As we await the inauguration of Führer trump, I think that the following article is apropos.
*Shout out to Egberto Willies writing for Daily Kos.*
"As the Senate and House of Representatives begin a new session, it’s worth noting the fact that America was never a democracy at its founding, and is not a democracy now.
House Speaker Paul Ryan has been talking about a peaceful transfer of power. The problem is that while the transfer has been peaceful, how we got here has nothing to do with peace and democracy. What we have is a Republican Party that worked very hard to win, and a weak Democratic Party whose leadership betrayed many of their constituents through its silence and inaction.
Republicans used the court system to aid voter suppression and deny Americans health care coverage through the Medicaid expansion to Obamacare. They used economic angst to promote racial, xenophobic, ethnic, and gender polarization in order to divide and conquer. They effectively stole a Supreme Court seat.
Meanwhile, Democrats saved the economy and provided health care (and many other good programs). However, they did it timidly. They refused—and continue to refuse—to play hardball. Why didn't Obama appoint a Supreme Court justice during a recess, when he could? It was his appointment to give.
When Democrats had the opportunity to show what full progressivism could deliver, they punted. The titans of finance threw the country into a financial crisis, and the country was ready for bold action. But Democrats, specifically Blue Dog Democrats, half-stepped. They did not deliver enough to cauterize the change in the psyche of a more sizable portion of the population.
Americans needed a single-payer health care system, or at minimum a public option to Obamacare. Americans needed a much bigger stimulus that reached all corners of the country. And yes, we could have afforded it—just like we paid for wars, and bailouts for the military industrial complex and the titans of finance, respectively. Somehow we can always find the money to help the plutocracy, but not the poor and the middle-class.
Hillary Clinton vowed to provide many programs to aid the poor and the middle class. But while most believed she meant it, many behind the blue wall didn't. Forget about the racist and xenophobic components: This race should not have been close enough for that to play the effect that it likely did. Establishment Democrats are viewed as weak, not willing to fight, and too darn close to the plutocracy, as well.
The bottom line is that even as Democrats could have done more, they did enough to win the presidency and the Senate in the popular vote. They lost the House in the popular vote by less than 1.4 million votes.
Paul Ryan is claiming that Americans gave Republicans a unified government: an all-Republican government. Technically speaking, they did not. More people voted for the progressive ideology than the conservative ideology, and here are the numbers to prove it.
Democrats won the popular vote for the presidency. Hillary Clinton received 2,865,075 more votes than Donald Trump. Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump in the popular vote 48 percent to 46 percent.
The popular vote in the Senate is even more lopsided. Some will say that the map favored Democrats but that is immaterial, given this spread. Democrats won the popular vote in the Senate by more than 11 million votes.
Republicans barely won the House of Representatives popular vote. They won by just 1,377,169 votes. That is a 1 percent difference—and yet they hold a 10 percent advantage in the House.
There is now a unified government in the United States of America, but America did not vote for it. Republicans orchestrated it using a defective Constitution, because real democracy was never its principal tenet. Given the indoctrination by enough Americans of our forefather's virtual infallibility, it’s unlikely any amendment to mitigate this failure will be coming anytime soon." [Source]
"There is now a unified government in the United States of America, but America did not vote for it. Republicans orchestrated it using a defective Constitution, because real democracy was never its principal tenet."
Yesterday, we bashed the Republican's heads in with the Constitution, outlawing freedom of association, manadating demographic change for the country, forcing them to buy health insurance whether they wanted it or not, making homo marriage the law of the land and forcing Christian bakers to bake them cakes. We even used it to put cross-dressing perverts in their daughter's public restrooms.
But today, it's the Constitution's fault we lost the election!
Real democracy is the kind where WE win with the votes of California and New York and get to force the losing 49% to do exactly what WE want!
Why did those founding fathers not give us that kind of system?
Well, I guess this answers the question. This is the tone, every single night, for at least the next four years.
