as well as the most progressive main party in the US.

[Mexal]

1 hour ago, Simon Steele said:

I wonder about the argument of Sanders and Ocasio Cortez though. Isn't she asserting that she had to work hard to get people to turn out? I don't know about Sanders backed candidates or how they approached their campaigns--or what problems they had, but I think we don't know what this message will look like as it couples with candidates people like. Like Ocasio Cortez or Sanders. 

Either way, my bigger point is that the rift in the party is real.

I'm sure she did. NY primary season is weird as they have one for Congressional candidates and one later in the summer for everything else. I imagine she worked very hard to get people out but the district vote was still only 10% of the registered voters. So yea, she won, but I'm not sure she would have won if the NY primary season included the Governor for example.

As for the rift, of course it is. But while I agree with some of their policies conceptually, I have very little faith that any of them could actually pass in today's political environment. So like the tea party, Trumpists, evangelists and fiscal conservatives for the Republicans, the Democrats who are within Sanders/AOC's wing will have to suck it up and vote for the Democratic candidate or else there will be a result akin to 2016. Rift or not, they have to vote and they should vote against Trump since his actions, rather than his words, are antithetical to everything they believe in.

[OldGimletEye]

3 hours ago, Simon Steele said:

I know there's no fissure in the Democrats, but yeah, there's a fissure. Moderate Dems are starting to sound like conservatives. "You're not going to make me hate somebody just because they're rich. I want to be rich!" Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, a potential presidential candidate, said Friday to laughs."

Aside from mis-characterizing the argument of progressives, he's sounding like a Fox News host.

Others say progressive, medicare for all policies may work where Ocasio-Cortez comes from, but not for the rest of America. They say this thinking needs to end--they're tired of losing. Which is interesting because the Dems aren't losing on ASO and Sanders' platform. They're losing on their moderate platform. These guys are doomed.

This is I think is the different dynamic in the parties.

Repubicans are always supremely confident in their ideas, even if they are horribly wrong or proven to be wrong. And they sit around and yell at each other about who is the most conservative.

Democrats on the other hand always have to sit there and handwring over everything.

[Zorral]

2 hours ago, Simon Steele said:

I wonder about the argument of Sanders and Ocasio Cortez though. Isn't she asserting that she had to work hard to get people to turn out? I don't know about Sanders backed candidates or how they approached their campaigns--or what problems they had, but I think we don't know what this message will look like as it couples with candidates people like. Like Ocasio Cortez or Sanders. 

Either way, my bigger point is that the rift in the party is real.

The rift has been there for several election cycles -- it's not something that has just started.  What is happening is that the establishment, i,e, conservative Dems are starting to worry about it.

Gore putting the vile Lieberman on the ticket contributed no little bit to his loss (as well as the corruption in Florida vote recounts etc,). Still if only his own state had voted for him none of this would have happened -- that's what a lousy out-of-touch candidate he was.  I even ended up writing a piece for a San Antonio paper on why Gore would lose . . . .  The worst?  The Dems have never learned a gdded thing from this, after all these years.  They just keep doubling down on the samed dmed behaviors and outlooks.  Why (other than they no more than the rethug give a damn about the country or the voters)?

BTW, the early indications are that both Ocasio-Cortez and Nixon are pushing Cuomo toward more progressive stances.  Not that it matters outside of NY state, as he's not going to be the Dem candidate for POTUS anyway, no matter how much he's got the bug, like his daddy had it before him, and how it seems most NY govs get it.  I suppose that's the fault of the four NY Governor who did manage to do it -- though that is far fewer than those who tried.

 

 

[Mexal]

Cuomo is a corrupt ass. Hope he goes down with all of his cronies.