[worry]

It seems like the takedown of Flynn might be the first salvo in the clash between Priebus and the establishment GOP wing on Trump's left shoulder vs. Steve Bannon/Stephen Miller and the white supremacist/xenophobe wing on Trump's right shoulder. https://www.theatlan...priebus/516744/

Of course Bannon & Miller are denying any enmity with Priebus, but I tend to side with the skeptics on whether Breitbart would act in stark defiance of Bannon's agenda.

Also, just as a thought experiment, imagine being so dismal that Reince Priebus is the angel on your shoulder.

[worry]

Also there's a Russian spy ship off the dang Delaware coast or something? http://www.cbsnews.c...u-s-east-coast/
I don't even know what that means.

But some think that the Flynn thing is not gonna get swept under the rug at all, but is actually the tipping point for the big shebang: https://newrepublic....ewed-big-league
(not too long a read).

Obviously Russia has its own form of klepto-fascism going on under Putin, and a huge church-led far right social movement going on in tandem (the anti-LGBT laws, the recent law legalizing wife-beating), and I'm sure there are some matches w/ the Bannon ideology, but I'm not sure how far that goes. Is Russia ethno-fascist? It's weird for such a large land w/ satellite nations of that variety to lean that way, but I suppose not if you keep the hierarchy intact. Maybe it really is all about blackmailing Trump. It all sounds kinda nutty in a conspiracy theory kind of way, but if you think of it as just mean, nasty people failing upward and pulling their mafia-style ego moves, it can look like pretty mundane evil just scaled up.

[amphibian]

The Russians frequently put subs and ships in the Chesapeake area. It's sorta normalish for that to happen. The area happens to be where most US subs work out of on the Atlantic and the Americans frequently put subs in the vicinity of Russian bases and ships too.

Now... the Chinese surfacing a sub in the middle of a carrier group a while back in 2007 is a much bigger deal. That was a declaration of "we could have murdered you, stay out of our claimed territory" and was one in a long line of issues with serious Chinese aggression during the GWB years. They're gonna run wild over Trump in the coming years, that's for sure.

This post has been edited by amphibian: 15 February 2017 - 04:46 PM

[amphibian]

I forgot that Trump is terrible about information security. The Russians, Chinese, and whoever else wants are probably scrambling over themselves to get the nearly free info/secrets he's handing out because he and his staff are buffoons.

[worry]

Also he's colluding with Vladimir Putin and/or Russian intelligence agencies.

[worry]

Trump is holding a campaign rally on Saturday in Florida. When I say "campaign rally" I'm not mocking him for not liking his job or being terrible at it so far -- it is literally, officially a campaign event for his 2020 presidential race. There's something really wrong with this guy.

Anyway, I'm feeling more nervous than excited/schadenfreude-y that the wheels are coming off so fast. These guys are terribly stupid, but they're also vicious. Who knows what they'll do at peak desperation?

[Garak]

How the pants can he hold a rally for the 2020 elections already? Isn't there some law/rule/pinky swear that specifies when you can or can't do this sort of thing?

Also what information was he supossed to keep silent about but has divulged? Via tweeter I assume.

[worry]

There's no law against it, just laws regulating campaigns (accepting donations, spending money, etc.). He filed the appropriate 2020 papers on Inauguration Day. There are some perks though:

Quote

Campaign events are open to the general public, so the nondiscrimination laws that apply in all places of public accommodation govern them. A campaign can no more exclude people based on their race or religion than a restaurant can refuse to serve them on that basis.

Here’s the thing, though: Campaigns can opt to exclude protesters from campaign rallies. The First Amendment doesn’t stop them — in fact, the First Amendment protects the campaign’s right to control its message. Generally, a campaign rents space for its rallies, which gives it the right to exclude people for “trespass” as well as get law enforcement’s help to do so.

A campaign can declare someone to be a trespasser if their presence interferes with the campaign’s chosen message. At a rally, for instance, enthusiastic sign-waving can be a requirement of attendance. A campaign has the right to control its own political theater, within the limits of nondiscrimination law. Deeming someone trying to attend a rally to be a protester because of her race or religion would, of course, violate the law.

[Cause]

I heard it also allows him to accept campaign contributions already. And we already knows how he found ways to make campaign money his money

[Gorefest]

[HoosierDaddy]

Trump is straight up calling out, live and in person, legitimate media like NYT, WaPo, etc. as dishonest and fake.

