Folks on the Left really should watch this. It doesn’t sound insane, even if I disagree with parts. Note that I don’t disagree with parts of it, for example, killing the TPP trade deal.
Folks on the Left really should watch this. It doesn’t sound insane, even if I disagree with parts. Note that I don’t disagree with parts of it, for example, killing the TPP trade deal.
Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén
V. Arnold
I think the best we can hope for in Trump, is a benevolent despot.
FleshyAbundance
Only an American could lazily throw around despot in such a tone deaf manner.
Peter
Is there a transcript of this message? It is interesting that Trump bypassed the MSM to speak directly to people. I doubt Trump will forgive and forget the media’s behavior towards him so their interaction once he takes office should be entertaining.
markfromireland
I’ll be interested to see first if he keeps and in what form his promise on stopping the revolving door for lobbyists, and even more interested observe its effects.
@Ian – fully agree with you re: TPP if he manages to not go to war with Russia and puts a brake or even manages to reverse some of the financialisation of the US economy he’ll be a better president than many of his predecessors. The devil will be in the details.
Ché Pasa
What’s more interesting is what he’s left out.
But then, that’s his style, isn’t it?
Despot? Depends on how loyal his lieutenants are. If they remain as chaotic as they have been, riding off on their own little hobby horses, his despotism will be more an illusion that real. Their despotism may eclipse his own.
On the other hand, if he consolidates the power inherent in the office and obtains the unquestioned loyalty of those surrounding him and delegated by him — and even those who oppose him — then despotism, benign for some, not so much for others, would be a natural outcome.
Think Andrew Jackson for an early historical example. He’s by no means the only one.
Sally
It is a great irony that the Democrats have been out flanked on issues that should be theirs, and once were a stable of dem politics. Instead, under Bill Clinton in the 1990s the Dems sold out their base to Wall Street so that they could raise millions of $. (Another irony since Trump has won this election despite spending much less than the Dems)
NAFTA was a job killing trade deal that Clinton signed into law. The majority of Republicans voted for it on Capital Hill which is another reason Trump blew away the establishment Republican opponents in the primary’s. (Along with the fact they they now supported TPP, and TPA. ) Bill Clinton, in a desperate attempt to prove he was not weak on crime massively expanded the private prison population, (sending thousands of blacks to jail for minor offences.)and deregulated the banks and the accountancy rules. Both of these led to the financial crises 10 years later under Bush. The old Democrats would never have been pushing these policies.
In their place came a hollow identity politics which was fine in the good times, but offered nothing to working class voters in the mid west in times of hardship. The Clinton/Obama Dems also took on the mantra of the Neo Cons and endless war for profit. When the Bush family and the major Neo cons are saying they will vote for Hillary you know something has gone terribly wrong with the Democratic leadership.
The Dems found themselves (almost comically) fighting a populist, independent Republican, campaigning against more trade deals, endless wars,and a promise to bring back jobs, and end mass immigration. Whether you agree with this or even if Trump is a con man and won’t deliver it appealed to many people across America. It remains to be seen if Trump will be able to achieve these goals. There are plenty in his own party who want to stop him, but if you cling to the belief he won because of racism and sexism, and all the other isms Dems are kidding themselves. Bernnie Sanders was a warning to the Dems from the base, and the Dem leadership had to pull every trick in the book to stop him. But they didn’t listen to the message. They just thought they could continue selling out the people who voted for them. The final irony is NAFTA and its job destroying effect signed by Bill Clinton came back to play a big role in defeating his wife 20 years later.
V. Arnold
Ché Pasa
November 22, 2016
Benevolent despot was a running family joke many decades ago. We always joked we’d rule as benevolent despots. It’s an oxymoron actually;
Simple Definition of despot
: a ruler who has total power and who often uses that power in cruel and unfair ways. MW
I like the term because it seems we’re being ruled by despots parading as saviors and problem solvers; smoke and mirrors, Potemkin villages of democracy, with a large portion of a militarize police enforcing anti-freedom to assemble. Robbed of a voice.
As you may know, I live in a country ruled by a coup of the military over the “democratically” elected Prime Minister.
Frankly, I prefer it to life in the U.S.; far more freedom here. Always have had.
Donna Curtis
So… the great cheeto has spoken. Let’s see if I got this right: 1) Sink TPP. I’ve been trying to do this for 2 years now so no love loss there. 2) Lift restrictions on fracking and coal… oh excuse me, clean coal. Yep, we’re gonna speed at that climate change cliff doing 200 MPH. 3) For every 1 regulation, 2 regs must die. This could be horrific depending on what regs he goes after. 4) Ask DOD to concentrate on cyber attacks. WT ever-loving F? I thought ISIL was his big thing. 5) Ask Dept of Labor to look into visa abuses. Could be helpful with H1-B garbage. 6) Ban exec officials from lobbying for 5 years and ban them forever for lobbying for foreign govs. Doesn’t sound too terrible.
There’s a couple of things I like here. I’ll admit that but there’s some real dangerous crap like umm… what’s climate change? If we don’t get that under control, we. are. dead. I like to believe we have to 2030 before the worst tipping points are tipped. I know many don’t but I have to remain somewhat optimistic or else I will go bat-crap insane.
If cheeto thinks this little speech will help calm the nation, he’s way off. Still no attempted reconciliation with people he hurled abuse at during his campaign. Not that I would believe him anyway even if he did apologize. Let’s face it KKK, Neo-Nazis and Women-Haters (AKA Alt-Right) are still celebrating up a storm and he’s given them no reason not to. Bannon? Sessions? Ugh.
There are signs that his massive infrastructure program is a scam of epic proportions. Still too many questions about the ACA… and down the line Medicaid, Medicare, SS and SSDI.
AND abortion. Maybe the last on the list for guys but the first on the list for many women. If we cannot have full control of our bodies we are nothing but slaves. Then again, men (both liberal and others) have never had trouble putting women’s issues at the very bottom of the “important” list. This has made me very wary of men, even our supposed allies. Sorry guys, just eat the truth because I’m sick of coddling you.
Cheeto may have a couple of good ideas here and there but it still does not change the fact that he is a monstrous abomination who rode a wave of bigotry to the WH and lost the popular vote. If this man damages our economy further and decimates civil rights, I will never, ever forgive the gullible jackasses who voted for him.
V. Arnold
Donna Curtis
November 22, 2016
Indeed; the sooner we understand the present reality; the sooner it can be dealt with.
Unfortunately, most just really don’t get it.
I gave up long ago; just waiting for the rest to catch up; long wait…
Ron Showalter
Yeah, let’s keep listening to a man who just shelled out $25M for fraud and who keeps appointing crazy nutters to his regime!
Great idea!!
BTW, I love how “identity politics” is when you cater to minorities, women et al but NOT when you whip up white males into a racist frenzy.
It doesn’t look stupid when you use the terms the right wants you to use. Really it doesn’t
DZ
It is interesting him playing the good cop/ bad cop with Pence the good cop in the Hamilton distraction. Now another distraction-
we have been simultaneously warned and soothed -He’s going after the executive orders immediately -diversity, criminal justice reforms gone day one. All ,packaged in a reasonable don’t worry -be happy- the jobs are coming for everyone speech.
and he is setting the stage for his new media empire after coming to power on the free publicity of the old media. incredible.
Sally
Identy politics is a giant fraud. Look at the Clintons if you want to see how fake it is. She claimed to want to be the woman’s president, and the gay president. But all the time she took millions of $ from some of the worst despotic regimes in the world. Including Saudi Arabia who gave the Clinton foundation $25 million. Woman arnt even allowed to drive a car, and gays are executed.
Look at the People of Hati who The Clintons took the money donated to that poor country, and did they build schools and hospitals and houses for the victims? No, she pumped the money into the corporate cronyism for parts of the island that didn’t need help, but were ideal for development. Crony capitalism at its worst. They even spent some of the money on Chelsea Clintons wedding.
A lot of gays voted for Trump because they didn’t want mass imigration of Mulims into the country with their anti gay beliefs.
And what about all the hundreds of thousands of black people, mostly men that were sent to jail in the 1990s under Clintons policy of expanding the private prison complex? Many of these were minor offences that magically turned into long sentences. Whatever you think of Trump more blacks voted for him than any of the recent republican candidates for president. Or the quite lare Hispanic vote he got because these people didn’t want even more people coming to take their jobs.
Jessie Jackson and Bernnie Samders used to say that immigration was not good for existing minorities because it drove down their wages more than anybody else. They seem to have gone silent on that now. We can thank identiy politics for that. Anybody can say they are for diversity, but what are you actully going to do to help these people? A hashtag on Twitter is not going to cut it.
Ché Pasa
@V. Arnold
Ah yes, the freedom one can enjoy under imposed dictatorships. Some of my Latin American pals have said almost the same thing: there was actually less oppression/interference under this or that caudillo than under the supposed democratic regime he or the military overthrew. I’m told some Greeks were nostalgic for the days of their own imposed military dictatorship for some of the same reasons.
