When it comes to betrayal, sometimes nothing is as therapeutic as fire and a trending hashtag.
At least, that's what some supporters of President Donald Trump found as they processed and protested his apparent decision to work with Democratic leaders on border security and the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which has shielded nearly hundreds of thousands of young immigrants from deportation.
Awwww...such a shame...look at all those pissed off Twitter users. I wonder if they are real people or merely Russian trollbots
Meet Melvin Redick. He's from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and he hates liberals, especially that bitch Hillary Clinton. He wants you to go to the #DCLeaks web site and learn more. He has a cute picture of himself with a backwards baseball cap and his face painted daughter. What a model American!
One problem, though.
He doesn't exist.
Melvin Redick is one of thousands of fake social media profiles created by Russian troll farms in order to tip the election to Donald Trump. A few days ago, Facebook disclosed that they had shut down several hundred accounts that they believe were created by a Russian company linked to the Kremlin and used to buy $100,000 in ads pushing divisive issues during and after the American election campaign. How many more are out there like Melvin Ridick's?
I realize that there are millions of Trump supporters out there who are like pigs in slop right now. Liberals are pissed. Heads are all 'splodey and stuff. Yay, us! But you need to understand something right now and it's very, very important that you do.
If you think all this Russian stuff is liberal elitist claptrap, you are supporting treason. And you are going to pay for it.
I came across a reader letter today in the Minneapolis Star and Tribune that struck me as very interesting. The gist of it was that Trump is better for the liberal agenda in office than out of it. Every time he tries to work with Congress in pursuing the conservative agenda, he gets in his own way with something. Whether it's his child like behavior, another thread pulled in the Russian scandal or some other buffoonish gaff, nothing is getting done in Washington in terms of what the GOP wants. Isn't that a good thing?
I thought it about it for a while and realized there needs to be a cost benefit analysis performed. On the one had, the reader is right. Trump is the GOP's worst enemy in terms of policy change. Yet, the damage he is doing to our hegemony in the world is significant. Which is worse?
The latest "worst week" for President Trump does seem a little different than the other ones in that some members of his party, the business world, and the military are abandoning him in terms of his "both sides are bad" comments last week in references to Nazis and the Antifa movement. It's not different for his supporters, though, as we see in this front page storyfrom the New York Times.
The Times has done a very good job of keeping the focus on Trump's supporters (the real problem) because they are the ones that put him in office. In looking at these folks in the piece, one can see why they still support him. They are very tribal and their tribe hates liberals and anyone they deem elitist. They are naive and are loathe to give an inch to the concerns of liberals. They feel to picked on and see Trump as their champion. They are experiencing the sunk cost fallacy i.e they are too emotionally invested to back out now.
I was particularly struck by the naivete of Parson Hicks, the young black woman who has failed in an epic fashion to see how her dear leader is emboldening Nazis. Worse, she seems to be cheering on his inability to reflect and take criticism. Her comments in this piece made me realize ignorance doesn't excuse guilt and complicity.
I LMAO when I read the comments from Larry Laughlin.
Larry Laughlin, a retired businessman from a Minneapolis suburb, compares Mr. Trump to a high school senior who could “walk up to the table with the jocks and the cheerleaders and put them in their place.” That is something that the “nerds and the losers, whose dads are unemployed and moms are working in the cafeteria,” could never do. Mr. Trump may be rich, he said, but actually belonged at the nerd table.
“The guys who wouldn’t like me wouldn’t like Trump,” he said. “The guys who were condescending to him were condescending to me. “I feel like I’m watching my uncle up there. Where me and Chuck Schumer — that’s like going to the dentist,” he added, referring to the Democratic leader in the Senate.
This goes back to a theory (now completely confirmed) that I had back when I posted on The Smallest Minority. These guys were bullied back in school and now the nation has to pay for their psychological trauma. Worse, they have hitched their wagon to a con man's star who has always been the guy who was at the elite's table and picked on the nerds. The fact that they are falling for this act illustrates just how fucking poor their judgement is.
