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US Politics: It’s Not A Crime If Your Feelings Got Hurt


Mr. Chatywin et al.

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6 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

This 'hot take' is a fucking joke.  What the fuck were they supposed to do?  The entire thing seems to be written from the angle of two Russia specialists on the White House Cybersecurity team who were pissed that Obama didn't go wit their counterstrike plans.  Trump and the entire right wing would have flipped out about how Obama was trying to influence the election if they went public earlier.  Fuck, when they tried to warn state electoral officials to check their security, that shithead in Georgia told them to fuck off.  

This is so fucking stupid and transparent.  

Looking back, on the bolded - Idon't think this is as big a deal as Obama thought it was. Obama should have acted, because Clinton winning was not a sure thing. That is entirely why he didn't, and as it turned out that was a massive error in judgment - because by not acting, he essentially allowed the Russians more time to do more damage and make it ambiguous that there had been anything going on. 

At this point I think there is literally no action that will make Trump and Fox and the right wing not flip out. With that as a given, placating them is foolish as anything to do with the strategy, and instead you really need to figure out what you actually want  done. Protecting the election needed to be a higher priority. Obama took it way too lightly. 

I understand his reasons why he chose not to do anything, but that understanding doesn't make his decision correct. 

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3 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Looking back, on the bolded - Idon't think this is as big a deal as Obama thought it was. Obama should have acted, because Clinton winning was not a sure thing. That is entirely why he didn't, and as it turned out that was a massive error in judgment - because by not acting, he essentially allowed the Russians more time to do more damage and make it ambiguous that there had been anything going on. 

At this point I think there is literally no action that will make Trump and Fox and the right wing not flip out. With that as a given, placating them is foolish as anything to do with the strategy, and instead you really need to figure out what you actually want  done. Protecting the election needed to be a higher priority. Obama took it way too lightly. 

I understand his reasons why he chose not to do anything, but that understanding doesn't make his decision correct. 

I just don't see what could have happened - anything would have looked like government overreach, would striking back at  / escalating with Russia have accomplished anything?  If it wasn't in the most lame duck period of time (no one gets Supreme Court nominations that late in a term, my goodness!) maybe.  I guess you announce the specific threat publicly and urge all state election officials to double down, understand the red states will pound fists into the sand and cry, and not do anything, and hope this helps?  I guess it would have been better.  But in the context of the report and how we deal with this now it seems kind of pointless to Monday morning quarterback this and started going all "Thanks, Obama".  Maybe it's true.  That op-ed was still a steaming pile of horseshit though.   

Would love some Trump supporters to rise to the occasion and try to change my mind here.  

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Just now, larrytheimp said:

I just don't see what could have happened - anything would have looked like government overreach, would striking back at  / escalating with Russia have accomplished anything? 

This past election - 2018 - the US specifically attacked a number of Russian IT sites and known government hacking installations, which likely set back any plans they had as well as disrupted existing operations. This is something that could have been done in 2016, and in fact the plan for it was basically the same plan they had in 2016 - but Obama said no. 

Obama said no because McConnell said he wouldn't go along with a bipartisan support. 

Just now, larrytheimp said:

If it wasn't in the most lame duck period of time (no one gets Supreme Court nominations that late in a term, my goodness!) maybe.  I guess you announce the specific threat publicly and urge all state election officials to double down, understand the red states will pound fists into the sand and cry, and not do anything, and hope this helps?  I guess it would have been better.  But in the context of the report and how we deal with this now it seems kind of pointless to Monday morning quarterback this and started going all "Thanks, Obama".  Maybe it's true.  That op-ed was still a steaming pile of horseshit though.   

Would love some Trump supporters to rise to the occasion and try to change my mind here.  

I'm not saying that Obama is somehow at fault for Trump's absurd lengths to work with criminals and hostile foreign agencies. But Obama had the opportunity to fight the Russian hacking. He had all the information about the actual attacks that he needed - really, none of that has changed significantly since 2016 - and knew precisely who to hit if he wanted to, and chose not to act. Again, I get why he chose not to act, but it doesn't excuse that it was a bad, bad choice - especially now that we know that a number of election officials WERE hit around the election time. 

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5 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

 

Obama said no because McConnell said he wouldn't go along with a bipartisan support. 

 

Talk about some treasonous shit.  

"I'd rather not secure our elections, unless by securing you mean making sure brown people don't vote".

Well, maybe.  I guess I'd err on the side of do something, especially if the reason not to that you're considering is whatever the spin from the right will be.  

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9 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

He’s argued for years that Trump is incredibly smart and playing dumb, but the report makes it undeniably clear that Trump is a complete idiot, who is so incompetent that he couldn’t even execute the crimes he was trying to commit.

This has literally always been obvious for anyone with a brain and even a shred of ability to look at things from the other side.  I mean, there is a certain reluctantly respectful aspect to the opposition if they're like this:

Still obviously be against everything they stood for and fight them and be about my father's business, but that's a fight I can understand.  Instead we have this:

 

17 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Idon't think this is as big a deal as Obama thought it was. Obama should have acted, because Clinton winning was not a sure thing. That is entirely why he didn't, and as it turned out that was a massive error in judgment - because by not acting, he essentially allowed the Russians more time to do more damage and make it ambiguous that there had been anything going on. 

Yep, I don't think he took the decision lightly, but it's also pretty clear this was probably the biggest mistake Obama made in his career.  Almost certain he'd acknowledge that privately too.  Trump's win has and will hurt his legacy, really, more than either of the Clintons.  His reticence on pushing his legislative agenda and going more aggressive on unilateral action?  Fine, that's being responsibly prudent.  This?  Too much so.

