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    Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
    I’m afraid that he shares 45’s complete aversion to the slightest suggestion that his “triumph” was even marginally due to forces other than the righteousness of his ideas and force of his personality.

    That said, he comes off as a paragon of rationality when compared to Jill Stein on this.
    I think you're ignoring that there's a significant portion of the Democratic establishment hellbent on using "the Russians" as an excuse to handwave away any of Saint Hillary's responsibility. It's impossible to have a sensible conversation with a group of people who think Hillary would have walked an election if it wasn't for those pesky Facebook ads.

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      Yes. That's the idiotic counter position taken by way too many people in the Democratic establishment. Neither Sanders nor Trump seem willing to accept that the Russians tried to help them. Many in the Democratic establishment seem willing to accept that Trump would probably have won anyway, because their campaign was inept.

      Indeed, even Nate Silver - who has generally been pushing the line that the bots and trolls shifted very little - seems to be hung up on the correlation of the Clinton Email Leak story (which is almost certainly Russian action) and a change in the polling. I really think that the email leak thing is massively overplayed. Apart from the Fox News crazies, I don't think I knew anyone who really cared about it, and I can't see it as being the thing that shifted 300,000 voters in the midwest.

      Nobody seems willing to say that the Russians tried to interfere, but didn't change the result.

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        Nobody seems willing to say that the Russians tried to interfere, but didn't change the result.
        That's pretty much Glenn Greenwald's line. He's been pretty vicious regarding the Democratic establishment.

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          Flynnie, I don't think I ignored that strain of idiocy at all, and in any event completely agree with you.

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            Originally posted by San Bernardhinault View Post
            Yes. That's the idiotic counter position taken by way too many people in the Democratic establishment. Neither Sanders nor Trump seem willing to accept that the Russians tried to help them. Many in the Democratic establishment seem willing to accept that Trump would probably have won anyway, because their campaign was inept.

            Indeed, even Nate Silver - who has generally been pushing the line that the bots and trolls shifted very little - seems to be hung up on the correlation of the Clinton Email Leak story (which is almost certainly Russian action) and a change in the polling. I really think that the email leak thing is massively overplayed. Apart from the Fox News crazies, I don't think I knew anyone who really cared about it, and I can't see it as being the thing that shifted 300,000 voters in the midwest.

            Nobody seems willing to say that the Russians tried to interfere, but didn't change the result.
            Are you sure Silver isn't talking about the leak itself, but rather Comey's response to the leak? Because I think Comey deciding to reopen the investigation was some people's last straw.

            Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
            Flynnie, I don't think I ignored that strain of idiocy at all, and in any event completely agree with you.
            Perhaps it's just a reflex reaction on my part, but I think it motivates a lot of Bernie's reaction. He can't admit weakness on this issue because they'll jump down his throat and use it to discredit the entire left wing of the party.

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              Originally posted by Flynnie View Post
              I think you're ignoring that there's a significant portion of the Democratic establishment hellbent on using "the Russians" as an excuse to handwave away any of Saint Hillary's responsibility. It's impossible to have a sensible conversation with a group of people who think Hillary would have walked an election if it wasn't for those pesky Facebook ads.
              Are they really saying this? Are they sticking up for eg lack of campaigning in the rustbelt by HRC, for example?

              The stink seems pretty restrained, compared to what it would be if it were Republicans in this situation. Same as the aftermath of 2000 really.

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                I don't think I knew anyone who really cared about it, and I can't see it as being the thing that shifted 300,000 voters in the midwest.
                She wins the election with a 0.4% swing in those states. Not at all implausible that the reappearance of the story did for her. She's explaining, she's losing, right before the election.

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                  The Republican's approach of burying Clinton in Spurious scandals and imaginary investigations that went no where wasn't just to convince Republicans that she was satan, it was also to sap people's enthusiasm to vote for her as well. What Comey did gave that approach a massive boost in the final straight. It was definitely a factor.

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                    Which makes it even more bizarre that Dems and Teh Resistance have turned Comey into some superhero that they have fantasies about because he stood up to Trump.

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                      Don't understand what the hell he was doing. He managed to analyse the new e-mails well before the election. So if there was anything incriminating in them he'd still have been able to come forward in time.

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                        Like everyone else in DC, he was sure that she would win, and didn’t want to spend four years being Benghazied by the likes of Devin Nunez.

                        Flynnie, I take your point, but tend to think that Bernie is going to get that from the HRC deadenders no matter what he does. Were I him, I would have tried harder to give some credit to the investigation.

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                          Originally posted by Tubby Isaacs View Post
                          Are they really saying this? Are they sticking up for eg lack of campaigning in the rustbelt by HRC, for example?