The Chuck Schumer comment also confirms another one of points. Like adolescents, they don't want to be responsible and go to the dentist. Why on earth should we trust them with the security of this nation?
These people represent a very real danger to our country. I have no doubt that Donald Trump could, in fact, stand in the middle of 5th Avenue, shoot someone and get away with it. Many would call him a murderer and Trump's supporters? Their first reaction would be contrary. They would get angry at the liberal media for reporting fake news. They would blame the person Trump shot for being anti-American and elitist.
Hey, conservatives, Mike Pence looking more attractive these days?
The presidency of Donald Trump really went into the shitter this week as he all too willingly fell into the "Cult of Both Sides" defense of the Nazis and other white supremacists that were marching in Charlottesville, VA last weekend. Like the right wing bloggers and commenters that worship him, Trump tried to dodge the responsibility of fomenting racist assholes by making it seem like liberals are bad and stuff too.
This drew swift condemnation from many people across the political spectrum and Trump has grown increasingly isolated from his own party. Senator Corker from Tennessee recently questioned his competence and capacity to serve as president. Business leaders withdrew from his economic councils, ultimately causing their collapse. Steve Bannon was fired from his position as Chief Strategist. What does it all mean?
Not all that much when you take a look at the polls. The problem isn't really Trump and we need to start shifting away from him. The problem is his supporters. The polls show they are sticking with him even if the majority of the country is not. I saw a lot of liberals in my news feed delighted at Bannon being gone. Who cares? Bannon isn't the problem. Trump isn't the problem. They are merely playing to a need that's out there. This need is pretty fucking dark if you consider they are willing to excuse literal Nazis being emboldened and moving to act. So, what are our options in deal with these people?
The best option is to build a larger and sustaining coalition that buries them at the polls in EVERY SINGLE ELECTION, including the odd year, local elections. The only reason why they win is due to complacency. It has nothing to do with their message being more popular. They simply are better voters. The good guys need more and better voters.
The second best option is to let them fuck up in the sunlight. The age of social media means you can't really do anything anonymously anymore. Take a look at what happened to some of the marchers in last week's protests in Charlottesville. Or how about Crying Chris Cantwell? Most of these folks talk a good game but, in the final analysis, they are limp noodles. Don't try to ban them from your college campus or stop their open and lawful protest. Give them a mic and let them talk. Put them out in front of every major news organization on television and online. If good people are going to build larger and sustaining coalitions to stop them, they need to have a continual reminder about what we are up against.
Stop attacking Trump. That doesn't mean that you can't relay what he has done or said. Since he thrives on the attention, take it away from him and put it on the people that support him. They are going to be around a lot longer than he is. The good news is that there are more of us than there are of them. Let's use that advantage wisely.
The last few days have seen me come to a stark realization about Trump and his supporters. They don't know what to do now that they are governing so they can't govern. How do you lead when your core ideology is to be contrarian?
I base this on two cold and rational facts. First, these are very tribal people. If you are in The Cult, you can do whatever you want. You can stand in the middle of the 5th Avenue and shoot someone and no one will care. Fareed Zakaria explores this in depth in the video below.
Take this information and couple it with this.
So, we have a very tribal people who exist only to troll. Where does that leave us? With this...
If you had told me six years ago that the American Left would be self-destructing as rapidly and violently as they appear to be today, I'd have had you committed. But bear in mind, their "long march through the institutions" has secured their (ever more tenuous) grasp on the reins of power. They own academia, the media, and the entertainment industry almost completely, and that's still a lot of power, power they won't surrender easily.
Before I get back to my original point...hmm...let's see...Donald Trump has been a successful member of the media and entertainment industry for several decades. And he's their champion? Wow, Just wow...talk about being conned...hook, line and sinker...
More importantly (and back to my original point), this proves that they can't fucking govern. It's still all the liberal elite's fault and all they know is plots, secret conspiracies, and being a whiny troll. Never in my life have I seen a group of people so incapable of reflection. They won. They run the entire government. And still, somehow, they take ZERO responsibility for their fuck up after fuck up.