It depends, I guess, on whose ox is being gored. If you are favored by the regime, then you’ll be fine. We see our own elites daily making a spectacle of themselves currying favor with the New Boss, as why wouldn’t they? It doesn’t make that much difference to them who sits on the throne, despite the histrionics of political campaigns.
Next best is to be ignored by the regime, which usually includes most everyone.
And then there are the targets of the regime, the disloyal, the openly hostile, the dissenters, the critics and the rabble rousers. Woe betide them. It only takes a few examples of what can happen to them pour (dis)encourager les autres. Who will be the first victims sacrificed is still up in the air, but I think the outlines are clarifying.
Most folks are just going to want to stay out of, but some are natural warriors (Standing Rock being one of the high-profile examples at the moment.) They are present and fight because they must. We have friends at the front lines at Standing Rock, and after Sunday’s attack by police, we feared they were among the casualties. But yesterday they reported in that they were OK but shaken, cold and still coughing up phlegm from the gas and pepper spray. Hazards of the struggle.
Most won’t struggle however, and those in the streets have already noticed the deafening silence of many of their natural allies.
America the Brave? Not at all. America the Submissive and Obedient.
Ron Showalter
Also, it’s great to see that all good little bloggers are on the same page as the NYT in trying to be more accommodating to Trump supporters. Why, they didn’t even have to get yelled at in person by the big scary man!!
Hmm, if I was a blogger and my message was the exact same as the MSM, I might want to think about where my thoughts were headed.
Oh well.
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/11/21/ny-times-public-editor-says-problem-paper-s-election-coverage-it-was-too-mean-trump-supporters/214578
Ron Showalter
I also like how the front-end of the Bannon quote is alwaysy curiously left out. Yeah, this guy’s a freaking winner!
Take it away, Steve “darkness is good” Bannon:
“Dick Cheney. Darth Vader. Satan. That’s power. It only helps us when they (liberals) get it wrong. When they’re blind to who we are and what we’re doing,” he said in an interview published Friday, his first outside of Breitbart since the election.
Yup, that kind of speech really fills me with hope for the future!
He certainly doesn’t sound like an unhinged nutter. Nope.
someofparts
“AND abortion. Maybe the last on the list for guys but the first on the list for many women. If we cannot have full control of our bodies we are nothing but slaves. Then again, men (both liberal and others) have never had trouble putting women’s issues at the very bottom of the “important” list. This has made me very wary of men, even our supposed allies. Sorry guys, just eat the truth because I’m sick of coddling you.”
yeah
Ron Showalter
More on this stolen election. Not that it matters to most as it gets in the way of the Trump normalization parade.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/was-the-us-election-stolen-yet-again/5557930
RJMeyers
I’m reading “remove 2 regulations for every 1 passed” as just a showy way of saying he won’t pass any new regulations. It sounds better than saying “no new regulations”–his phrasing has the same effect but conveys momentum where there will likely be none. Instead, he’ll just stop enforcing what he doesn’t like, as past Presidents have.
Peter
When Trump signs the XO ending the threat of the TPP to unions, labor, environmental law and US business all the groups who spent years trying but failed miserably to stop it should be cheering in the streets. Some business groups will cheer but these other groups and individuals seem too self centered and petty to appreciate what is being done. It seems they would rather have had the rotten TPP rammed down their throats by Obama/Clinton than eat a little crow in front of Trump.
Mallam
Trump is going after federal worker unions, pay, pensions, as well as worker protections to due process. In a time of record low government employment compared to the population as a whole. But yeah, he’s not insane.
Donna Curtis
@Sally
Why are you still getting a hard on from bashing Hillary? She lost. The points are moot. Now we have to deal with the fall-out and there are many signs that it’s going to be grim. I can just see Paul Ryan grinning wolfishly in the background with his fairy tale budget. I see hundreds of voter disenfranchisement laws in the future. I see possible Muslim registries and ever more deportations. I see “religious freedom laws” up the wazoo being proposed in states. I see hundreds of assholes taking their cue from cheeto. I see California talking about secession and to tell you the truth, I would not care in the least if my state of Massachusetts seceded to Canada. (I just wish it was easier to do!)
I don’t care about this stupid Union anymore. I know how unpatriotic that sounds but WTH? I’m flying my American flag at half-staff in mourning. This country has become so divided I really just don’t want to deal with the 25% who keep voting us into the damn ground. I want to move forward so desperately in a nation that enjoys intellectualism and understands basic science. I want THE FUTURE (with climate change mitigated as much as humanly possible). This place is not what my grandfather fought WWII for. What a terrible sacrifice he made… for nothing. Nothing!
For whatever it may be worth to you, I voted for Sanders in the primary and would have loved to have voted for him in the general but no… no… we got stuck with neoliberal Hilliary and I was pissed at her. I donated to Bernie many times, phonebanked for him and did social media outreach. He may not have won against cheeto’s screeching rhetoric but I do believe he might have won if given half a chance and half the media coverage cheeto got.
But it was Hilary. I’ve worn the damn pantsuits. I worked with a US Ambassador during the Bill Clinton administration. I’ve met Bill Clinton and I know for sure he did a ton of neolib damage. I never got the chance to meet Hillary but I would have loved to because she was an absolute lion when it came to the rights of women and girls. Yeah she she did some stupid things but no worse than a man would do. I repeat: No worse than a man would do. She’s been the victim of right-wing propaganda for about 25 years now and many of the Bernie kids I shepherded to his camp were 25 yo or less. They’ve heard nothing but negative crap against Hillary. Some of them I got to vote in the general for Hillary as I did. I got some of them to vote in the General for Hillary as I, myself, did despite how pissed I was.
And make no mistake I voted for her with the idea that a woman would never even get near the presidency without being a certified hawk. She had to be or else the MIC/HS/Repubs would have ripped her to even worse shreds. (They did it to Obama for the negotiation with Iran!) I was hoping we could hold her feet to the fire and back her off her more aggressive stances. Yes, she made mistakes… in her career and in her cautious approach to this election but she never did anything worse than a man would do and they vilified her like she was Dick Cheney. She was not! So just stop it. IMO, the sexism showed itself by continuously holding her to a higher standard than a man. And as for what Bill Clinton did during his presidency, it should have had no bearing on Hillary Rodham. That was a long time ago and many of her opinions have changed.
“We came, we saw, he died.” Black humor. Men use it all the time. Benghazi? Bah! Hearing after hearing they held and their only gripe was that they couldn’t fine something wrong. Frakking emails. Ridiculous. After Manning and the diplomatic cables, a well secured private email server was probably as good idea. And the other vile stuff, rumor after rumor I’m not even going to bother wasting my time addressing.
During the primary, a lot of crap went down against Bernie. I doubt Hillary even ordered most of it. It was probably her stupid lackeys; Podesta, DWS, et al. But it made her look bad. Really bad. The wall street speeches? Very bad but frak it, she’s ambitious and likes to make money. Men do this all the time. She should have released the speeches but a’hole cheeto didn’t even bother to release his tax returns. Why? Because he’s the equivalent of a cheating, lying, conning, scumbag, used car salesman. His taxes would have proved it.
Be careful who you vilify as a witch. Way back in the Ronnie Raygun 1980s I was both Treasurer and Chief Steward of the 3rd largest IUE Union in my state. (For all I know I may have been the first woman to hold 2 positions on an Executive Board of any Union in my state). I knew the management feared and hated me. You know how I knew? My middle management informant told me the upper management used to call me “The Wicked Witch of the West.” And you what? I was damn proud of that title because I saved jobs. But never forget this truth. Women get absolutely shit on for doing exactly what men do. So stop it. Just stop the whining about Hillary. Look to the future…
“Hope has two beautiful daughters and their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are.” St. Augustine of Hippo.
Donna Curtis
@atsumofparts
Hell yeah.
Orbital Debris
Folks on the left should watch this?? Just so they can be reminded that nearly any person, even a pathological idiot, can appear norma for short periods of time if they read prepared remarks into a TV camera? You have to be f-ing kidding.
If this is your effort to try to assuage fears, then it’s worse than pathetic, it’s potentially dangerous. People aren’t interested in smelling the roses on their march across a cliff.
Ian Welsh
There isn’t much difference between my coverage of Trump now and during the election. In both cases I told liberals that they needed to actually hear what Trump was saying, and not a caricature from their echo chamber, otherwise they would miss his real appeal.
I was right then, and so far I’m right now.
Peter
@Mallam
The only proposal that I have seen from Trump is a freeze on federal hiring but maybe you have other sources of information. Obama laid off tens of thousands of federal employees and the Chicken Little’s didn’t even peep but now with the dastardly Donald coming to power they are panicked chanting the sky is falling.
Ché Pasa
Americans have been listening to this man for a long time now, and when the choice was made most of the voters rejected his blandishments. He’s a conman. Straight up.
What he says in this video may or may not be meaningful. He’s said so many different things, whatever he thinks his marks want and need to hear. Now that he is on his way to the White House, it’s to his advantage to seem “presidential” and all and so it’s only natural for him to make a pitch to some of those who rejected the campaign con and start on a new one, or at least a new style.