Keep preaching that Trump is Hitler and his supporters are racist. However, don't forget to feign shock and surprise when low-IQ blacks raised by single mothers kidnap, rape, torture, murder and maim even more people based on the fearmongering.
"There is now a unified government in the United States of America, but America did not vote for it. Republicans orchestrated it using a defective Constitution, because real democracy was never its principal tenet. Given the indoctrination by enough Americans of our forefather's virtual infallibility, it’s unlikely any amendment to mitigate this failure will be coming anytime soon."
LMAO!
As far as I'm concerned let's scrap that old rag! Burn it all down! Loot, pillage, assault, robbery, rape and murder are the order of the day (or year).
I can’t say whether or not it is fruitless to debate, ponder or argue what brought us to this new low. The obvious reason to attempt to understand it would, of course, be to never let it happen again, no matter what. I could surely cast some blame, responsibility, negligence of public duty. There have been myriad problems with the public discourse these last two years. I have my own theories. This is what I really think it is. Americans are just plain, fucking stupid. Shallow, empty Americans who watch TV and listen to talk radio and dick around on the internet with all of its foibles, cesspools and traps are just stupid on fire with gasoline. With their heads cut off. Wouldn’t you have to be pretty stupid not to see through the email leaks? Wouldn’t you have to be pretty fucking stupid to listen to that traitor, James Comey. Yeah. Russia hacked our email servers, Assange made one last desperate ploy for clemency from his new sovereign. Hillary can’t be trusted. You know, Hillary lied, people died. But wouldn’t you have to be pretty fucking stupid to buy into all of that.?
When it comes to unintentional partisan comedy, nobody's good enough to make this shit up.
White corporate media pushes, without evidence, the strict conjecture that Russia not only hacked the DNC but also that they did so in order to help Trump win. And people who believe media, whose lies are never ending, have the unmitigated gall to call other Americans stupid. This blog is a laugh-a-minute riot!
Assange was a hero of the progressive world when he was shitting on right-wing politicians with the information leaked. He and Snowden were considered gods. Americans had to be plain fucking stupid to not listen to Assange and trust WikiLeaks. Though as soon as the leaks come out about Hillary, it's all lies and misinformation and Russia did it in order to tamper with our elections and Assange is a pedophile who can't be trusted, and on and on it goes.
There's a much simpler explanation that leftists aren't even considering: Assange is telling the truth. Someone with actual MORALITY inside the DNC got sick of how corrupt it was and decided to leak information (which is flatly, roundly, universally pooh-poohed as meaningless fiction by collectivst apologists).
But, please, go out in the streets with signs and sing this tune to the top of your lungs! The more we get to know the progressive left in America, the more power it loses! It was gaining momentum when it was just about safe spaces in college and the myth of white privilege. But it jumped the shark to all whites are stupid racist fascists, and the dominoes have been falling.
One thing about conservatives as is regularly proven here is that they seem to have absolute certainty in their positions and beliefs. While this may be admirable they seem to miss the point that not everyone agrees with them or chooses to want to live by their beliefs. I agree that the constitution may be part of the problem, Wyoming should not have the same senitoral power as California. Agree with your premise.
There are numerous undemocratic features of our system.
The Senate and the Electoral College system for electing the president are undemocratic by design, right out of the gate, a "gift" from the Founding Fathers.
The House is at least temporarily rigged by Republican gerrymandering of electoral districts, in the wake of their party winning many state legislatures in 2010. Having legislatures draw districts on a partisan basis is a terrible system. In the 21st century, districts should be drawn randomly by computer algorithm to prevent this sort of rigging by whichever party happens to be in power whenever re-districting is scheduled.
We have single-candidate, winner-take-all electoral districts, which punish urban liberals for living in overwhelmingly Democrat-packed districts (a district with 92% Democrats gets the same number of representatives as a district with 52% Democrats -- only one representative -- whereas if those same people were more geographically spread out, they'd score more representatives and Congress would more accurately reflect the partisan mix of the nation). A proportional voting system would cure this.