This is just absolutely irresponsible and inexcusable. The 4th Estate is just that and while some have been skewered by bias, most are still actually legitimate journalists that uphold that tradition. This isn't Yellow Journalism.

Waiting to hear about how Hillary caused all of this.

Edit: I'm done. He's deluded and narcissistic past the point of belief. He believes every lie he tells himself.

Edit 2: Oh God, he's being torn to shreds and it won't matter. Talking himself into his own lies and contradicting them. Lol.

This post has been edited by HoosierDaddy: 16 February 2017 - 06:30 PM

[Primateus]

HoosierDaddy, on 16 February 2017 - 06:03 PM, said:

Trump is straight up calling out, live and in person, legitimate media like NYT, WaPo, etc. as dishonest and fake.

This is just absolutely irresponsible and inexcusable. The 4th Estate is just that and while some have been skewered by bias, most are still actually legitimate journalists that uphold that tradition. This isn't Yellow Journalism.

Waiting to hear about how Hillary caused all of this.

Nah, it's Obama! Obama's taking over and he's using the fake news media to do it. Trump is just TOTALLY being honest about that. Totes.

[HoosierDaddy]

Told you it'd come back to Hillary.

[Mentalist]

death rattle, on 15 February 2017 - 01:55 AM, said:

Also there's a Russian spy ship off the dang Delaware coast or something? http://www.cbsnews.c...u-s-east-coast/
I don't even know what that means.

But some think that the Flynn thing is not gonna get swept under the rug at all, but is actually the tipping point for the big shebang: https://newrepublic....ewed-big-league
(not too long a read).

Obviously Russia has its own form of klepto-fascism going on under Putin, and a huge church-led far right social movement going on in tandem (the anti-LGBT laws, the recent law legalizing wife-beating), and I'm sure there are some matches w/ the Bannon ideology, but I'm not sure how far that goes. Is Russia ethno-fascist? It's weird for such a large land w/ satellite nations of that variety to lean that way, but I suppose not if you keep the hierarchy intact. Maybe it really is all about blackmailing Trump. It all sounds kinda nutty in a conspiracy theory kind of way, but if you think of it as just mean, nasty people failing upward and pulling their mafia-style ego moves, it can look like pretty mundane evil just scaled up.

Ethno-fascism is a thing. It's "the Russian World" ideology, which basically means everyone that speaks Russian must be part of a single, cohesive (and authoritarian) entity. There's also Orthodox undertones to it (the "god-saving Conservatives" vs "the Decadent Western sinners" ), but that's not the dominant message yet.

They get over the "multiple ethnicities" hurdle by creating a "Russian supra-ethnos", which by definition encompasses all of the "Russian

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 16 February 2017 - 07:00 PM

[QuickTidal]

Here is a transcript of the presser from this aft....

https://www.washingt...m=.0df6e90ff7b3

...and this REALLY reads like an early-stages dementia patient. Half of it is incoherent and scatterbrained rambling...the sentence structure (even spoken) in a lot of it is so completely all over the place that I can't fathom a human brain behaving in such a fashion if it were not afflicted with some malady.

I'm really leaning into the idea that there is more going on with his mental health than we know about.

[worry]

So you we got a wealth-sprung narcissist with signs of early dementia being Rasputin-ed by two white supremacist sociopaths named Steve? Too far-fetched! Like something out of one of Steve Bannon's rejected screenplays.

[worry]

White House may be trying to get at DREAMers/DACA recipients in roundabout ways so Trump doesn't get blowback: http://www.latimes.c...0216-story.html

What doesn't seem to be speculation is someone is trying to screw one of the DACA kids ICE scooped up in their recent raids, including tampering with documents:
http://www.thestrang...ang-affiliation

The brief states Ramirez Medina originally wrote: “I came in and the officers said I have gang affiliation with gangs so I wear an orange uniform. I do not have a criminal history and I’m not affiliated with any gangs.”

But according to an additional declaration filed to the court, the statement returned to Medina by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials five days later says: "I have gang affiliation with gangs so I wear an orange uniform. I do not have a criminal history and I’m not affiliated with any gangs.”

The document filed to the court bears clear signs of erased words.

[Aptorian]

Just saw this poll on Reddit, trying to sow further disassociation with mainstream media:

https://action.donal...ability-survey/

[Itwæs Nom]

Trump on the topic of uranium

[Vengeance]

Apt, on 17 February 2017 - 12:07 PM, said:

Just saw this poll on Reddit, trying to sow further disassociation with mainstream media:

https://action.donal...ability-survey/

Oh I had fun filling that out thank you.