The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

[beantownbubba]

There's some hyperbole, exaggeration and mischaracterization of some of the facts on the ground, but the central argument that putting all the liberal eggs in the collusion basket resonates to an extent. Not the same as my take but collusion wasn't important and collusion was wildly overstated and over=relied upon kinda meet somewhere in the middle. The implicit argument that is only barely alluded to, that it was a strategic mistake to seek to topple Trump in any way other than at the ballot box, may be the most important point here although the author doesn't give it the attention I think it deserves.

http://fortune.com/2019/03/28/trump-202 ... JLyMeT2tE4

[John A Arkansawyer]

There's some hyperbole, exaggeration and mischaracterization of some of the facts on the ground, but the central argument that putting all the liberal eggs in the collusion basket resonates to an extent. Not the same as my take but collusion wasn't important and collusion was wildly overstated and over=relied upon kinda meet somewhere in the middle. The implicit argument that is only barely alluded to, that it was a strategic mistake to seek to topple Trump in any way other than at the ballot box, may be the most important point here although the author doesn't give it the attention I think it deserves.

http://fortune.com/2019/03/28/trump-202 ... JLyMeT2tE4

That's an important point generally. Liberals have made the Supreme Court into a fetish, an institutions above politics so long as it delivered the political results they weren't able or willing to get in elections. This has been a terrible mistake. They will see the gains they made in that manner erode with startling speed. I've figured for a while now equal marriage will be the first to go, but the right to an abortion is currently in the lead. I'm not optimistic about Sullivan vs New York Times, either. That one is going to rip some hearts out and destroy some institutions that have relied on it for their business model. More than a few of those deserve what they'll be getting. The rest of them? Good luck reading about what happens to them after they're no longer there to dig into it on your behalf. Good luck reading about what happens generally, too.

The two days in which people were so overwhelmed with ecstasy over the invalidation of California's shitty Proposition 8--which could have instead been reversed at the ballot box with the same money and resources used by the media campaign to influence opinion--and what-me-worried over the meataxe taken to the Voting Rights Act the very next day tells a lot.

We still need to see the Mueller report. If it were as harmless as the author of that Forbes article thinks, we'd already be reading it. It'll hurt him.

But it was not ever--ever!--going to take Trump out on its own unless he'd been much stupider than he is--you don't stay out of jail while money laundering via real estate by being an idiot--and maybe not even then. Watergate probably wouldn't have taken Nixon out if there hadn't already been a movement in the streets ready to throw down over the Vietnam War, even after Kent and Jackson, any more than the North Vietnamese would have won if so many American troops hadn't turned against the war. Jim Morrison was wrong when he said, "They've got the guns but we've got the numbers." We were outgunned and and outnumbered, but we had position and momentum, and we won. That's why the Republicans are desperate to hang on a little longer while they eat away at voting rights by any means necessary. They'll lose at the ballot box in a fair fight, decisively and soon. We have the numbers. All they have is position, momentum, and guns, which is more than we won with.

I am still optimistic in the long run and still not looking forward to the next few years.

What mystifies me is why the Clinton campaign didn't hit hard, hard, hard on Trump's pre-existing condition of venality and near-criminality. People have been documenting it for years. He's practiced the sort of two-bit chiseling against working people and small businesses that made him hated wherever he was well known. The big reveal of the campaign turned out to be that Trump treated women even worse than his opponent's husband did. You don't win a war of attrition by stomping someone's foot, then shooting through your own to wound his. Surely there was someone in a position to suggest Hillary might go to, say, Michigan and tell the UAW--the Unemployed Auto Workers--Trump planned to keep on screwing them just like he'd been screwing working people throughout his whole career. Instead, we got Beyoncé in Philadelphia. One rich lady with a faithless husband backing another. Who wouldn't vote for that?