The only thing you can be sure of with a conman — including this one — is that whatever he actually does will be intended for his own benefit, not for anyone else.
Mallam
I have no interest in facilitating your “they’re all the same” bullshit, Peter. As Che says: he’s a conman, and we will all lose for his own benefit. He’s going to overturn the overtime rules. He’s going to turn our pensions over to full 401k, he’s going to force more money from workers pockets, and reduce government contributions.
You idiots kept trying to see a good side during the primary, binding yourselves when he said he’d have a great health care plan. He’s going to privatize Medicare, or at least try. His point man for Social Security wants to privatize.
Peter
@Mal
You are projecting your own insecurities and lashing out with the same name calling that other loser Clintonites seem to prefer. I asked if you had evidence to back up your claims but you just show that you don’t understand that Trump will make these decisions not his point men who will carry out his orders.
You might feel better if you step outside and shout No TPP, Yea and if you really want to feel liberated you could shout No Clinton, Yea Yea Yea!
S Brennan
What Sally said in her first comment!
Slowly, ever so slowly, it’s dawning on more than a few, IDing themselves as left, that Trump is far closer to FDR in policy than Hill, Bill & Barack ever was. Do I like all of Trump’s policies? Nope, but there’s an awful lot there that was basic boilerplate FDR era [circa 1932-1978] back when both [D]’s & [R]’s had national consensus.
ks
Wow, the alt left folks here have lost their minds. Just how much water are some of you all going to carry for Trump? Your backs must hurt by now. But I must admit it is hilarious watching you all try and force fit your support for the ridiculous Trump into your usual little boxes (FDR!!! Clintonites!!! WWIII with Russia!!! I was right!!!!).
@Ron Showalter,
C’mon now, you know the only identity that matters is white and usually straight male and in this case the sainted WWC. In fact it matters so much that it isn’t even an identity per se , it’s the default state of being. As such, we must forever pander to their butthurt and castigate those “others” by obnoxiously relabeling their often life and death generations long struggle for civil rights as identity politics.
We must ignore that in recent times the WWC have been enthusiastically slitting their own throats and falling for the racial okie doke ever since they were calling themselves “Reagan Democrats” and pretend that things “just happened” to them and they are the only real victims of the neoliberal order.
So sure let’s ignore that Trump supporters were giving Nazi salutes and “Hail Trumping” in the Ronald Reagan building (Heh!) near the White House the other day and ignore the odious people he’s actually appointed so far (Bannon, Priebus, Sessions, Flynn) and the $25 million fraud settlement and the other business chicanery and just focus on that time during the campaign where he had a really good talk with the father of the unfortunate dead junkie so we can learn the supposed mystery of his appeal.
Peter
I’ve seen some of the snowflakes demanding that Trump show them some respect and appoint Bernie Sanders to a cabinet post. I’m sure Trump and his people got a big laugh from that nonsense. Trump is replacing many of the truly odious Clintonites in the DC swamp and his replacements will have to work overtime to out-odious those parasites.
I looked for these Nazi saluting White Nationalists and expected to find uniformed ranks of neo-Nazis saluting their new Fuhrer . At this annual meeting of these knotheads that attracted all of two hundred people the picture showed two guys, there could have been more, making what could be interpreted as a Nazi salute.
I think Trump could have paid these guys to salute just to keep the snowflakes and their media enablers chasing their tails.
Ron Showalter
Y’know, normalizing Trump and making him look like anything but a miserable POS is tough work!!
Why, look at what CBS had to do today:
http://wonkette.com/608800/cbs-news-magically-turns-boos-into-cheers-for-infallible-god-king-donald-trump
Seriously, that really doesn’t look pathetic.
Oh, would anyone care to tell us how great POS Trump’s picks for the USSC are gonna be?
Please, have at it.
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/11/22/1603046/-Trump-s-apparent-first-choices-for-associate-justices-on-the-Supreme-Court-are-unfit-to-serve
Yeah, this is gonna be AWESOME, guys!! You’re right, I AM gonna come around and start loving me some POS Trump.
ks
Yes it is extremely hard work normalizing Trump. It appears to be almost an impossible task as, in between bouts of Clintonite!, alt left here is struggling and remarkably trying to turn a Neo-Nazi…ummm…”alt right” rally and salutes into just “sorta maybe a couple of guys”.
markfromireland
If you look at history, empires and hegemonies are subject to a pattern in which an increasingly dysfunctional political, economic, and military order experiences a cascading series of dysfunctions ending ultimately in political collapse. This is what’s going on with America at present.
markfromireland
Good news if true: In Stunning Reversal Trump Scraps His Calls To Bring Back Torture
Z
I did not vote for Trump. I voted for Stein. She is who most represented what I believe is for the best.
But I’ll say this for Trump: at least he loves the U.S., whatever that means to him, and that is more than one can say for the last three presidents, who were almost entirely in it for themselves and their corporate sponsors. And practically the entire basis of his power is the citizenry … he does not have a large and loyal political coalition among the ranks of the republicans and democrats in Congress. So, he is more likely to truly try to represent the American people than the aforementioned three sellouts.
Z
Ron Showalter
Trump is set to cut NASA climate change research!!! HOORAY!!!
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/nov/22/nasa-earth-donald-trump-eliminate-climate-change-research
You guys are right!!! Trump is going to be SUHWEET!!!
Are we having fun yet?
metamars
I think it’s safe to assume that an unholy conglomeration (I avoid the word alliance) of Deep State loving D’s and R’s, plutocracy loving D’s and R’s, as well as ideologically driven, frankly hysterical (in some cases) lefties’ greatest fear is that Trump will turn out to be a successful President, maybe even one that triggers a semi-permanent realignment which is contrary to their respective beliefs.
These folks have good reason to worry, as the Trump Administration begins to take shape, and we can thus more reliably grasp what lies in store for our collective future. In “No Trojan Horses Inside the Tower”, foreign affairs editor Srdja Trifkovic writes (https://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/no-trojan-horses-inside-the-tower/),
“Contrary to the MSM pack’s pitch of the week, there is no “disarray” inside Donald Trump’s transition team, no “Stalinesque” purges, and most certainly no successful insinuation of “adults” (Deep State operatives) into the list of early major appointees. They are all excellent.
Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions as Trump’s attorney general, Kansas Rep. Mike Pompeo as his chief of the CIA, and retired Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn as the national security adviser will be loyal team players who share the incoming President’s vision of America’s future in general, and her true geostrategic interests in particular. The discredited MSM’s hysterics notwithstanding, the former two will be duly confirmed by the GOP controlled Senate. (Flynn needs no confirmation.)
Sessions (69)—the first Senator to support Trump last February—said he was honored to “enthusiastically embrace President-elect Trump’s vision for ‘one America,’ and his commitment to equal justice under law.” To Sessions this will mean no amnesty, no “dreamers,” no “sanctuaries,” and no exceptions. He knows that illegal aliens have no constitutional rights, and he will act upon that knowledge. After that Jihadist’s gay club slaughter in Orlando last June he pointed out—en passant—that more than 90% of recent Muslim immigrants are on food stamps and almost 70% on cash welfare. A good man. He has “sparked controversy” indeed, but only within the devastated ruins of the Duopoly. He will breezily sail through the nomination process (and forget his alleged “racist remarks”): Even Ted Cruz (a rumored rival for the post) called his nomination “great news for all of us who revere the Constitution and the rule of law.” ”
I have to admit that I was concerned when I saw John Bolton’s mug appearing on the boob tube, and remarked to a co-worker that “if we get neocon nutjob John Bolton as Secretary of State, we may as well have elected Clinton”. Subsequently, it came out that Trump had also talked to Tulsi Gabbard (who I hoped would lead an exodus from the Dems into the Greens, after Bernie dropped out).
It’s too much to hope for a Tulsi Gabbard as Secretary of State (for some inscrutable reason, there is talk of Mitt Romney being tapped for that role), but at least Trump is also listening to what I would call good people, and not just dangerous nutjobs.
Some people can’t stand to hear good news…. Reminds me of catastrophe – predicting climate models failing at the 97% confidence level, but people would prefer to talk about rejiggered models with ‘fresh’ predictions of catastrophe*. (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMX2DBEiI08)
I don’t want to go searching for links, but if memory serves, intelligence tests of CEO’s have found that they’re not particularly outstanding in terms of IQ, but do exhibit excellent test scores of a mental trait (or traits) akin to “common sense”. Trump may, in fact, be just what this country needs, if it’s ever going to be a “normal country”, instead of a bull-in-the-china-shop “exceptional” one.
* a process which, I think, can continue indefinitely. Consider the von Neumann quote
“With four parameters I can fit an elephant, and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk”
https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/04/18/with-four-parameters-i-can-fit-an-elephant-and-with-five-i-can-make-him-wiggle-his-trunk/
Ron Showalter
The recognition that the election was stolen stolen grows.
