Slide, slide, slippity-slide… into authoritarianism.
Funny how the powers that be only listened to him as far as it was convenient for them. This is why ideology that ignores real world dynamics/likely results is often found wanting.
The wickedly humorous meme, help a tiny bit in dealing with the tragedy that is our president.
I liked this one;
So I’m hearing that now the Orangutan* in Chief’s Administration is actually entertaining handing over Michael McFaul, former US F*CKING AMBASSADOR to Russia, to Putin’s government for “questioning” (no doubt accompanied with a nice cup of “tea”). W.T.F.
*This is actually unfair to orangutans, my apologies.
Two weeks before his inauguration, Donald J. Trump was shown highly classified intelligence indicating that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia had personally ordered complex cyberattacks to sway the 2016 American election.
The evidence included texts and emails from Russian military officers and information gleaned from a top-secret source close to Mr. Putin, who had described to the C.I.A. how the Kremlin decided to execute its campaign of hacking and disinformation.
Mr. Trump sounded grudgingly convinced, according to several people who attended the intelligence briefing. But ever since, Mr. Trump has tried to cloud the very clear findings that he received on Jan. 6, 2017, which his own intelligence leaders have unanimously endorsed.
The shifting narrative underscores the degree to which Mr. Trump regularly picks and chooses intelligence to suit his political purposes. That has never been more clear than this week.
Often we’re guilty of reading reason into Trump’s actions when Trump’s Razor suggests that the real reason behind his actions is stupidity and/or narcissism. In this one case, however, I think Trump absolutely has reason to cloud the findings – When the whole truth comes out it will be clear that Trump and his family were actively colluding with the Kremlin. Trump isn’t subconsciously muddying the waters to sooth his fragile ego or out of fear of delegitimizing the election results – He’s covering up a crime. Multiple crimes.
For anyone who wants or needs a convenient one stop shopping for all the trump-russia related shenanigans, here you go:
Too funny and savage
So in possible Butina news, American University was on lockdown yesterday. Supposedly, a man with a gun was spotted by campus near Nebraska & New Mexico. That’s the location for the School of International Studies, where she went to grad school.
The response was more than campus and DC police. It included (confirmed by students on site) DHS and the Secret Service.
(side note: DHS is headquartered right by the school)
The timing on that is pretty suspect given the arrests recently made and people preparing to testify in various investigations, none the least of which is Maria Butina.
I mean, hmmm…the Republican controlled Treasury makes this decision on “dark money” literally hours after the arrest of a Russian national who was deeply imbedded in the NRA and other organizations which funnel millions into Super PACs which then spend that money on campaign commercials, social media blitzes and print media campaigns that can pretty much say anything, even outright lies, because the “candidate” doesn’t endorse the messages. We can be sure that not all the money gets spent directly in this way as well, I’m sure millions of it finds it’s way into GOP pockets all over Washington D.C…
If GOP-affiliated non-profits and Super PACs were forced to illuminate the money trail, and it lead straight back to Russia, how would that play out right now?
I’m going to go with resounding cries of “fake news”.
Sorry, I don’t mean to be bitter but… I’d expect that to be the case, and we as a nation to just continue on with the status quo.
No hyperbole, the 2018 midterm elections may be the most important this country has ever had.
FAKE NEWS is an amazing catch-all that the GOP/Fox will apply to anything, literally anything, that doesn’t fit with their agenda.
It’s incredibly (and baffling, to me) powerful. They can get ~35% of the American voters to literally shut off their brains from selected portions of reality with the utterance of two words. It’s like a trick of mass hypnosis.
It’s just the ultimate form of self-selection and is probably adjacent to something like religious faith. Of course the idea of Fake News, like the guilty accusing the innocent of crimes, is of course perpetuated by Fake News itself. Like those hypothetical questions i posted somewhere around here, because so many Republicans have been convinced that voting Democratic is so unthinkable that effectively no Republican would be so bad as to vote against them (they may at best abstain from voting), i honestly have a hard time parsing Fake News’ impact (as a concept) with a political group that is already converted and is simply looking for ammunition to further justify their views. (And that the role of people like gman, tbh, digging up any slight and perceived problem to keep the conservative diet of anti-liberal views well stocked). That 35% is hardly going to be swayed to vote Democratic against a Republican for any reason.
What i’m trying now on the conservatives around me is something like “If you think all news is fake, why do you believe all the character attacks on Hillary Clinton?”. No bites so far, but maybe a couple of slightly puzzled looks. Hopefully get some seeds planted.
My spies suggest to me to use the word “propaganda” instead of fake news.