I want to blame this on Bill Clinton selling out the working class portion of the Democratic base in pursuit of the support of finance capital and Silicon Valley, but I can't, at least not completely. That mindset helped bring on the debacle. Or maybe it's' a fiasco. Either way, it's not enough of an explanation, and I'm not too interested in explanations at the moment anyway. As a Great Man once said, Let's talk about the future now and put the past away. Turn off the past and just say yes.

To what? The future. Let's find out before it finds us.

SPECIAL HIDDEN SUPER-SEEKERT BONUS TRACK: The invaluable Dahlia Lithwick in Slate! Trump’s New Legal Strategy Is to Lose and Then Blame the Courts:

It’s not just that Trump’s principal brand is chaos, though. It’s that his principal claim is “I alone can fix it.” He has shown, time and again, a willingness to blame even putative allies if it serves to position him as the sole savior—bread and butter stuff if you’re an authoritarian who hates institutions.

Bon appetit!

[John A Arkansawyer]

Here's some interesting reading on the Chief Justice:

Will John Roberts Block the Triumph of Legal Conservatism?
His hesitations about moving the Court to the right are only a question of pace.

I find this section oddly comforting:

To me, the most illuminating detail of Biskupic’s biography is her reproduction of an essay by the 13-year-old Roberts seeking admission to an elite all-male Catholic prep school near his home in Indiana.

“I’ve always wanted to stay ahead of the crowd,” Roberts wrote. “I won’t be content to get a good job by getting a good education, I want to get the best job by getting the best education … I’m sure that by attending and doing my best at La Lumiere I will assure myself of a fine future.”

By the age of 13, most upper-middle-class Baby Boomers had learned the art of asking for social advantage only in terms of human progress. Roberts, refreshingly, eschewed any such cant; instead, he quite unself-consciously explained that the only question that mattered to John G. Roberts was doing the best job possible for the advantage of John G. Roberts.

Why would that comfort me? Because it suggests that Roberts might sell out his fellow conservatives if he were convinced it was good for him. A slender reed, I know, but it's something. It's the sort of thing people who sell out their own side say...

...not unlike the letter Bill Clinton wrote the ROTC commander about not going to Vietnam while remaining "politically viable". That craven creep managed to make dodging the Vietnam draft sound cowardly, since in his case it was. People went to prison, to Canada, whatever it took. I have the greatest respect for that. I hope I would have done the same, as I opposed that war mightily. People who didn't oppose it who dodged were cowards. Clinton managed, as always, to straddle the fence.

[tinnitus photography]

Despite the fact that nothing you post really sticks out to me, you comment on mine fairly often. That's fine. But its odd and particularly so considering I always just ignore it.

Edit for initial bad choice of words.

for someone who ignores my posts, you sure do a lot of editing your responses.

good job!

[beantownbubba]

Don't know if he's right but as good an explanation for this otherwise inexplicable phenomenon as I've seen.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/03/politics ... index.html

[Cole Younger]

Despite the fact that nothing you post really sticks out to me, you comment on mine fairly often. That's fine. But its odd and particularly so considering I always just ignore it.

Edit for initial bad choice of words.

for someone who ignores my posts, you sure do a lot of editing your responses.

good job!

As a rule I do ignore you. But you've been so persistent lately I started to feel sorry for you to be honest.

I don't have a problem with anything you want to say but going forward let's do it a different way. If you see something I post and can't hold back from shitting in your hand and throwing it at me, do so via pm. I'm not going to help you clog up the thread because very few people here want to have to wade through this crap. So if you can't control yourself, just post whatever you want to say in a pm. Otherwise you will be ignored. Something tells me without an audience you won't say a word though.

[dime in the gutter]

not that i give a shit. b/c i don't.

but i do enjoy this thread.

i don't see anybody shitting in hands and throwing at anybody. nothing close.

it's impossible to clog this thread.

i have seen no one losing control. only slight snark that typically flows in all directions.

up until recent pages of this thread, i had not seen personal insults on 3dd since lj.

respectfully.