LALALALALALALALA can’t hear you LALALALALALALAALA
Ron Showalter
Again, I understand it’s more important for the entire country to have to suffer through 4 years of POS Trump’s reign but it does appear that the election was indeed stolen. Here are some screen grabs for WI counties.
More
Peter
@Ron
Clintonites are known for flip-flopping but you will do more good staying where you belong and Trump surely knows love from a liberal often turns into a knife in the back. You have a duty to teach the young snowflakes the meaning of sour grapes, denial and other loser behaviors. They’re going to need a lot of coddling if they are going to be coaxed from their safe spaces to join the Soros revolution.
ks
@ Ron Showalter,
It’s beyond hilarious at this point. Trump has been PEOTUS for a little over two weeks and he’s already blatantly using the office to leverage business favors (e.g. Scottish golf course, project in Argentina, Indian business partners, etc.) has his kids (who are running his businesses) sitting in unsecured meetings with foreign leaders and has “drained the swap” by appointing a motley crew of long time DC insiders and other incompetents to administration positions.
And yet, the alt left here is still trying to decipher tea leaves and figure out the “big meaning” behind it all.
XFR
Trump IS A DESPOT!!
Trump IS MORE OF THE SAME!!
Trump IS A DESPOT!!
Trump IS MORE OF THE SAME!!
Etc., etc…
And apparently “alt left” is the new “firebagger”…
ks
“And apparently “alt left” is the new “firebagger”…”
Close but no cigar because while the alt left are Obama critics they are making their bones by being Trump apologists while the firebaggers were usually just hardcore Obama critics though, the one odd thing they have in common is that they are usually the same group of people and also they’ve been singing the whole above it all “highlight the contradictions” song for years.
Ron Showalter
Because we all know the Trump supporters – left and otherwise – would have just had NO PROBLEM with HRC allowing Chelsea to run the Clinton Foundation etc while she was in office or allowing her to have security clearance, right?
Sheesh, I can almost hear their freaking heads exploding just mentioning it.
And I’m sure that if HRC had been fined $250 much less $25M, we still be listening to the DEAFENING SILENCE of the fake-left who were so smarmily gleeful in telling us how corrupt HRC just two weeks ago but who can’t seem to notice that POS Trump is still and always will be a POS.
On top of all of that, the lack of intergrity/concern about yet another stolen election to install yet another right-wing POS really warms the cockles, it does.
Good show, good show.
Peter
@KS
The Clintonites are the only professional apologists I’ve seen and I don’t have to love the Capitalist prick Trump to appreciate what he has already done and plans on doing. The humiliation of the Red Queen, her funders and her quislings was something all people who oppose war and exploitation should celebrate, those who don’t apparently support those exceptionalist agendas. Trump and his supporters not only destroyed the House of Clinton but the House of Bush which is another amazing and positive accomplishment.
Some of what Trump does in the future will probably make me angry and I will vigorously attack it but so far his announced plans seem quite positive and supportable. Creating hundreds of thousands of high paying working class jobs to rebuild infrastructure seems to be a good plan and is something that Obama/Clintonites didn’t seem to care or do much about. Deporting a couple million criminal aliens is probably a good idea even if the pearl-clutchers are rounding up an army of lawyers and activists to protect the criminal’s rights. Trump driving a stake through the Vampire Squid’s TPP, probably his first day in office, especially since the weakling resistance failed to stop their own leaders from cramming it down their throats, should be appreciated.
XFR
Please define:
1. “imposed”
2. “dictatorship”
And elucidate how 1 & 2 apply to the current situation…
ks
@Peter,
You really need to get your Clintonite! tourette’s syndrome medicated It’s clearly driven you mad.
That you have brought Trump’s con hook, line and sinker and are furiously rationalizing that fact and acting as an apologist for him by imaging what his “announced” plans “really mean” is not my problem but, stop lying to yourself as you aren’t going to vigorously attack anything he says or does. You are already making excuses for his proudly Neo-Nazis supporters but yeah sure, you’ll be first in line to vigorously attack him if he does something you don’t like. Yeah…right….
Meanwhile back in reality the con continues as Trump has announced the Betsy Devos, the Amway scam heiress and long time GOP donor/Mich bigwig will be Ed Sec, the current SC governor, Nikki Haley will be US Ambassador to the UN and they are still trying to talk crazy Ben Carson into taking the HUD spot. He’s so draining the swamp and filling it mavericks!…um I mean…outsiders!
Face it snowflake, you’ve been cucked by Trump. Enjoy.
XFR
So is Trump a despot, or is Trump more of the same?
Or is he both? In that case, if despotism is more of the same, then why would one expect Clinton not to have been a continuation of despotism?
Does anyone have a compelling reason to think that Trump is a despot beyond sheer gut conviction? Did anyone see him as a despot-in-the-making at any point in his 50-odd years in the public eye before this campaign season got rolling?
If Trump is transparently a despot why did so many people stay home on election day rather than turn out to stop him? If Clinton was the only hope to save America from dictatorship then why were the majority of votes cast for someone else?
If Trump is transparently the KKK and alt-right candidate then why did he win a larger percentage of the vote among women and visible minorities than Romney did? Why was turnout poor among those groups if he presented an obvious threat to their welfare?
Why did Kanye West, America’s accidental Freudian slip incarnate, say that he would have voted for Trump?
ks
So other than diversionary, and melodramatic (despot!), navel gazing do you have a point to make or are you going to continue with the “just asking questions” game/ruse? You well know there are many layered and nuanced answers to most of your, now largely irrelevant, questions except for the Kayne one which is merely silly.
Look, at this point I’m going to pay attention to what the conman Trump is already doing and what he will do as we move on and and take it from there accordingly. What you do is up to you.
XFR
It seems quite on point to me.
Not my choice of words. Putting scare quotes around every instance of it would have looked dumb.
Spiking the TPP sure looks to be for real.
Congress now seems to be scrambling to shove Syria war measures through before the end of the lame-duck session. This may be an indication of what they think Trump will do.
XFR
It seems quite on point to me.
Not my choice of words. Putting scare quotes around every instance of it would have looked dumb.
Put up or shut up.
If all this nonsense is the run-up to an attempt to throw out the election result in the EC than they are far from moot.
I was feeling silly. Still, West does have a strange habit of telling truths that some would rather be left unsaid right at the very moment that they would least want them to be told, no?
Spiking the TPP sure looks to be for real.
Congress now seems to be scrambling to shove Syria war measures through before the end of the lame-duck session. This may be an indication of what they think Trump will do.
Peter
@ks
There is not much time left for the Clintonites so I’m using up that description of the true believers before it fades into the past. The Red Queen has led these rubes to their own extinction event and they are one endangered species that won’t be missed. I suppose some will survive as lost and lonely liberals with no cult of personality to fill their identity needs.
Even if all of the warped fantasies you project about Trump were true I can still smile every new morning knowing that no Clinton slime will ever foul the White House again.
Ron Showalter
Jill Stein prepares to request election recounts in battleground states
Ron Showalter
Link to Jill Stein’s fundraiser for recount
Here.
Peter
@RS
Who’s Jill Stein?
V. Arnold
It seems this morning (it’s morning on this side of the world) there is an increase in wanting a re-count of votes in key states.
Oh, and I’m the one who introduced the term despot into the conversation with a MW definition.
Obama had/has some despotic tendencies; so, it’s not impossible to have a despot for president.
It would appear we’re heading down that road regardless.
Take heart snowflakes, you’ll not be heard…
different clue
If evidence mounts that elections were stolen in one or more states, then everyone with an interest in the outcome should indeed sue over them to force all necessary recounts and revelations of the real results.
Burn the fucker down.
Make the system scream.
Let a Hundred Lawsuits blossom. Let a Thousand Schools of Foil contend.
Ron Showalter
It just gets better and better!!
Yeah, child labor laws are a thing of the past sez our new Secretary of Education!!!
Literally, she wants to put kids back into the coal mines!!!!
Ron Showalter
Ian, you and the rest of the left should read this as a direct counter to your errant beliefs:
http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/rural-america-understanding-isnt-problem
“As the aftermath of the election of Donald Trump is being sorted out, a common theme keeps cropping up from all sides: “Democrats failed to understand white, working-class, fly-over America.”
Trump supporters are saying this. Progressive pundits are saying this. Talking heads across all forms of the media are saying this. Even some Democratic leaders are saying this. It doesn’t matter how many people say it, it is complete bullshit. It is an intellectual/linguistic sleight of hand meant to throw attention away from the real problem. The real problem isn’t east coast elites who don’t understand or care about rural America. The real problem is rural America doesn’t understand the causes of their own situations and fears and they have shown no interest in finding out. They don’t want to know why they feel the way they do or why they are struggling because they don’t want to admit it is in large part because of choices they’ve made and horrible things they’ve allowed themselves to believe.
Ron Showalter
And not only does the BILLIONAIRE Sec of Ed want to put children back into coal mines her BROTHER is Erik Prince murderous war criminal and founder of Blackwater, Xe, etc etc .