On top of those in-built flaws in our system, which Republicans obviously have no incentive to change because they are benefiting from the unfairness of them, there are the more recent outrages to both law and common sense -- namely, the bullshit Supreme Court ruling that gutted the Voting Rights Act and allowed Jim-Crow-esque racist voter suppression to return, and the stupid "money equals speech" Supreme Court ruling that opened the floodgates on campaign financing and gave the rich even more influence on our government than they'd already had.
The votes were never there for single payer. The Medicare buy in was killed by Joe Liebermen and Ben Nelson, and the whole plan was sabotaged at every step of the way by evil Republicans who just want poor people to die. At least the Democrats tried to help. The Republicans actively harm. No, the Democrats aren't perfect. Never were, not even in FDR's time, and can't be now that the Republicans have lost their damn minds and become so uniformly radical-right that the Democrats have to cover the left and the center. Which they can't, so there is no functioning political left in this country. We're too busy doing the Republicans' jobs to effectively promote any left leaning policies, even though they consistently poll better than the racism and austerity promoted by Republicans. The Republican electorate is shrinking and aging out and they have to cheat to win with them, but they cheat effectively, ran a brilliant strategy in 2010 to gerrymander the house, and have a right wing media infrastructure that has, as Driftglass put it: "Once Fox News and hate radio had manufactured a critical mass of fact-proof idiots ...the Party of Lincoln irrecoverably reshaped itself to accommodate them.
They have passed beyond the reach of reason, so the only viable way to impede their stampede to ruin is to trash their getaway car.
The Big Lie of "Both Sides Do It" is their getaway car."
So, really, to become governable again a lot of work must be done, and there really isn't any question about which party to invest that work in, and it ain't the party that's actively trying to kill us.
Moving beyond gripes about our undemocratic government, there's a lot more that is wrong.
Our media is desperately broken and stupid and infected with "false balance" issues, refusing to arbitrate between truth and lies. They just report "this side says X and that side says Y," never pointing out that one side is provably wrong or lying. It is the job of journalists to help the public sift through what is fact and what is fiction.
The ultimate example of this is on issues like climate change, where you've got an actual climate scientist expressing the consensus view of his entire profession in a debate with some right-wing politician who's a flunky for Exxon with a degree in history from Bayou Gator State University. There should be no "debate" here. One of these people is an expert on the subject, while the other doesn't know jack about it and his views have no value so we shouldn't be hearing them.
What's next? A debate about what causes cancer, between a leading research oncologist ... and some dude the news network grabbed from the garden center at Home Depot?
It's no surprise that Americans are so politically dumb when news media are actively working to make them dumber. If I have to listen to one more "credible expert versus lying dumbass" debate, in which the network treats the two as equals ...
Some of those are about policy. The main flaw I see that helped lead to the disaster of Trumpism is acceptance of the free-market consensus on trade and labor. Democrats have concentrated their efforts on things like improving social mobility, on helping people move "up the ladder" with improved access to education, along with trying to provide public services like healthcare and welfare. That's just not good enough. Making it easier for more people to climb from the bottom to the top of the ladder is fine and all, but fundamentally, things are getting worse and worse for workers on the bottom and middle rungs of the ladder.
There is increasing job instability and wage stagnation for everyone, except the guys at the top, who are making out like bandits. And there is geographically unequal development. People in some rural areas have every reason to be pissed that the bottom has fallen out of the economy in their sections of the country. Trump has capitalized on this. He is a colossal boob who is incapable of addressing these problems, but he is pretending he will, and along with offering up heaps of racism, that seems to have bamboozled enough suckers to win him the election. If Democrats had put any effort at all into thinking about globalization and trade issues, or better supported labor rights and unions, they might be in better shape.
The Democrats also have massive strategy problems that have been obvious for years. They concentrate all their efforts on winning national races, neglecting the state governments where important policy is made. They can't manage to turn out voters in midterm elections when a presidential candidate isn't on the ballot, and fail especially badly in getting minorities and young white voters to show up. They don't bother even trying to counter the hideous right-wing brainwashing that is going on through wingnut media in rural areas, even in purple states, the deliberate fueling of racism and resentment and hatred of government.