[Jonicont]

not that i give a shit. b/c i don't.

but i do enjoy this thread.

i don't see anybody shitting in hands and throwing at anybody. nothing close.

it's impossible to clog this thread.

i have seen no one losing control. only slight snark that typically flows in all directions. I

up until recent pages of this thread, i had not seen personal insults on 3dd since lj.

respectfully.

Yeah. Time to take a step back folks

[beantownbubba]

The third day of April, 2019, a day that will live in infamy. In the very chamber that once rang w/ the inspirational speech of the likes of Daniel Webster and Henry Clay, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell revealed the US Senate to be nothing more than an expensive, wood paneled playground. "He started it," said the Senator as a nation wept and crumbled. Yes, I quote directly. "He started it." How long before the rubber mats replace the carpet?

Could anything better summarize the state of politics and government in the US of A in 2019? I'm way too sad to even be angry. This redefines pathetic.

[John A Arkansawyer]

The third day of April, 2019, a day that will live in infamy. In the very chamber that once rang w/ the inspirational speech of the likes of Daniel Webster and Henry Clay, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell revealed the US Senate to be nothing more than an expensive, wood paneled playground. "He started it," said the Senator as a nation wept and crumbled. Yes, I quote directly. "He started it." How long before the rubber mats replace the carpet?

Could anything better summarize the state of politics and government in the US of A in 2019? I'm way too sad to even be angry. This redefines pathetic.

Given that the Barr coverup is staring to fall apart, I think we might see an end to this fiasco. Or maybe not. I'm crossing my fingers.

[beantownbubba]

The third day of April, 2019, a day that will live in infamy. In the very chamber that once rang w/ the inspirational speech of the likes of Daniel Webster and Henry Clay, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell revealed the US Senate to be nothing more than an expensive, wood paneled playground. "He started it," said the Senator as a nation wept and crumbled. Yes, I quote directly. "He started it." How long before the rubber mats replace the carpet?

Could anything better summarize the state of politics and government in the US of A in 2019? I'm way too sad to even be angry. This redefines pathetic.

Given that the Barr coverup is staring to fall apart, I think we might see an end to this fiasco. Or maybe not. I'm crossing my fingers.

It's a long way from here to there, my friend. But never say never I guess.

[Iowan]

Well guys, it's official.

I got the windmill cancer.

Fucking idiot.

[beantownbubba]

Well guys, it's official.

I got the windmill cancer.

Fucking idiot.

Now your land can be sold for fracking. You know, that good kind of safe energy.

[tinnitus photography]

Well guys, it's official.

I got the windmill cancer.

Fucking idiot.

[John A Arkansawyer]

The third day of April, 2019, a day that will live in infamy. In the very chamber that once rang w/ the inspirational speech of the likes of Daniel Webster and Henry Clay, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell revealed the US Senate to be nothing more than an expensive, wood paneled playground. "He started it," said the Senator as a nation wept and crumbled. Yes, I quote directly. "He started it." How long before the rubber mats replace the carpet?

Could anything better summarize the state of politics and government in the US of A in 2019? I'm way too sad to even be angry. This redefines pathetic.

Given that the Barr coverup is staring to fall apart, I think we might see an end to this fiasco. Or maybe not. I'm crossing my fingers.

It's a long way from here to there, my friend. But never say never I guess.

As you get Old Like Me, you'll discover your nearsightedness gets worse and your farsightedness gets better. Except in your eyes. I think it's just the other way around for them.

[Iowan]

Well guys, it's official.

I got the windmill cancer.

Fucking idiot.

Now your land can be sold for fracking. You know, that good kind of safe energy.

I don't know what in the hell they're going to frack under 10 feet of black glacial till, but I don't know why they wouldn't try for it.

[Zip City]

Say what you will about AOC’s policies, but she’s killing it on Twitter

[Flea]

Say what you will about AOC’s policies, but she’s killing it on Twitter

And in my pants.