Yeah, this is JUST AWESOME!!!!
ks
@XFR,
I see you still don’t really have a point and just using the old “quote and jab” trick to waste space. Have at it.
ks
Meanwhile, while the alt left continues to navel gaze and imagine what Trump will do, the white working class hero himself is all ready for Black Friday and is hawking $149 made in China “Make America Great Again” red cap collectible Xmas ornaments.
MojaveWolf
@Everyone who thinks the general election was stolen: I’ll back your call for a new general election with handcounted paper ballots everywhere and no disenfranchisement if you will first back a new primary election w/no disenfranchisement and handmarked, handcounted paper ballots everywhere, and also set into place handcounted handmarked paper ballots everywhere. Otherwise you’re just a bunch of hypocrites.
MojaveWolf
To All the Clinton people: One more time: Not everyone who was happy she lost was an enthusiastic Trump supporter. And since you are aiming your comments at people on a left wing blog, you might want to keep in mind that MOST people here who were happy HRC lost were not enthusiastic Trump supporters. Any doubts on score can be taken care of by reading past posts and comment threads, or for that matter carefully reading the current ones. If you want to be persuasive, know your audience.*
Many of us, in fact, did not vote for Trump at all. That would include me, who made a last second pivot from Stein to Bernie after Bernie/Tulsi qualified as an official write-in in Cali.
But, yes, of the two candidates with a realistic chance of winning, I wanted her to lose more. Why?
(1) Avoid nuclear war with Russia (and related: avoid any sort of war with Russia, including a renewed cold one). I was genuinely worried about Hillary’s Middle East stance on this score.
(2) Kill the TPP and related giveaways of national sovereignty to multinational corporations (not just because of the sovereignty issue but because that giveaway made fighting global warming, improving environmental standards generally and improving conditions for the vast majority of people in all countries nearly impossible)
(3) Punish Clinton and the Dem leadership for blatantly cheating in the primaries
(4) Improve future chances of getting a Democratic nominee I actually want, who will actually do enough to give us a fighting chance against global warming (or at least TRY)** and improve the chances of a purge of the Democratic leadership of its current cast of horrors, and getting a Dem leadership that cares about more than self-enrichment and actually has some grasp of the world and concern for its people.
3 of these 4 are already done, and Trump isn’t even in office yet. Jury still out on the fourth, but the chances of success are way better this way than they were before.
He doesn’t seem likely to start a nuclear war, or get in a hot war with Russia that could lead to a nuclear war, so on that issue alone, it’s going to be hard to convince me that he will be worse than Hillary.
Also, keep in mind that everyone you can easily manipulate, bully, shame or harass into being on your side by throwing around a few buzzwords or scare stories is already on your side. In fact, when you do this, it makes us more likely to miss valid points you may have because we get annoyed and bored and tune out. Or maybe that’s just me. I know I got annoyed and bored and started skimming way back.
Keeping all that in mind, possibly rethink your approach? To whatever it is you are trying to convince us of–which is what, again?
*It could be said that I’m failing to know my audience in talking to you at all, but in the spirit of Thanksgiving I’m going to assume you are making a good faith effort to persuade people here and have just missed a couple of key points.
**Global warming is one of many issues where you are certainly right that the Democrats, all of them, have much better rhetoric than Trump. But when you look at actions, the Dem leadership left to continue as they are will kill the biosphere just as surely as he will. So saying “Trump sucks on global warming” is kind of pointless. Yes, he may get us all killed faster, but said purge of current corrupt Dem leadership is necessary to avoid doom under their stewardship. Honestly, I think there’s a better chance of Trump suddenly doing a complete pivot than their is of the current Dem leadership ever putting planetary survival ahead of short term political gain.
Peter
@ks
I imagine you are feeling low after getting nothing but a stocking full of coal for Christmas this year because you were a bad girl. Trump’s supporters are enjoying their victory and this golden ornament will bring back golden memories for years to come. The Trump Campaign who are selling this clever Christmas season promotion have ignored the Happy Holidays PC BS while raising money for the RNC.
ks
@Mojave Wolf,
Speaking of knowing your audience… “To All the Clinton people…” to whom are you referring to here or was that just jumping off point for another long-winded repetition of the usual themes? To paraphrase your point – Not everyone who is bothered by odious Trump winning was a Hillary supporter. In fact, I doubt anybody here was though pretending that they are has been a handy rhetorical tool for you and a few others.
ks
@Peter,
Well snowflake it obvious by now that Trump didn’t have to bother cucking you as you are happily cucking yourself. Once you are on the record trying to explain away neo-Nazis as you are, defending petty graft is child’s play.
MojaveWolf
@ks — ok, you’re just trolling. That’s pretty much what I thought but wanted to make an effort. Gratzi for clarification.
ks
@Mojave Wolf,
Ah yes, when all else fails pull the “you’re just trolling” card. You didn’t make a real effort. You just repeated the same dodge and subsequent tired talking points that others used except you didn’t bother with the hysterical Clintonite! Red Queen! openers.
realitychecker
IMO, maybe the best result flowing from this election is that ks and his victim ilk are having a very public mental and emotional breakdown.
I love the sound of snowflakes melting in the morning. Feels like victory, because I can never sympathize with those who do nothing but whine about their fate, and vent their obvious hostility toward those mainstream folks whose support they desperately need to get anything done on their core issues..
Toughen up, assholes. You’ve been over-the-cliff for a long time now, and even if the adjustment process will feel like suffering to you, for the country overall, your distress is a good thing. Enjoy your fall. Gravity is a bitch, ain’t it? Feeling micro-invalidated yet lol?
Peter
It’s probably not wise to continue to taunt these lost and lonely true believers whose world has collapsed around them. Groups like MoveOn and other Soros type manipulators can still gather these snowflakes and create little activist militias.
The more bile filled comments I see from ks and other enraged losers I start to visualize strange and troubling YouTube videos from the future. Will we see zombie like hordes of clones of the little girl in the Exorcist with heads rotating and vomit spewing? It will probably take more than fire hoses to clean up that mess but I read that Obama has tasked all law enforcement with preparing for the worst at the inauguration.
realitychecker
@ Peter
“It’s probably not wise to continue to taunt these lost and lonely true believers whose world has collapsed around them.”
Well, sir, afraid I will have to disagree with you about that (even if it does earn you some empathy points lol).
You see, I know ks from back when he was rabidly demanding justice for his beloved Trayvon Martin and Mike Brown, despite all the evidence that they were nothing but scummy street thugs who were legally shot. So I know his derangement goes way back, and is probably irreparable.
But that is no reason to go easy on him and his equally deranged ‘eternal victim’ colleagues now. It is like the old joke about training the mule, i.e., you have to hit them upside the head with a brick, not to train them, but just to get their attention.
That is what we are dealing with when we deal with ks and anyone like him. Too bad, so sad.
So, the beatings will continue until morale improves. 🙂
Ron Showalter
Tick Tock. How long will the alt/fake-left hold out on the following:
1) Not admitting that Trump is INDEED going to be MUCH worse than a HRC Presidency especially domestically and that they – the fake/alt-left – were completely duped into betraying their own “principles”. Still waiting, guys!! How many USSC nominees will it take? 3?
2) Speaking of “principles” how long it will take for the alt/fake-left to stick to said “principle” and vocally get behind the recount efforts that THEIR CANDIDATE of choice – Jill Stein – is undertaking RIGHT NOW? Gonna remain silent for ever, huh, guys? That’s cool. You don’t look stupid or hypocritical or anything.
3) Apologizing to yours truly who – although admittedly wrong about the Election results b/c I – as did everyone – didn’t factor in the massive voter fraud/theft – was EXACTLY CORRECT about how the alt/fake-left in their support of all things Trump was walking into a trap whereby their support of Trump was going to be lumped in w/ all of the other nutters and thereby setting the stage for the whole-scale delegitimization of the Left.
Gee, why look at the list of the sites that supposedly were used by the Russkies to help get Trump elected (again, I don’t believe that for a second), shall we?
http://www.propornot.com/p/home.html
If you recall, I even came here and NAMED SOME OF SITES – MoA, NakedCapitalism, TheSaker, etc – that have now been discredited by being lumped together with truly nutter sites like infowars and prisonplanet.
I will wait for your heartfelt apologies.
Peter
@RC
I doubt I’ll ever feel empathy for these Clintonite wankers but responding to them in any way seems to feed their growing mass hysteria. The media, activists and now Jill Stein are all feeding the flames of their burning desire to alter reality to sooth their wounds and I hope they will burn out quickly but that may not happen.
I agree that the shootings you mention were found to be legal but if they were justifiable is another question no matter the history of the dead men who cannot speak. I also think some people use these incidents, and they should be looked at as individual incidents, to pursue their own agendas.