When they lose next year (and it's going to be massive), the cognitive dissonance is going to be nuclear.
CNN has new polling out that has some pretty bad news for the president. Trump’s “strong approval” among Republicans has dropped from 73 percent in February, shortly after he took office, to 59 percent now. The poll shows a significant number of Americans don’t trust what they hear from the White House: 30 percent of respondents said they trust nothing the White House says; just 24 percent said they trust all or most of what the White House says. Even among Republicans, only about half say they can trust most of what they hear from the White House.
Perhaps he needs to do some reflection and change:)
Donald Trump promised that we'd all be sick of winning at this point. Instead, there are an awful lot of people in the business world that are sick of losing.
The agricultural sector of our country saw TPP (the Trans Pacific Trade Partnership) as a lifeline. But now...
The decision to pull out of the trade deal has become a double hit on places like Eagle Grove. The promised bump of $10 billion in agricultural output over 15 years, based on estimates by the U.S. International Trade Commission, won’t materialize. But Trump’s decision to withdraw from the pact also cleared the way for rival exporters such as Australia, New Zealand and the European Union to negotiate even lower tariffs with importing nations, creating potentially greater competitive advantages over U.S. exports.
What Trump essentially did by pulling out of TPP was fuck over a whole sector of our economy. Worse, he has left other sectors wondering exactly WTF is going on with trade.
America’s steelworkers are on edge as they wait for Mr. Trump to fulfill his promise to place tariffs on steel imports. Home builders are desperate for the president to cut a deal with Canada to end a dispute over its softwood lumber exports. And cattle ranchers are longing for a bilateral pact with Japan to ease the flow of beef exports.
Jeff Flake is one Republican who is owning the Trump Era. While the rest of the conservatives out there continue to blame Hillary Clinton, the media and smug liberals for what is clearly the complete and total incompetence of their dear leader, Flake is calling it like it is. And he has some advice.
So, where should Republicans go from here? First, we shouldn’t hesitate to speak out if the president “plays to the base” in ways that damage the Republican Party’s ability to grow and speak to a larger audience. Second, Republicans need to take the long view when it comes to issues like free trade: Populist and protectionist policies might play well in the short term, but they handicap the country in the long term. Third, Republicans need to stand up for institutions and prerogatives, like the Senate filibuster, that have served us well for more than two centuries.
Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal has just written the ultimate characterization of our president. The first paragraph sets the tone.
The president’s primary problem as a leader is not that he is impetuous, brash or naive. It’s not that he is inexperienced, crude, an outsider. It is that he is weak and sniveling. It is that he undermines himself almost daily by ignoring traditional norms and forms of American masculinity.
And then, the dagger...
He’s not strong and self-controlled, not cool and tough, not low-key and determined; he’s whiny, weepy and self-pitying. He throws himself, sobbing, on the body politic. He’s a drama queen.
Yep. But this is what you get when you elect a right wing blogger/commenter for president. His actions remind me EXACTLY of all those discussion on Kevin Baker's blog over the years. And the ones here that saw some of those commenters migrating here with their hysterical nonsense. Reading the rest of Noonan's piece makes me wonder if they can possibly see themselves and their dear leader for what they are. They are completely incapable of leading and should not be allowed out of their little bubble. Consider Noonan's last paragraph.
Meanwhile the whole world is watching, a world that contains predators. How could they not be seeing this weakness, confusion and chaos and thinking it’s a good time to cause some trouble?
Noonan wrote this piece a couple of days ago. Look what just happenedtoday.
Well, assholes? Are you willing to admit error yet? Or are you going to stick with your dear leader as he continues to fuck up our country and its standing in the world?
Well, well, well. It looks ol' Donny Boy isn't quiet the deal maker he made himself out to be. He has officially failed to repeal the Affordable Care Act. What happened to all that draining of the swamp stuff? Looks like the swamp got him.
And it got the GOP as well. Remember back when the Democrats had both chambers and the presidency and they really couldn't get much done (except saving tens of thousands of lives with health care, of course)? I distinctly remember being chided for my party being ineffective. Where is the taunting now?