Be sure to check out the Aviation Legacy Weekend Black History Month Celebration. It will take place at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum over the Feb 24-26 weekend. Check out the FB page and plan to hang out with tons of Black aerospace professionals and have a good time. If you're lucky you might even get to hang out with the X man.
"in a debate with some right-wing politician who's a flunky for Exxon with a degree in history from Bayou Gator State University."
I've been saying this for many years now, but no one will listen to me. And while my qualifications are not in climatology, I do have two degrees (biology, evolutionary biology) in hard scientific disciplines, so I'm not just pulling crap out da ass here. The number-one reason--the biggest reason, beyond all others!--that right-wing nutjobs stand in opposition to climate change is that the progressive left has made it political.
And look--I mean objectively; seriously, if you fancy yourself an honest person, look objectively--at the left's track record on "science." Neil deGrasse Tyson said himself that the anti-vaccine movement is only around because of the left pushing it. Long before Trump got on board with this anti-science BS, it was the left pushing it. Look at how progressives claim that gender, and even BIOLOGICAL SEX, are just "social constructs" and that sex can literally be fluid and that there may be infinite genders! This is the type of horseshit pushed by your ideological brethren.
Y'all are quick as jackrabbits to put Republicans on blast if they don't believe in the theory of climate change*, but y'all don't say a mumbling fucking word to those morons who cry that BIOLOGY and the HUMAN GENOME is a social construction! The right-wing might have a lot of stupid elements; truly. Religion, anti-gay, et al. But they're fucking as observant as anyone. They see these progressive morons spitting this shit in the wind that is more anti-scientific than the Bibles on their nightstands! They see that A, B, C, D, E, F, G is ALL bullshit non-science. And you question why they would think H is also bullshit? Progressives presenting themselves as anti-science means climate change will ALWAYS sound like gender fluidity when it comes from the left.
But y'all won't let the scientists have the stage. Millennial activists, with less education than the people you're lambasting, and biased "journalists" take the reins here. They push a with-us-or-against-us dichotomy out the right-side of their mouths, while saying being born with a penis and gendered "male" is a gross mistake of patriarchy out the left-side.
Until which point y'all reign in your own lunatics, you cannot expect the right-wing to change. It's illogical.
The number-two reason so many decry climate change is that they're given such a large platform to do so! A few voices are amplified to seem like millions upon millions of voices.
Every single scientific theory in history has its naysayers. Medical science has its detractors. Evolution has its detractors. Fucking GRAVITY has its detractors! But because liberal media want to make the right-wing look regressive and stupid, they'll pull these nuts out of the cracks and crevices and thrust them into the limelight.
*The hallmark of a theory--in fact, the only way something goes from hypothesis to theory--is for the predictions to come true. Climate change predictions do not. Have not. Will not? Hell if I know. But while objective data does show increases, which could be/probably are causation (human) and not just correlation, the scope of the effects must be reworked, if these scientists want to be true to science.
Must have been a mean, green, hater's moon last night. Sure brought out the haters en masse.
The truth of the matter is-wingnuts are more than willing to lie, cheat, murder their own kids, commit treason, violate the constitution-whatever it takes to win and then claim god is on their side.
Too bad god doesn't exist because it would be swell watching these lying, phony kristian fuckers burn in Hell where they belong.
They aren't really useful idiots, but, they can be entertaining.
Those interested in tyranny work tirelessly to erode these restraints. Especially right after they lose an election
I noticed how Dems are trying to roll back regs to protect the poor and elderly, disabled, Gays. the environment and Dems are sure enough trying to gut government tax revenues so they can cut social programs and hand more taxcuts to the koch bros. Bad Dems, bad!
Wingnuts must all be breeding, regardless of age to allow this many suckers to be born every day.