[John A Arkansawyer]

This is so good:

Cancel Culture: The Internet Eating Itself

When everything is problematic and everyone has the right to say so, being online as any sort of creator or celebrity is like being nibbled to death by ducks. The well-meaning promise of various organisations, public figures or storytellers to take criticism on board – to listen to the fanbase and do right by their desires – was always going to stumble over the problem of differing tastes. No group is a hivemind: what one person considers bad representation or in poor taste, another might find enlightening, while yet a third party is more concerned with something else entirely. Even in cases with a clear majority opinion, it’s physically impossible to please everyone and a type of folly to try, but that has yet to stop the collective internet from demanding it be so. Out of this comes a new type of ironic frustration: having once rejoiced in being allowed to simply block trolls or timewasters, we now cast judgement on those who block us in turn, viewing them, as we once were viewed, as being fearful of criticism.

Are we creating echo chambers by curating what we see online, or are we acting in pragmatic acknowledgement of the fact that we neither have time to read everything nor an obligation to see all perspectives as equally valid? Yes.

Even if we did have the time and ability to wade through everything, is the signal-to-noise ratio of truth to lies on the internet beyond our individual ability to successfully measure, such that outsourcing some of our judgement to trusted sources is fundamentally necessary, or should we be expected to think critically about everything we encounter, even if it’s only intended as entertainment? Yes.

If something or someone online acts in a way that’s antithetical to our values, are we allowed to tune them out thereafter, knowing full well that there’s a nearly infinite supply of as-yet undisappointing content and content-creators waiting to take their place, or are we obliged to acknowledge that Doing A Bad doesn’t necessarily ruin a person forever? Yes.

And thus we come to cancel culture, the current – but by no means final – culmination of previous internet discourse waves. In this iteration, burnout at critical engagement dovetails with a new emphasis on collective content curation courtesies (try saying that six times fast), but ends up hamstrung once again by differences in taste. Or, to put it another way: someone fucks up and it’s the last straw for us personally, so we try to remove them from our timelines altogether – but unless our friends and mutuals, who we still want to engage with, are convinced to do likewise, then we haven’t really removed them at all, such that we’re now potentially willing to make failure to cancel on demand itself a cancellable offence.

Which brings us right back around to the problem of how the modern internet is fundamentally structured – which is to say, the way in which it’s overwhelmingly meant to rely on individual curation instead of collective moderation. Because the one thing each successive mode of social media discourse has in common with its predecessors is a central, and currently unanswerable question: what universal code of conduct exists that I, an individual on the internet, can adhere to – and expect others to adhere to – while we communicate across multiple different platforms?

[beantownbubba]

The torrent of words unleashed by the release of the Mueller Report has been so overwhelming that I have hesitated to add to the noise. But considering the general quality of what I’ve seen I figure I can’t do any harm, so here’s my one man torrent of words.

As in real estate, there are only three things that matter in US politics right now and those three things are Russia, Russia and Russia. Not Trump. Not collusion. Not even obstruction. Not impeachment. Not any of the presidential candidates nor any of their proposals.

There are important issues raised by the Report. Deciding whether pursuing impeachment is a justifiable/correct path is not easy and should not be dismissed lightly. I don’t think there is any doubt that Trump committed multiple felonies by obstructing justice. But none of that is new. As I’ve said before he’s basically admitted as much in his own tweets and comments. But the object is to win. I define winning as beating Trump and the best way to beat Trump is at the ballot box in November 2020 and not incidentally send the remnants of the Republican Party out with him.* The best way to do that is to singlemindedly focus on Russia, Russia, Russia.

*The idea is not to create a one party state but rather to create the conditions to nurture a rebirth of a serious Republican Party by whatever name.

I have been impressed by some of the arguments in favor of pursuing impeachment, especially those that plot a moderate course to get there. However, I believe that pursuing impeachment is a dead end. Not just because the Senate will never convict (although they won’t) but because the impeachment process, even if conducted in a sober, responsible manner, will not change a single heart or mind and will likely further fracture this country for no discernible benefit. That is true even if you think it’s the “right thing to do” in an abstract or principled way.