Even more hilarious is just how popular the ACA is right now (over 50% approve). I guess Nancy Pelosi was right. Once it passed, people saw what was in it, experienced it and turns out, they love it!
The president says he's just going to let the ACA fail. That might be a problem.
Every Trump Supporter I Know (ETSIK): No. It's all a witch hunt by the liberal elites and the media. It's all lies.
Me: But it was his email with Russian contacts. Here's part of it.
---On Jun 3, 2016, at 10:36 AM, Rob Goldstone wrote: Good morning 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. Best Rob Goldstone
On Jun 3, 2016, at 10:53, Donald Trump Jr. wrote: Thanks Rob I appreciate that. I am on the road at the moment but perhaps I just speak to Emin first. Seems we have some time and if it's what you say I love it especially later in the summer. Could we do a call first thing next week when I am back? Best, Don Sent from my iPhone--
ETSIK: Witch hunt. Liberal media. Don't believe it. Hillary is probably behind it. Fake news. Deep state nazism.
US Intelligence officials are taking a second look at conversations that took place among members of the Russian government in the run up to the 2016 election, the Wall Street Journal is reporting. In some cases, the Russians in the overheard conversations talked about meetings held outside the U.S. involving Russian government officials and Trump business associates or advisers, these people said.
According to the report, it looks like a lot of this began at the 2013 Miss Universe pageant. The players are starting to come out of the woodwork and it's only a matter of time before all the pieces fall into place. The more Trump denies collusion the more he reveals himself to be more of an idiot than I thought he was.
Donald Trump is an American who ran for office under a slogan of patriotic pride and love of country. People who love their country do not help rival powers intervene in their country’s elections, even if that intervention might have the lovely side effect of getting them elected.
I don't envy the president in his consideration regarding North Korea's latest missile test. It's a giant cluster for any president to have to tackle. The good news for Donald Trump is that even though he is massively incompetent he was at least diligent enough to surround himself with good people in both the defense and security sectors. He seems, for now, to letting them run the show and that's a good thing.
The first instinct would be to launch a preemptive strike in the next year to 18 months that it's going to take for North Korea to enable their new missile with nuclear capabilities. The problem there is that it would likely result in tens of thousands of lives lost, mostly Korean. In addition, China has no desire to see a unified Korea that is more friendly to the US. So, we end up back at sanctions which have largely been ineffective in curbing Kim Jong Un's desire to be a nuclear power. We have to decide if we can live in a world where North Korea can bomb California with nuclear missiles. I'm not sure we can.
Thus, we seem to be left with the inevitability of war.
The Star Tribune has a piece up about Trump's plan to root out and stop the imaginary voter fraud that he and his supporters believe is running rampant around the United States. It can't possibly be that people don't like them. It has to be those gol durned illegals!
So, he has sent Mike Pence out to get everyone's Social Security numbers to make sure that we are all legit. Yeah...riiiiiight...I'm giving my SS number to a well known con man! How well has that worked out in the past? And talk about BIG government. I guess it's when they do it, it's OK.
Further,
Trump and his allies have said the commission’s work is necessary to prevent what they contend are widespread instances of voter fraud. Evidence for that claim is exceedingly thin. Kobach has made it a central issue of his tenure and has achieved a total of nine voter fraud convictions. Most of the people convicted were older Republican voters, and at least one claims he was targeted for an “honest mistake.”
Who called that from a mile away?
Moi.
Again, for those who have trouble accepting reality.
Academics who have studied the issue for decades say voter fraud — particularly of the type that strict ID laws championed by Kobach and others are intended to combat — is vanishingly rare, and that voter ID requirements are a burdensome solution. A federal judge ruled that some of Kobach’s proposed ID requirements constituted a “mass denial of a fundamental constitutional right.”
President Trump is indeed the dear leader of right wing bloggers and commenters. Thank god he shows those smug liberal elites like Mika Brezezinksi whose boss rather than...oh, I don't know...run the country, fix our problems, you know, that minor stuff that gets in the way of baby's twitter time!
