Trump

[Phoebe]

Ron says it's a distraction not from Russia but from the fact that Trump was meeting with Chinese President here while moving forces off coast of Korea. Ron's whole thing about Trump is, whatever domestic policy crises or dishonest graft might go on, they can be dealt with eventually, but what really matters are major foreign conflicts. And he thinks we are due for at least one, and now he's worried they are actually going to take major action vs. North Korea if China okay with it.

Apparently the airport struck in Syria isn't harmed? Still functioning now? No idea what's really true, but if that's true, wtf? The biggest problem with Trump's presidency is that you know For Sure you're​ dealing with not just liars, but people who do little other than lie. Without remorse or care. So what can we believe, unless full independent verification happens? All this Kushner/Bannon conflict sounds like BS to me. Did we seriously just make a big fake attack for show, and our military was cool with that? What???

[Mike]

I don't think the Kushner/Gannon stuff is bullshit. It's just trivial and serves as further unintentional distraction.

[Phoebe]

Sure, BS either way. Really wish we knew what was going on or had some means of finding trusted info. Especially if we are embarking on a major war. On the other hand, if we ever did attack NK directly, I suppose surprise is better. Congress needs to approve all this. Is it true they weren't even notified before Syrian strike? I don't even know. Not even a few on committee? How would we know either way? Anyway, I didn't always agree with Obama's foreign policy, but I always felt like he wasn't going to make disastrous choices in the carrying-out. Do we really think Trump wouldn't? If NK attacks SK or Japan, would he nuke them? Anxieties not worth having, Ron assures me. What is my anxiety going to help?

[Phoebe]

I realize not everyone shares my paranoid worldview but I swear to God they do this shit on Passover on purpose. Fuck all these people. They will rot in jail or hell, whichever comes first. That craven wet pastry-person with his indignant lies and disregard for both facts and basic moral decency shouldn't have a job as the check in clerk at the local golf club, much less the one he has. Even his apologies - both of them - were acts of further mendacity.

NOTE: this is about Spicer's remarks on Hitler and Assad. The fact that he has a job lets you know that it's not some kind of accident or stupidity. Comments just like his remark were circulating around the alt right before he said it. The fact that we as a people have let this become mainstream acceptable on some level is deeply shocking and should remind us that the "its" of the world can always happen to someone. They are happening to people right now in large number and there is no collective will to put an end to it.

[salvation122]

[WillyGilligan]

I was trying to make that point to someone on FB earlier. I agree with the Administration that Assad is a bad guy, I don't need to throw this gaffe on the pile of "Trump is horrible". At some point you HAVE to filter the outrage machine or it will eat you.

[Phoebe]

http://www.facebook.Com/theDanRather/po ... 6956680716

You've probably seen this before, but this was Dan Rather's take on it. He says it better than I would. If this was some random, garbled, slip of the tongue by a commentator, the outrage wouldn't be there. The problem is, he is The official spokesperson, and even if he had stated his point accurately and we gave him the full benefit of the doubt, the comparison of Assad to Hitler is both stupid and offensive. His whole point was that Russia should distance from Assad because even Hitler didn't sink that low. Uh, really? How is that ok?

Finally, and again, I don't expect any agreement with my take on this, but this statement comes in the context of other administration failures to speak accurately and respectfully about the Holocaust. I have the good fortune to hear the alt right perspective more than I'd like to, and at least some of them tried this talking point about Assad first. Then Spicer trots it out on Passover, at a time when Bannon, whose entire worldview is built around paranoid fantasies about Jewish people, is supposedly in deep conflict with Kushner and his allies? Nah, I just don't buy it was a slip of the tongue. The whole follow up with, well, Hitler didn't use them on "his own people" just cements it.

[poorpete]

Meanwhile... Slate article makes good points about the grand Russian conspiracy...
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/ ... rrect.html

What election conspiracy level do you adhere to?