As I’ve explained before, Mueller was never investigating “collusion,” a term without legal meaning. But he did investigate whether Russia interfered with the 2016 election. Even before the Report, there was plenty of evidence that the Russians had been very busy being very devious, but the Report makes incontrovertible the fact that Russia meddled in our election and subverted our democracy. This is true whether you believe those actions delegitimize Trump’s election; it is not necessary to carry the argument that far and it would probably be counter productive to do so. One does not have to go down that rather charged path in order to make the case that Russia has become a grave threat to the future of this country, even if they’re doing so by untraditional means.

While some political purposes might have been served by finding that Trump or his campaign assisted in that effort, the fact that Mueller did not find evidence of that assistance has had the unfortunate result of twisting the Report’s conclusions beyond recognition due to clever marketing and spin by Trump, Barr, Giuliani, Fox and the rest. The big conclusion from the Report is not that Trump did not collude/conspire, not even that Trump obstructed justice, but rather that Russia committed grave offenses against the sovereignty of the United States of America and is an existential threat to our form of government. How something so crucial could essentially slip through the cracks is a complete mystery to me. I see how the “mechanics” of it worked, but I do not understand how the spin could have so completely obliterated the main point. Nonetheless, that’s the alarm that needs to be sounded and the message that needs to be conveyed to the country.

It wasn’t so long ago that we fought a Cold War involving billions upon billons of dollars, the deployment of troops and weapons, the complete distortion of our world view and our diplomatic policies, and many other effects that came from an unquestioned bipartisan consensus that the USSR was not just an enemy, but THE enemy. If anything united this country it was our collective understanding of who the enemy was and that it had to be resisted, even to the point of excess. And if anything other than civil rights and, eventually, the Vietnam War differentiated the two main political parties, it was the constant Republican refrain that the Democrats were soft on defense and security. At the very least, the Democrats were always on the defensive on this issue.

When the USSR collapsed the general consensus was that the Cold War was won, and maybe if things had proceeded differently we could confidently make that claim today. But we can’t. Russia remains (or is again) our biggest threat, the main enemy, even more than China, which is saying a lot. And yet, even a direct attack on our most fundamental processes by that enemy has not raised alarms much less a meaningful response among a significant portion of our co-citizens and Republican politicians. Obviously, this is a political choice wrapped up in all that Trump represents, not a rational assessment of the threat or the geopolitical realities, but the end result is the same. Because I think this is dangerous, outrageous, wrong and misunderstood by the general public and a large swath of the media, I also think it is the best way to attack Trump and the Republican Party.

Can you imagine if the Democrats made a concerted effort to become the party of national security and defense? It would turn the political world on its head even more than Trump already has. It would allow the Democrats to take the high ground and to aggressively call out both Trump’s suspicious behavior with respect to Putin and Russia and the Republican Party’s failure to take the threat seriously. We’re already trained to be pretty knee jerk about defense and national security issues. The twist here is that it’s the Republicans being soft on defense so the Democrats have to call it out loudly, clearly, constantly and self-righteously. If you grew up any time after World War II until, oh, maybe the 90’s this has to strike a deep chord.

Think of the dynamics on the floors of the House and Senate as Republicans have to stand there and be metaphorically beaten about the head and shoulders about their repeated failures to safeguard the security of this country. Further, this approach ignores all the difficult, wordy and complex responses to the Trump and Republican claims about what the Report says. That takes energy and time and to much of the country makes the Democrats look foolish and partisan, whatever the substance may be. Rather than fighting against that significant inertia, go around it.

The thing is, the facts are all there and are essentially incontrovertible. They were there before the Mueller Report but now they have the seal of approval of the same Report that “exonerates” Trump on collusion and, supposedly, obstruction. Even Trump, McConnell, Fox et al will have a difficult time saying the Report is right about all that but its conclusions about Russia are fake news. The key is to separate the serious claims and allegations of what Russia did and is doing from the “collusion noise” even if you think the collusion aspects were not properly addressed by the Report.