I’m seeing a similar Manichean view being displayed about the Indian uprising in ND where the young warrior contingent there has been using very aggressive and even violent tactics to increase the drama and draw more media attention. The larger older tribal contingent reject these tactics and has evacuated children because of them. The latest drama is about the woman who’s arm was severely damaged by an explosion that the demonstrators claim was from a flash-bang or grenade. The Cavalry, as they are being described, claim they used no such device and they recovered a number of IED’s made from propane canisters. Who is actually responsible for this tragedy? The Cops/Cavalry are sworn to protect our sacred private property and though they may enjoy whipping on Indians they are being provoked.
MojaveWolf
Just in case some of the people who keep showing up here to say “Trump bad! Focus on Trump Bad or you bad too!” are actually sincere in trying to persuade us all of something (I’m actually not sure what it might be, beyond “Trump Bad”) I’m going to quote a Slate interview w/Ben Shapiro (h/t to Naked Capitalism for the link, since I gave up on Slate long ago and previously didn’t know who Shapiro was, tho I liked this enough to follow him on twitter just now):
I think that the left is making a huge mistake by labeling everybody on the right “alt-right.” Because what they’re doing is they’re pushing people into the arms of the alt-right. You call people racist enough, and they begin to think OK, well, who’s not calling me a racist—I’ll side with that guy. So the worst thing the left can do is continue to suggest that everyone who backed Trump was a racist, sexist, bigot homophobe; everyone’s evil, everyone’s terrible. What they really should be doing is they should be saying, “Look, we understand one of the reasons that we lost is because Hillary Clinton was a uniquely terrible candidate”—she really was—“and because of that, we’re not trying to throw you guys out of the tent. We think it was a bad choice to choose Trump, but we would sort of appeal to the better angels of your nature—that if we think he’s divisive as time goes on, that you recognize that he’s being divisive.” I think it’s a big mistake to have the left pushing the notion that they’re just going to double-down on the Obama coalition and tell everybody else to go screw.
&
I’ve been as critical of Steve Bannon as anybody in the media. I was the first critic of Bannon because when I left Breitbart in March, I specifically named Bannon as a nefarious influence at Breitbart, by name. And yet, I was forced last week to defend Steve Bannon. I think that he’s a terrible person. But because the left can’t just say, “This is a guy who made way for the alt-right, which is quite terrible, and he’s doing a real disservice to the nature of the country by doing so.” The left had to accuse him personally of racism and anti-Semitism, and they had to overstep. This is the big mistake.
You want to empower the alt-right? Keep overstepping. Again, it’s the overstepping by the left that’s driving people into this almost white tribalism. It’s really negative. I hate tribalism on all sides—I hate it on the left and I hate it on the right—and what I’m seeing is that increase across the board. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/gist/2016/11/ben_shapiro_on_steve_bannon_the_alt_right_and_why_the_left_needs_to_turn.html
This is some very worthwhile advice.
MojaveWolf
Ok, I’ll play one more time because Ron’s last post was actually funny:
(1) Never, unless he blows up the world. I was sort of worried about Hillary doing this. As long as Trump avoids nuclear war, he has cleared the bar here.
As far as purely domestic policies go, other than ditching the TPP, he may well be worse than she would have been. Speaking purely for myself, that was always a concern. I don’t know what he will do but have always realized he’s a high variance candidate with a low floor. Who knows where on the floor to ceiling scale he will hit? Even the floor will be worth the price, imo, of giving us one last chance to gut neoliberalism and save the Democratic party, staving off the corporate coup of the TPP, and not blowing up the world. Speaking of floors, it’s kind of hard to get lower than my “starts nuclear war” floor for Hillary there.
(2) No one is being silent on this; it’s being discussed and debated in various different places. I’ve said it before on this website, among other places: You want to back hand-counted hand marked paper ballots everywhere, and also investigate the Democratic primary, then as soon as these things have been done I’ll get behind a general election investigation.
(3) This isn’t discrediting anything except the Washington Post et al. Nonetheless, I think you should wait for that apology. It’s gonna arrive any second now. Hold your breath.
realitychecker
@ Peter
You can’t inflame the already hopelessly deluded, amigo. Why leave the field to those who bring falsity to the conversation? My policy is to reject all falsity, and anyone who brings it. I cannot see any other practical way to deal with those who seek to falsify the database of facts, because they merely need to introduce a flavoring of ambiguity to achieve their purpose; life is too short to continually untangle their tangled talking points, IMO, and therefore it is justifiable to hold them to account by ridiculing or outright rejecting them along with their false arguments.
Loathe as I am to revisit this chapter, I will say this re the Trayvon and Mike Brown cases (from my POV as a lawyer with a special interest in self-defense issues for the past 30 years): All self-defense cases must be analyzed second by second, the responsibility/liability can shift just that quickly, depending on each actor’s specific actions and choices. Almost nobody on the Internet seems to be able to get that basic principle through their heads.
Trayvon case: If you followed the trial, you would know that Trayvon was safely back at his father’s house, when he and his lady friend, speaking on the phone, surmised that Zimmerman might be a gay man who was stalking him for sex. Trayvon then left his safe place and deliberately went back to confront Zimmerman, with the obvious intent to beat him up. As he made that choice, he changed himself from a victim into an aggressor, period. After subduing the supposed “gay man,” who was screaming for help, he proceeded to bang his head on a concrete surface. That can only be understood as an attempt to seriously injure him, and that makes the shooting not only legal under any interpretation of statute or common law, but justified on any reasonable interpretation of the basic human right to self-preservation. That should end the discussion, but Trayvon’s rabid supporters, including ks, dealt with the inconvenient fact of the head-banging by simply denying that it occurred, or, alternatively. that his head wasn’t being banged on the concrete hard enough to take it seriously. That’s ridiculous and unacceptable-denial of existing evidence does not substitute for actually having evidence for one’s preferred interpretation.
Mike Brown: When fatally shot, he had just attempted to seize the cop’s gun in his patrol car, and was in the act of charging the officer on the street; the forensic evidence left no doubt about these facts. He was much larger and stronger than that cop, and it was reasonable for the cop to think he might lose control of his gun if he engaged in hand-to-hand combat with that charging giant.
This is how a self-defense case gets analyzed by professionals. But, amazingly, these two cases are the ones chosen to be iconic by ks and those of his mindset. Not Eric Garner, not Walter Scott, not Sandra Bland, not any of the many, many other cases were the police conduct was clearly illegal and inexcusable, cases which had turned me seriously anti-cop a long time ago. They preferred a strategy which required their audience and followers to swallow the lie, or be called a racist (as ks called me many times for this analysis of the Trayvon case, specifically).
People who think like that are always going to be on my enemies list..
Peter
@MW
Shapiro makes the arrogant assumption about who he is preaching to and that they can affect anyone else’s behavior or beliefs. The snowflakes and their activists are a rather large annoyance from the Extreme Center and the only people they are influencing are their own ilk. The fantasy that if they behaved a bit nicer they might become relevant again is nonsense because anyone who can think has been shown what wankers they are and just like their Red Queen they are untrustworthy. The idea that their mindless carping could push people to support the alt-right is just another liberal insult aimed at people he doesn’t know or understand.
I doubt that Trump supporters are even listening to this drivel except when it verges on calling for a coup and the attacks on the Electors may produce some reactions in the streets but so far sane people are remaining sane.
Peter
@MW cont.
What Shapiro should worry about is that these snowflakes are influencing thinking democrats and independents who usually vote for democrats. Many of them have already been repulsed by the behavior of the Clintonites before the election and didn’t vote. It’s not likely many of them will move to the right but they will move away from this diseased party.
With the Clintonite media still vomiting lies, the Russians are everywhere, and notable liberals such as Chomsky still praising the Red Queen and pissing on those who wouldn’t submit along with the snowflake circus of the absurd things are actually progressing quite well. If this madness continues as it appears it will the self destruction of this liberal cult is assured
ks
The Trump delusion and denial has gotten so deep among some here reality checker has to come out from under his rock and try his usual diversion. Namely, his creepy stalking of who he thinks is me in an weird attempt change the subject by focusing on what he claims are my opinions on wholly unrelated matters.
Though not quite as verbose, he’s tried this tactic several times already when he and his posse’s verbal tics fail and they can’t rationally address what’s in front of them. I get the Lee Atwater inspiration for what he’s trying to do (divert>categorize>dismiss) but coming from such a tough talking guy, it’s a weak play and a tacit admission of defeat.
Again back in reality, as Ron keeps pointing out, most of you aren’t commenting on and are ignoring, what Trump is actually doing and also, laughably, ignoring blatant double standards. Some of you loud ones here seem to be stuck in some sort of bizarre ego based loop of intellectual masturbation. Heck even Chomsky gets it but I guess screaming snowflake! Clintionite! Red Queen! while trying to normalize neo-Nazis and. already, Trump obvious corruption and double dealing is what we can expect from the alt left going forward.
ks
@ Ron Showalter,
Yep. The sad thing as we can see here is that they weren’t actively duped into betraying their supposed principles so much as they willingly embraced the politics of spite and resentment to betray those supposed principles.