15 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

I just don't see what could have happened - anything would have looked like government overreach, would striking back at  / escalating with Russia have accomplished anything?  If it wasn't in the most lame duck period of time (no one gets Supreme Court nominations that late in a term, my goodness!) maybe.  I guess you announce the specific threat publicly and urge all state election officials to double down, understand the red states will pound fists into the sand and cry, and not do anything, and hope this helps?  I guess it would have been better.

I think you're right in terms of there wasn't much policywise that Obama could do to change things, but that's not the point.  If he got in there politically in enough time, he could have made the election about Obama-Trump instead of Hillary-Trump.  He did not want to do that because it's inappropriate, but if the opposition is being that openly and welcomingly corrupt then at some point you should stand up and say enough.  Especially if you're POTUS. 

In hindsight - and I'm definitely not saying I thought of this at the time - Obama should have started doing this when Trump publicly encouraged the Russians to hack her emails, which was sometime in July.  So that gives him a good 15 weeks to change the thought-process from Hillary v Trump to Obama v Trump.  Plenty of time, and I don't think anyone's gonna argue the latter is more likely to beat Trump.

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I've heard Axelrod argue (hardly an impartial source, but I agree with him here) that if Obama started publicly, and unilaterally making a bigger deal of Russian influence in the election the backlash would've been immense, and it would've helped Trump even more. Would've looked to a very large portion of the country llike he was putting his finger on the scale, which is exactly what he was seeking to avoid.

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38 minutes ago, Impmk2 said:

I've heard Axelrod argue (hardly an impartial source, but I agree with him here) that if Obama started publicly, and unilaterally making a bigger deal of Russian influence in the election the backlash would've been immense, and it would've helped Trump even more. Would've looked to a very large portion of the country llike he was putting his finger on the scale, which is exactly what he was seeking to avoid.

I know that that was the rationale given, but in hindsight that appears to be complete and utter bullshit. 

Plus, here's the thing - he could have actually done something against Russia covertly. There wasn't a requirement to say anything publicly. He could have attacked back, hard, and we know that he could have because he actually had the plans drawn up and chose not to do them. 

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21 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

You know what's really funny? She pretty well walked back all the comments she made under oath. She's not under oath anymore.

Them pointing the perjury barrel at her and forcing her to tell the truth is one of the few satisfying moments of the Trump era for me, like that gouty traitor Manafort being locked up. Hearing her smugly lie on the radio on a regular basis has been a steady assault on my sanity these years. It makes me wonder what country I'm in anymore.

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2 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

Good grief, did I break the thread?

Seems particularly in the last couple months activity goes quite down over the weekends.  Given it's Easter/Passover, that's even more understandable.

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4 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

Good grief, did I break the thread?

Yo, these eggs aren't going to color themselves. 

1 hour ago, DMC said:

Seems particularly in the last couple months activity goes quite down over the weekends.  Given it's Easter/Passover, that's even more understandable.

It's almost as if people spend their work hours on a book website. And then have other things to do on their leisure time.

Nah, that's impossible.

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FBI Arrests Leader Of Right-Wing Anti-Immigrant Militia In New Mexico
“This is a dangerous felon who should not have weapons around children and families,” New Mexico’s attorney general said after the arrest of Larry Mitchell Hopkins.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/larry-mitchell-hopkins-fbi-new-mexico-militia_n_5cbb93c4e4b06605e3ef5d81

Quote

 

His arrest came just two day after the American Civil Liberties Union alerted Balderas and New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham in a letter that an “armed fascist militia organization” was working to “kidnap and detain” asylum-seekers at gunpoint in the state. The group had posted a video Tuesday showing hundreds of detained immigrants, many of them children. A woman with the militia can be heard telling others not to point guns at the migrants as they wait for U.S. Border Patrol agents to arrive.

“The Trump administration’s vile racism has emboldened white nationalists and fascists to flagrantly violate the law,” the ACLU said in the letter.

The governor on Friday called on the militia to stand down. “Regular citizens have no authority to arrest or detain anyone,” Grisham said Friday.

 

 

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I have just received the latest issue of Scientific American. Again, it seems that the editors are looking for ways to annoy and expose the silliness of the Right in the US. First is a series of articles on women's reproductive health and all the missteps, stupidity and deaths that women have had to deal with. Dying in childbirth is going down everywhere else in the west except in the US. Greatest country in the world? Not where it counts. 

Next up is  graphic that shows the rise of censorship in the US, particularly of science and scientists, since 2016. Something is really rotten at the core of your culture. 

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Elizabeth Warren:

https://www.thecut.com/2019/04/elizabeth-warren-review-game-of-thrones-season-8.html#_ga=2.218631385.1500554987.1555891889-1153205886.1501001677

Quote

So this is it — season eight. Winter is here, the Wall is crushed, and only five episodes remain. With all these powerful women preparing for battle, will the mighty bank silence the army of the people? Will the army of the dead heading straight for Winterfell make all of this talk about breaking wheels irrelevant? We’ve got five episodes to find out if the people can truly break their chains, destroy the wheel, and rise up together to win.

 

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9 hours ago, Triskele said:

It's going to be very interesting to see what happens to Biden's standing in the polls as time goes by and others gain name recognition.  

I've seen some chatter that the Dems have two bases these days:  crudely and quickly one is people of color and progressives and the other is older whites that never went GOP, and obviously Biden fits one of those two much more closely.  I think it's fairly clear that these two bases were on display in the drawn out Clinton v. Obama fight of 2008.  

I imagine the older whiter group is also the group that is diminishing in depth due to duly departing. 

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