1. Nothing to see here
2. Russian meddling, no Trump campaign involvement
3. Russian meddling, Trump campaign involvement without his knowledge
4. Russian meddling, Trump campaign involvement with his minimal knowledge (eg. "don't worry your pretty head" Nixon's crimes reside here)
5. Russian meddling, Trump personally involved
6. Russia and Trump working together from Campaign day 1
7. Russia and Trump working together for years
8. Russia and Trump working together for decades

I'm at level 4, at times oscillating between 3 and 6. I seriously doubt 1,2 and 8. 1 is just as likely as 8. To believe in #1 and #8 you'd have to create more and more conspiracies for it to make sense.

[FlameBlade]

When the campaign has at least 3 foreign agents, and one undeclared agent under investigation, you have to wonder who the heck is vetting all the people, or if they did not care. Manafort should be researchable, so...I am going with 4 or above, caveating with the possibility of sheer incompetence.

[WillyGilligan]

So, the President has now declared that NATO is no longer obsolete, China is not labelled a currency manipulator, and who knows what else. My biggest issue since day one of the campaign is that I've never gotten the sense that he's thought about any of these issues for any real length of time. He's obviously, baldly saying whatever he thinks will get votes, now that he has them he is changing everything, as if he has no moral center or guiding principle beyond playing the bigshot at all times. I see right through the used-car salesman spiel and obvious lies, and it leaves me gobsmacked that so many people look past it because they hope he'll do something they want.

Then I remember that the conservatives I know saw Obama in that exact way for 8 years, and I don't know how we move forward from this point.

[akiva]

[quote="WillyGilligan"My biggest issue since day one of the campaign is that I've never gotten the sense that he's thought about any of these issues for any real length of time. [/quote]

In an interview, he described his meeting with the Chinese premier, and actually said--without any embarrassment that I could tell--the he didn't know how complicated policy towards North Korea was, until the premier explained it to him.

[WillyGilligan]

Mmm...if only he had some kind of department that could inform him of these things.

Or maybe he's playing some kind of 5D chess where he only WANTS you to think he's ignorant on the issue. That seems to be the go-to defense of all these things.

I will say that assuming dishonesty has helped me a lot during this time. Remember when Conway started downtalking some of his decisions (like considering Mitt Romney) immediately after they won the election? That was obviously staged. And people say that all politicians lie, but that's not really true. Politicians play around with the truth, but you pay a price for outright false statements and they know it. So you get spin, which is more misleading than outright false. This team lacks any actual art to their bullshit, so they just lie. Which I find insulting, but the media can't seem to stop reporting on breathlessly.

[akiva]

[poorpete]

[Cazmonster]

Maybe the thing for Trump's handlers to do is buy Fox News and force them to do stories to sway Commander in Cheeto in their favor.

[bralbovsky]

I maintain my #trumpknew position of months ago.

That he's lost on the policy is no surprise; he doesn't care to know, doesn't need to be confused with facts.

That he'd renege on any deal with the Russians, no surprise; he reneges on many agreements. Either he just doesn't remember the terms, or just doesn't care what he agreed to.

He's a natural grifter, and eventually betrays everyone.

His regard for his own image and reputation ("my military") are the only things that might save us.

[Phoebe]

If what some of the people reporting on this are saying is correct, then we're somewhere down on number 12. I honestly hope that's not the case but things don't look good.

Meanwhile my neighbors found out that I'm not a Republican and now refuse to wave at or talk to me anymore like we used to.

[Mike]

[Stan]

[Mike]

That makes sense now. Thank you.

I'm figuring it's #7. The evidence is very strong that Trump has been making deals with Russians for years, some of them more aboveboard than others. And when you make deals that big with Russians, then the people you are dealing with are inevitably Putin's cronies. I suspect that most of what was reported about the leaked dossier is also accurate. I can imagine a world where we've reached this point, and Trump never explicitly asked for any help from the Russians with campaign/election related stuff and no one ever said outright what they would do for him, but even then, there had to be an understanding. No... you know what... he had to know. There are people in his campaign who knew for sure, and Trump had to know, but if the people around him were smart, they engineered some solid plausible deniability around him. If he can keep his mouth shut, maybe he comes out of this looking like Reagan during Iran-Contra.