                          The stink seems pretty restrained, compared to what it would be if it were Republicans in this situation. Same as the aftermath of 2000 really.
                          Oh yeah, there is absolutely a Hillary dead ender faction that will not admit she or Robby Mook did anything wrong.

                          It’s aided, in my opinion, by a significant portion of the centrist wing of the Dems fighting a rearguard action against the insurgent Berniecrats. They’re still livid about 2016 in all its permutations and, for the first time in my life, seem to have figured out that to get their way they need to control the party’s apparatuses. Which means they’re showing up to ward meetings and county committee meetings.

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                            He really is quite literally shameless.

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                              To a degree that people of our generation tend to think was impossible

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                                Originally posted by Flynnie View Post
                                Oh yeah, there is absolutely a Hillary dead ender faction that will not admit she or Robby Mook did anything wrong.

                                It’s aided, in my opinion, by a significant portion of the centrist wing of the Dems fighting a rearguard action against the insurgent Berniecrats. They’re still livid about 2016 in all its permutations and, for the first time in my life, seem to have figured out that to get their way they need to control the party’s apparatuses. Which means they’re showing up to ward meetings and county committee meetings.
                                Cheers.

                                I've certainly sensed the hyper-defensiveness on policy. But that they did everything tactically right? Crikey. The 1992 General Election here was pretty shattering, but by the Sunday, Hattersley was on TV saying we did X,Y and Z wrong, in good faith as far as I could tell.

                                Wouldn't they be better from their point of view conceding that they made tactical mistakes?

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                                  Evidently they don’t feel that way. It’s really quite bizarre

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                                    Originally posted by Amor de Cosmos View Post
                                    The image: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DW0ogknWkAE-G6M.jpg

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                                      Apparently Jared Kushner has had his White House security clearance downgraded.

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                                        Originally posted by Sean of the Shed View Post
                                        Apparently Jared Kushner has had his White House security clearance downgraded.
                                        Did he ever get it upgraded?

                                        This has become an unbelievable farce.

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                                          Presidential son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner has had his security clearance downgraded — a move that will prevent him from viewing many of the sensitive documents to which he once had unfettered access.

                                          Kushner is not alone. All White House aides working on the highest-level interim clearances — at the Top Secret/SCI-level — were informed in a memo sent Friday that their clearances would be downgraded to the Secret level, according to three people with knowledge of the situation
                                          .

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                                            He's having a tough week, and it is only Tuesday.

                                            Officials in at least four countries have privately discussed ways they can manipulate Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, by taking advantage of his complex business arrangements, financial difficulties and lack of foreign policy experience, according to current and former U.S. officials familiar with intelligence reports on the matter.

                                            Among those nations discussing ways to influence Kushner to their advantage were the United Arab Emirates, China, Israel and Mexico, the current and former officials said.

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                                              If only someone had warned the president!

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                                                The Kushner thing is just utterly jaw-dropping. It's almost impossible to understand just how compromised not only Kushner, but also Trump being the father in law of Kushner, and the Whitehouse having to cover for Kushner, have been. Who the fuck knows where leverage has been used - it could have literally been used on any staffer in the Whitehouse, threatening to bring down Kushner.

                                                How the hell isn't this the biggest national security scandal since Julius and Ethel Rosenberg?

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                                                  Originally posted by Tubby Isaacs View Post
                                                  Frank's big thing seems to be trade. But it's not clear to me that he knows anything about it. In that piece linked to from my piece, he says "all the arguments over trade that we’ve had in this country since the early 1990s, all the sweet words from our economists about the scientifically proven benevolence of free trade". Economists have a variety of views, and it's like he's proud of not reading any of them. One section on him seeing Trump talk about trade is laughable.

                                                  Yes, Donald Trump talked about trade. In fact, to judge by how much time he spent talking about it, trade may be his single biggest concern – not white supremacy. Not even his plan to build a wall along the Mexican border, the issue that first won him political fame. He did it again during the debate on 3 March: asked about his political excommunication by Mitt Romney, he chose to pivot and talk about … trade.
                                                  "Single biggest concern"? I mean, if Frank wants to gloat at Paul Krugman about being wrong (like he did last month), he needs to fess up to this one pretty quick. Not to mention that Trump was lying, and lots of people who do know what they're talking about think that if Trump did do the full protectionism, it would be an economic disaster.
                                                  'Yes, Adolf Hitler talked about construction projects. In fact, to judge by how much time he spent talking about them, construction projects may be his single biggest concern - not the extermination of the Jews. Not even his plan to annex Austria before invading Czechoslovakia and Poland, the issue that first won him international political fame.'

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                                                    https://twitter.com/stevemullis/status/968872209228992515

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