Now we’re being told to take sage advice from Ben Shapiro! of all people (does Mojave Wolf know who he is?) and not label all of the folks on the right as alt-right which of course is nonsense as that’s not what’s happening. Nobody is confusing Bannon or Spencer with Mitt Romney or John McCain or Orin Hatch. That such an amateurish slight of hand which starts that way and then goes on as an soft apologia for racists and Bannon, is being passed around as gospel that the left needs to listen to is telling.
Notice that none of them responded to your Alternet link? Deafening silence indeed.
MojaveWolf
@Peter — What Shapiro should worry about is that these snowflakes are influencing thinking democrats and independents who usually vote for democrats. Many of them have already been repulsed
Absolutely. On the off chance Ron & ks were sincere in their efforts to persuade us of something (I’m still not sure what?), I was actually trying to give them some advice, which I think would be useful advice for nearly everyone on the left. Ian has been getting at the same thing, unless I’m very confused. I thought since my efforts had completely sailed past their heads, Shapiro’s rather clear wording might do wonders.
The reason I hadn’t ENTIRELY given up on them as pure trolls is that a great deal of the places I read and a lot of my older online friends (and some of my real life friends) are full on freaking out about Trump as if either they think he really might be some kind of Nazi (which is, IMO, purely stupid and delusional, but these are very intelligent and normally non-delusional people, so the combination of “we didn’t like him to start with” + the relentless general election propaganda has actually worked with an unsettlingly large section of the electorate, including some people who aren’t usually easily stampeded (tho, sadly, way too many people ARE usually easily stampeded, thus, again, increasing the chance they are not trolls and actually are trying to get at something here)
And on top of that, their style of argumentation, “Everyone who doesn’t think such and such is a xxxx-ist (pick an ism, any ism, this can apply to any subject), and if you disagree with me about this, then any argument or fact you present simply proves that you have xxxx-ist tendencies or are, in fact an xxxx-ist” is pretty standard in a LOT of places. It works very well to do two things: keep those people who already like this particular group and want very much to stay in it in line, and to chase those people away who aren’t willing to abandon their critical thinking or who just don’t like this sort of bullying. Sadly, it actually works really well in many instances–people don’t want to be ostracized by their friends or be considered some variety of scum by people they were buddies with 10 seconds ago.
And, if they are not trolls, what you (and Shapiro) said is spot on. Not everyone can be bullied. What they are doing is driving people who aren’t already inclined to agree with them away. Some of those driven away may go to places the opposite of where they started out simply in irritation, or at the very least, to places of a different political stripe.
And this is not a phenomenon just of the center. This is something where the Hillbots and the people much further left come together. Someone linked me not too long ago to a video of someone named Lauren Southern trying to interview some very far left souls in Canada about no platforming and free speech. As far as I can tell, Southern is a right wing libertarian combo. The video of her attempt to interview the no-platforming crowd, which ended with her being shoved and possibly punched (it was hard to tell) by nutjobs claiming she was assaulting them, led to me following her on twitter in sympathy. These were not Clintonites, but they are the sort of people who get off on posting about their deep levels of fear that Trump might be coming to get them. And they are not trolls; I think they really believe what they are doing is correct.
As for the effect of calling everyone on the right racist and mainstreaming the “alt-right” crowd by trying to tie them to Trump, and the likely effect this will have on Trump supporters, well, Shapiro used to work at Breitbart and actually IS a conservative, and he generally seems to be thinking pretty clearly in this interview, so I’m going to defer to his superior knowledge of the field, especially since it dovetails with my own observations of human nature.
@ks — I had not known who Shapiro was before reading this interview, but it was sort of hard to miss if you read the article. He worked at Breitbart and quit or was forced out because he didn’t like the direction Bannon was taking it. He hates Bannon and dislikes Trump. He’s also Jewish, and he thinks it’s stupid to call either anti-semitic or racist, just because you don’t like them. I think he’s right. Just because I don’t agree with most of someone’s politics doesn’t mean I have to shun them or ignore it when they make a good point. The closing bit I could use as a sig line, if sites still had sig lines:
I hate tribalism on all sides—I hate it on the left and I hate it on the right—and what I’m seeing is that increase across the board.
realitychecker
@ ks
Shouldn’t you be busy helping your friends send death threats to the Trump electors, to intimidate them into being unfaithful electors in the states that Trump won?
For anyone who cares, you can test the truth about who and what ks is by viewing the ks comments at Firedoglake during the Trayvon days (archives still supposedly available at Shadowproof website), or at the Leatherman website where he fit right in with all the other batshit crazies.
Z
Clintonism has been a cancer to this country and its malignancy can still be found in its stooges.
Z
Z
When you get to the rotten core of Clintonism what lays bare about them and their followers are that these are people that basically don’t give a fuck about anybody but themselves, and then justify it by telling themselves that they are better than everybody else.
Talk about deplorables …
Z
Peter
@MY
I see something more sinister and professional in what is happening with people such as ks and even possibly Ron along with others who are driving these memes. The WAPO is driving the enemies within theme by promoting the new professional hit team at propornot that Ron’s link blessed us with. I don’t see this as tribalism even though it may try to use tribalism, it is organized and directed agitprop to keep the pot boiling.
This orchestration started before the election and there wasn’t even a short period of reflection or reevaluation after the surprise results just a doubling down and amplifying the outrage.
I don’t know much about Shapiro but he sounds like a centrist and if he is a real conservative he doesn’t think other rational conservatives can resist White nationalism or they would need to go there because of the ranting of the snowflakes and the Clintonite media.
realitychecker
Does anybody not recall what the Clintonites were saying just a few weeks ago about the unacceptability of contesting the election results?
Now they are rioting, demanding recounts and sending death threats to Trump electors in an organized effort to overturn the election results. That is all you really need to know about these people.
They want to use the system when it serves to help them, but they really don’t believe in that same system and will violate it anytime it does not give them what they want, be that election results, jury verdicts, whatever. Totally contemptible people is what they are, and all who previously supported them (including myself, regretfully) need to recalibrate their support and beliefs accordingly.
ks
The madness continues apace. I always knew that the Left had it’s own version of the Birchers and these last few rounds of remarks from some here is proving it. Whereas their rightwing brethren were/are irrational hypocritical hardcore Christians bigots, the Left Birchers are, usually, irrational hypocritical hardcore atheist bigots.
Hopefully, the sane Left will not allow the lunatics to take over like the Right did but then again who would even notice as the US Left has been impotent and hasn’t really mattered in at least 50 years. I suspect they will wind up like “Clint Eastwood” but, instead of incoherently ranting at an empty chair, they will be incoherently ranting at the windmills of “political correctness” and “identity politics” or whatever the next repackaged grievance is handed to them by their masters. It will be a fitting end for them.
@Mojave Wolf,
So the Left is supposed to take advice from a notorious rightwing hack (you should really look into who Shapiro is instead of just buying his surface disassembling) just because it agrees with what you believe and what you and some others are trying to peddle? Um, no. Btw, I’m surprised you didn’t pick up on the false premise that Shapiro used to bait you in but I guess you were on the hook already.
Anyway, as the dust settles, its clear that is was a close election that looks to have been swung by maybe 100 thousand votes? out of approx 130 million cast. Based on that, anybody trying to sell “broad-lessons-or-conclusions-we-must-learn” is fooling themselves and the notion that it can’t swing back and then some is just silly especially when you consider the overall size of the Dem base. What the Left should do is what it’s doing now, so far. Namely, make sure the vote is legit, vigorously point out the fact that an easily triggered, erratic and obviously mentally unstable conman is going to be POTUS, stay on top of his already terrible appointments and fight his agenda at every turn, where needed. IOW, get to work and leave the vain and ineffective navel gazing to others.
realitychecker
@ ks
Unfortunately for you, your continual name-calling and scornful rhetoric will never cover up the stink of your continuous flow of empty bullshit, or substitute for your inability to make a coherent argument. Everybody here that does not make a living off of playing the victim role can see what you are about. Your time is done. Enjoy the re-adjustment process. I know I will. 🙂
ks
I see the hit dog is hollering yet again and begging for my attention. I guess the truth hit too close to home, again. Okay, I’ll give it to you one last time before you disappear to gadfly and stalk somebody else elsewhere though I will admit that it is amusing you’re trying to position yourself as some pillar of rationality when that’s obviously false and clearly not true. In any event, enjoy your “Clint Eastwood” moment but be forewarned it won’t last and is a mirage. The good guys and gals will continue to march forward and win in the end. With that, I grant you the last word.
Peter
@ks
‘The good guys and gals’, that’s rich, you’re a regular Maid of Orleans.
ks
I see Tweedledum wants some attention too.
Yes, the good guys and gals will continue to march forward and eventually win while suspect folks like you will continue to carp and cheer on the likes of Trump in the hope that “creative destruction” and “burning it all down” leads to the glorious left revolution.
realitychecker
@ ks
The “good guys and gals” who are always demanding something and offering nothing.
May I refer you to PantyUntwisters.com? Sounds like you really need
realitychecker
Edit: Sounds like you really need some help.