With the right amount of groundwork/foundation/righteous indignation and anger, I believe that a significant portion of the public will not continue to allow the President to play footsie w/ the evil empire, nor can he easily dismiss charges of being soft on defense and security. One can even imagine charges that he’s been focusing on the wrong threat to the detriment of our safety and security. The problem is not at the southern border, it’s in cyberspace and all the other places where Russia pushes its agenda and advances its nefarious plans without any pushback from the Administration or the Republican Party. They have been asleep at the switch and that’s a powerful message and a powerful, disruptive re-ordering of the political landscape.

If you let Barr, Giuliani, Hannity, Limbaugh et al rant and rave about Trump’s exoneration and the “misguided and possibly treasonous Democrats” without mounting much of a response because it doesn’t matter and it only gets you caught up in the weeds of Trump and Giuliani speak while at the same time you hammer Trump and his minions on their failure to safeguard the country and their lack of a plan to do so going forward, not only does the current noise becomes irrelevant pretty quickly, the entire gang of “collusion warriors” become totally wrong footed. It would be wonderful to watch them scramble to defend their record on security from a powerful, precise and targeted attack, one that already has the support of the intelligence and defense establishment and the imprimatur of the Mueller Report. Just contemplating it makes my heart beat faster.

This seems so obvious and straightforward to me there must be a fatal flaw in it. But I can’t figure out what it might be. It seems so much more sensible than trying to (a) convince people that the Report did not “exonerate” Trump on obstruction in the slightest and (b) push an impeachment agenda into a skeptical and unreceptive political arena where it will be difficult to impossible to shape or control the message. To me, right now, this is the most important issue facing this country and the most important issue for the Democrats to get right.

[Flea]

I would be totally fine with the Democratic Party becoming the voice of National Security if and only if they advocated reducing the footprint of the military/industrial complex. They will not. There MUST be a lever in this country against our overblown "Defense" Department, and putting the Dems in charge of that henhouse ain't it.

[beantownbubba]

I would be totally fine with the Democratic Party becoming the voice of National Security if and only if they advocated reducing the footprint of the military/industrial complex. They will not. There MUST be a lever in this country against our overblown "Defense" Department, and putting the Dems in charge of that henhouse ain't it.

See, I don’t understand that. It’s not about whether you’re right in the big picture but rather a combination of setting priorities and perfect being the enemy of the good. Why chopping the military-industrial complex down to size has to be a current issue and one whose outcome should affect choosing a winning election strategy is less than clear to me.

[John A Arkansawyer]

I don't think the dirty tricks the Russians pulled will continue to work, any more than there was a second 9/11-style attack. The element of surprise is gone, the deceptions have been sufficiently revealed, and enough people are on guard. China has long been a long-term threat; Russia is a paper tiger.

I would be totally fine with the Democratic Party becoming the voice of National Security if and only if they advocated reducing the footprint of the military/industrial complex. They will not. There MUST be a lever in this country against our overblown "Defense" Department, and putting the Dems in charge of that henhouse ain't it.

See, I don’t understand that. It’s not about whether you’re right in the big picture but rather a combination of setting priorities and perfect being the enemy of the good. Why chopping the military-industrial complex down to size has to be a current issue and one whose outcome should affect choosing a winning election strategy is less than clear to me.

It's a very basic choice: Guns or butter. Bullets or bridges. Rockets or roads. Helicopters or hospitals. China is avoiding war and instead spending time and money on infrastructure and commercial domination of the world. They manage to combine the worst of capitalism and communism. We piss our futures down the urinal of war while Chinese universities are starting to draw the smart graduate students American universities used to draw to us.