XFR
You made no effort whatsoever to answer a single question I raised. That’s because you in fact have no answers, only bluster and bluff.
Don’t agree? Then as I said put, up or shut up.
And in case your scroll wheel isn’t working, here is my earlier comment again.
(I left out the Kanye West question, as it really was silly though somehow I do think it may be worth pondering.)
XFR
And I’d just like to say here, for whatever it’s worth, that the campaign to overturn the election in the EC is a deadly serious threat to American democracy and to treat it as the handiwork of a bunch of shrinking violets is foolhardy.
There needs to be a counter-campaign in support of the faithful electors organized now or things could get very VERY ugly.
ks
So now that Donald Trump himself is on-board and calling the election fraudulent since he said that millions of people voted illegally, I’m sure you all will support the audit/recount efforts, right?
Uh huh…..
ks
XFR,
Your “questions” are the kind of tactical diversionary musings that aren’t really worthy of a serious response. You’re not asking them in good faith. Again do you have a point? If so, make it. I’ve made it abundantly clear what I think of Trump and how he will govern. What part of “…easily triggered, erratic and obviously mentally unstable conman is going to be POTUS…” don’t you understand?
He’s already appointed an alt-right leader, slimy insider, military wingnut, and far right wing corporate heiress to key positions and his projected appointments look to be the same or worse. Overall, he will be worse than Clinton would have been and he’s already cracking under the pressure. If you want to continue to play your “is he a despot or continuance or both or a poodle and oh golly gee what does it all mean” word games, that’s up to you.
ks
XFR,
Apologies for the double post to you but I forgot something I wanted to address. So Trump is currently crazy tweeting about Cuba today and yesterday called into question the legitimacy of his own election but I guess that’s not yet another sign he’s mentally unfit and not a deadly serious threat to American democracy.
During the campaign, he regularly spoke of rigged elections and openly encouraged his supporters to “monitor” polling places in certain areas to combat voter fraud which is pretty rare at best and that’s not a deadly serious threat to American democracy. Btw, the three people actually caught this time around so far were Trump supporters trying to vote more than once.
But apparently, what is a deadly serious threat to American democracy is the ginned up hysteria about the campaign (which will fail) to overturn the election in the EC. An election which the PEOTUS himself just claimed millions of people voted illegally in and is thereby illegitimate. Oh wait…
realitychecker
” ks permalink
November 28, 2016
So now that Donald Trump himself is on-board and calling the election fraudulent since he said that millions of people voted illegally, I’m sure you all will support the audit/recount efforts, right?
Uh huh…..”
ks, how big a moron are you, really? Trump is talking about votes cast by people who had no legal right to vote.
Recounts do not even deal with that legitimacy issue. All they do is count the votes that got cast, period. Some states check for duplication, but not legitimacy of the votes themselves.
Let me answer my own question: You are a very big moron.
It must be very difficult to go through life with your eyes and ears blocked by rectal tissue. But I guess you like the smell. 🙂
ks
Poor baby, your hero Trump claimed that were millions of illegal votes cast thereby tainting the election and making his win illegitimate and in true foot soldier fashion you are trying to prop up Dear Leader by pretending not to understand the implications of what he said in terms of blunting the dumb criticism of the recount effort.
You are choking on Trump’s own words. Get used to it. It’s going to happen often.
ks
“Trump is talking about votes cast by people who had no legal right to vote.”
Wait let me guess, all of those MILLIONS of votes cast by people who had no legal right to vote were only cast in CA and only for Clinton and they were all secretly bused to the polls by George Soros! Hahahahaha…. whew….hahahaha…gasp…hahaha… Progressive politics is going to so much saner when your ilk either dies off or go where you belong and join your rightwing brethren.
Peter
@ks
You know that Donald was only talking about illegal democrat voters so his republican voter win is secure. We already know that democrats would register a ham sandwich if they thought it would vote for them and their concentrating on registering immigrants is the perfect demographic where a few million nonqualified voters could slip into the mix. This will never be proven because most are in California the sanctuary state where it’s illegal to even ask people their immigration status.
The Californico PC/Identity forces are busy rallying support to protect the convicted criminal and gangbanger illegal immigrants from Trump’s Law while spreading fear among the good immigrants. This will certainly show people across the nation that immigrant rights groups have everyone’s health and safety in mind.
ks
Holy…you two actually believe that craziness and utter nonsense. How on earth did you manage to infect progressive websites and politics which is normally reality based…smh.. just amazing…
realitychecker
@ ks
Better go read Ian’s new post-it’s idiots like you he’s talking about.
Got shovel?
LMAO as you suffer.
ks
Um, no he’s not. You’re trying to deflect away from the reality that your lunacy has been exposed here. Unfortunately for you, that ship had sailed. Oh well…
realitychecker
What’s the matter with ks lol? (Aside from the shovel in his face.)
How I love to watch you writhe. 🙂
ks
Nothing is the matter. You are really crazy.
realitychecker
Diaper change, Aisle ks.
tsisageya1
Let me guess. Right wing psychopaths and a big bunch of bullshit.
Been there. Done that.
tsisageya1
Transition. HAHAHAHAHAHA!
XFR
(link to earlier comments, because WordPress seems to be borked again)
https://www.ianwelsh.net/trump-on-his-transition/comment-page-1/
Then explain. Why aren’t they worthy of response? How are they in bad faith? If you don’t have a real argument to back up your characterizations then what you’re doing here amounts to plugging your ears and humming.
The very obvious point is that you’re giving every appearance of trying to gin up an imaginary menace to justify overturning bedrock democratic principles.
In other words, he’s appointing the same sort of louts that any other Republican would have appointed.
The TPP is dead. If Clinton had won it would certainly have passed in the lame duck session. That already makes him better than Clinton in my book and he isn’t even in office yet. Speaking of which, isn’t it a bit premature to say he’s cracking when he hasn’t had the opportunity to do anything yet? Unless you’re trying to gin up a coup in the EC, which brings us too…
And Trudork said basically the same crazy thing about Cuba, only with prettier and fluffier words. That has nothing to do with anything. It’s the same cheap tactic the Iraq war supporters used. “You don’t believe Iraq has WMDs? You must love Saddam then!”
I don’t like Trump. I think he’s infinitely better than Clinton, the way that getting kicked in the groin is infinitely better than getting decapitated, but that’s not the issue. The issue is “don’t like” is not the bar to clear to invalidate an election. Having a guy you’re not fond of in office is not an existential threat to democracy. Throwing out the result of an election because a guy you’re not fond of won it most definitely is.
If you’re so certain it will fail then why do you care? And there isn’t any hysteria about it, that’s why I bothered to raise it in the first place. Trump’s supporters are dismissing this as the work of a bunch of sad-sack sore losers, which is extremely foolhardy. And yes, I think that THROWING OUT AN ELECTION IS A SERIOUS THREAT TO DEMOCRACY. Apparently I’m just really weird that way.
ks
@XFR,
Okay in general but, you’re exaggerating for effect and cleverly taking advantage of my misstatement about “overturning the election”. The actual Electoral college vote on December 19th is part of the process and the occasional faithless elector is not some unheard of thing. The lobbying effort to get some of them to not vote for Trump is mostly just noise and, yes ginned up hysteria from rightwing media/blogs.
You well know it’s not very likely to succeed but you get to thunder on about THROWING OUT AN ELECTION IS A SERIOUS THREAT TO DEMOCRACY (horror! horror! horror!) as if you’ve never heard of Bush v Gore in which the Supreme Court stopped the vote count and essentially appointed Bush. Apparently, you missed that SERIOUS THREAT TO DEMOCRACY!!!!!!
XFR
You don’t get to just keep throwing out breezy dismissals without backing them up with any actual arguments. That’s not how a serious debate works.
The occasional Canadian senator or British Lord voting against a Commons bill is unremarkable. The Canadian senate or the House of Lords VOTING DOWN a Commons bill would be anything but. And that’s just the matter of a single bill. A general election is on a different plane entirely.
What hysteria? All I’m seeing from the right on this matter is “HAW HAW SNOWFLAKES”. The hysteria I’m seeing from the Democrats (I won’t sully the term “left-wing” by applying it to them) on the other hand is truly barking and looks very much like the run-up to a coup attempt.
I do not, in fact, know that. Neither do you.
It is.
Indeed.
Hardly. What could possibly have made you think that I hadn’t? That was a horrible blow to the credibility of American democracy.
The EC overturning an election would be inconceivably worse. The very nature of American government would be thrown into total confusion. Do you seriously believe that “I get to vote for someone whom I know nothing about and who will never run for office again, who will then in turn secretly cast a vote for the person who will run the government” would actually work as a real system? There’s a reason the original idea for the EC was abandoned almost immediately. The “mob rule” justification for it was always pretty tendentious anyway as that’s really only a concern with true direct democracy–and even then, not so much (cf. Switzerland).
realitychecker
@ XFR
“You don’t get to just keep throwing out breezy dismissals without backing them up with any actual arguments.”
That’s what he does. That’s all he does. (h/t Kyle Reese) 🙂