[beantownbubba]

don't think the dirty tricks the Russians pulled will continue to work, any more than there was a second 9/11-style attack. The element of surprise is gone, the deceptions have been sufficiently revealed, and enough people are on guard. China has long been a long-term threat; Russia is a paper tiger.

Wow. Not on my radar of potential responses. I guess I could probably disagree w/ this more but I'm not sure how. The US has no coordinated response to what the Russians did and are doing and all the evidence is in fact that they are still doing it - providing "real fake news", provoking fights and distrust, etc etc and there's no reason to think their methods will not become more sophisticated over time. There's already some evidence of this. If I could remember where I read it I would link but at the moment I don't. I think that the actions taken were significant, essentially acts of war by maybe not so other means, and the threat continues to be very real.

It's a very basic choice: Guns or butter. Bullets or bridges. Rockets or roads. Helicopters or hospitals. China is avoiding war and instead spending time and money on infrastructure and commercial domination of the world. They manage to combine the worst of capitalism and communism. We piss our futures down the urinal of war while Chinese universities are starting to draw the smart graduate students American universities used to draw to us.

Except it's not a choice at all. No party, no candidates, are proposing any kinds of butter for guns substitution. No party, no candidates are proposing to reign in the military industrial complex. Do you (and Flea) identify a very serious, important issue? Sure. And I agree it's something that should be talked about and addressed. But it's not on the table and won't be between now and 2020 so I don't see how it enters into a decision about whether stealing the mantle of protectors of our security makes sense for the Democrats as an election strategy.

[John A Arkansawyer]

Wow. Not on my radar of potential responses.

To quote a Great Woman with one of my family names, "Face facts, Tiger--you hit the jackpot!"

I guess I could probably disagree w/ this more but I'm not sure how. The US has no coordinated response to what the Russians did and are doing and all the evidence is in fact that they are still doing it - providing "real fake news", provoking fights and distrust, etc etc and there's no reason to think their methods will not become more sophisticated over time. There's already some evidence of this. If I could remember where I read it I would link but at the moment I don't. I think that the actions taken were significant, essentially acts of war by maybe not so other means, and the threat continues to be very real.

I don't disagree with you about the severity of the attack. The Russians systematically fucked our election process and our democracy. Some of my old friends on the left don't seem to get this. They don't seem to get that Putin's Russia isn't the Soviet Union, any more than Trump's GOP isn't the party of Lincoln. I have some very unpleasant thoughts on why this is, but I'll leave that for another day.

But they operated by deception and surprise. The surprise is gone. People are more on guard about where their information comes from. The defense won't come from the government, but from people, and from the social media giants, who didn't like the way they were used. This is one story I read on this theme; there are others. It doesn't end the threat, but it greatly mitigates it.

No party, no candidates, are proposing any kinds of butter for guns substitution. No party, no candidates are proposing to reign in the military industrial complex. Do you (and Flea) identify a very serious, important issue? Sure. And I agree it's something that should be talked about and addressed. But it's not on the table and won't be between now and 2020

We'll see. Several candidates advocate scaling back in the Middle East. I have mixed feelings about it, but it's coming. That's not a huge expenditure, but it's a crack in the dike. Then there's the question of how to pay for President Bernie Warren's ambitious agenda. As David Lowery told Virgin Records,"It ain't gonna suck itself." The money has to come from somewhere. Taxing the rich will do a lot, but not everything. It won't be Social Security or Medicare. What's left but military spending?

[tinnitus photography]

Then there's the question of how to pay for President Bernie Warren's ambitious agenda. As David Lowery told Virgin Records,"It ain't gonna suck itself." The money has to come from somewhere. Taxing the rich will do a lot, but not everything. It won't be Social Security or Medicare. What's left but military spending?

compared to the alternative of Trump's tax cuts and increased military spending, i'd take it. Trump (and all the Repubs) have been stockpiling the deficit for years. despite their clutched pearl statements about fiscal responsibility.

[John A Arkansawyer]

There are two separate steps in what we call "impeachment".

The first is impeachment. It's carried out by the House. That's the investigation, the preparation of a case. It's like a grand jury, where evidence is presented and an indictment can be issued. It doesn't have to rise to the standards of a criminal trial. Since the last House abandoned its oversight duties, the onslaught of oversight requests are the beginnings of that process. Whether there's a formal impeachment at the end of it, we're having that now.

Bill Clinton, Richard Nixon, and Andrew Johnson were all impeached, and rightfully so. Nixon committed actual crimes; Clinton creepily perjured himself; Johnson helped the South regain what it had rightfully lost. All of them committed grave irresponsibilities while in office. There's no doubt in my mind Donald Trump's misdeeds rise to that standard. His venality combines the criminality of Nixon, the faithlessness of Clinton, and the disloyalty of of Johnson.

I expect Trump will be impeached, just as those three were.

The impeachment itself is a significant punishment. It has stained all three men's reputations, not from the vote to impeach, but from the public exposure of their unfitness to hold office. It ended Nixon's political career. It should have ended Clinton's--the party should have demanded his resignation once the process was over, so Al Gore could have run as an incumbent, unchained from a shitty man--and it did damage him. Johnson was already weakened.

The second step is trial. It's carried out by the Senate. No president has ever been convicted by the Senate. Neither will Trump be, barring some smoking gun we don't know about. He's obscured the record by obstructing justice.

Nixon deserved conviction. He only avoided it by resignation. Clinton didn't. His shittiness was revealed to be ugly but truly small, like him. Johnson...I have no strong opinion about what fate he deserved. His misdeeds were purely political.

But that process of trial in the Senate, that is important, not least because it focuses national attention on a process more easily understood than investigation. It allows the facts to be laid out, much like a trial, for judgement.

I'll follow Pelosi's lead on whether to impeach. She's a fighter who's been Trump's most effective political opponent.

Till then, keep on moving forward. Forward with investigation. Forward with the next election. Forward with building a fighting Party that doesn't roll over and pee itself when threatened. Forward with popular mobilization to ensure that.

Keep on moving forward.



(From Facebook.)

[John A Arkansawyer]

DONALD TRUMP UNDERSTANDS THE CONSTITUTION. THE 9/11 KILLERS UNDERSTOOD AIRPORT SECURITY.

It’s really this simple:



If you have a can of gasoline, you understand architecture just fine.

If you have an atomic bomb and the plane to carry it in, you understand Hiroshima well enough.

If you can aim a gun, you understand human anatomy splendidly. And if you aren’t any good with a pistol, there’s always a shotgun...

[beantownbubba]

While I'm not sure that having Hillary Clinton on one's side is a net positive, FWIW, here's a couple of quotes from her opinion piece in today's WaPo:

"Congress can’t forget that the issue today is not just the president’s possible obstruction of justice — it’s also our national security. After 9/11, Congress established an independent, bipartisan commission to recommend steps that would help guard against future attacks. We need a similar commission today to help protect our elections. This is necessary because the president of the United States has proved himself unwilling to defend our nation from a clear and present danger. It was just reported that Trump’s recently departed secretary of homeland security tried to prioritize election security because of concerns about continued interference in 2020 and was told by the acting White House chief of staff not to bring it up in front of the president. This is the latest example of an administration that refuses to take even the most minimal, common-sense steps to prevent future attacks and counter ongoing threats to our nation."

"Unless checked, the Russians will interfere again in 2020, and possibly other adversaries, such as China or North Korea, will as well. This is an urgent threat. Nobody but Americans should be able to decide America’s future. And, unless he’s held accountable, the president may show even more disregard for the laws of the land and the obligations of his office. He will likely redouble his efforts to advance Putin’s agenda, including rolling back sanctions, weakening NATO and undermining the European Union."

[beantownbubba]

This article in the Atlantic by David Graham lays out the case pretty convincingly I think:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... MzgwMjY0S0