"I noticed how Dems are trying to roll back regs to protect the poor and elderly, disabled, Gays. the environment and Dems are sure enough trying to gut government tax revenues so they can cut social programs and hand more taxcuts to the koch bros. Bad Dems, bad!"
Actually, moron from Iowa, none of that stuff is Constitutional.
There is no constitutional right to criminalize disapproval of degeneracy.
There is no constitutional right to income redistribution.
Interference in those areas by the federal government is specifically prohibited by the Constitution, who reserves those powers to the States.
The fact that we have federally created protected classes and coerced wealth transfers is evidence of the tyranny of democracy.
Your Government Week in Review. Note items 2, 3, and 8. GodDAMN Republicans, giving over the country to uninterrupted corporate devastation! We're on the fast track now, folks:
1. Trump fires all Ambassadors and Special Envoys, ordering them out by inauguration day. 2. House brings back the Holman rule allowing them to reduce an individual civil service, SES positions, or political appointee's salary to $1, effectively firing them by amendment to any piece of legislation. We now know why they wanted names and positions of people in Energy and State. 3. Senate schedules 6 simultaneous hearings on cabinet nominees and triple-books those hearings with Trump's first press conference in months and an ACA budget vote, effectively preventing any concentrated coverage or protest. 4. House GOP expressly forbids the Congressional Budget Office from reporting or tracking ANY costs related to the repeal of the ACA. 5. Trump continues to throw the intelligence community under the bus to protect Putin, despite the growing mountain of evidence that the Russians deliberately interfered in our election. 6. Trump breaks a central campaign promise to make Mexico pay for the wall by asking Congress (in other words, us, the taxpayers) to pay for it. 7. Trump threatens Toyota over a new plant that was never coming to the US nor will take jobs out of the US. 8. House passes the REINS act, giving them veto power over any rules enacted by any federal agency or department--for example, FDA or EPA bans a drug or pesticide, Congress can overrule based on lobbyists not science. Don't like that endangered species designation, Congress kills it. We - progressive, liberal, libertarian and conservative - need to all wake up to what is actually happening to our beloved country. #UnitedWeStand
Alexander Dickhead- the constitution sez equal rights fer everyone. Nowhere does it say Dickheads have the right to decide who gets those equal rights, Dickhead.
mike from iowa said... "Alexander Dickhead- the constitution sez equal rights fer everyone."
Really? Explain laws requiring Affirmative Action in college admissions, minority hiring quotas, government set asides for businesses owned by women or minorities, government mandated lower underwriting standards for private loans to non-whites, and "hate crime" laws that establish specially protected classes?
All of those things violate any concept of equality before the law, yet none have been ruled in violation of the Constitution.
Actually affirmative action made it illegal to prevent a person from being discriminated against which was happening before the laws. Keep in mind for decades people of color and women were prevented from certain jobs. AA laws leveled the playing field and had people of color and women not been discriminated against there would not have been a need for these laws. I would recommend doing some research into AA and you will find some interesting facts.
"Executive Order 10925, signed by President John F. Kennedy on March 6, 1961, required government contractors to "take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed and that employees are treated during employment without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin."[1] It established the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity."
A Dickhead- explain how sniffing paint fumes and having sex with yer dog are different. Explain why wingnuts can't lay eggs. Explain how it is you mouth breathers are conscious.
@Yeshing - hard to believe - it's in "limited release" cf. "Fences" in "wide release." Good on them, a film about mathematicians?? Starring women? With no car chase? Nobody gets shot? There is a God.
Oh Field pleassee! Don't tell me you actually believe that! Puhleeeze!
Politics and those two parties is like a wheel that goes round and round, meanwhile everything stays the same! The homeless in the streets of this 'GREAT' nation! The mentally ill without care and in the streets too! The poor get poorer and the rich...well you know!
Sure, Obama is doing this bad thing and the other bad thing but really that's just part of the game, so now Trump can say 'I can't do this or that because Obama! xD
And this just goes on and on! Term after term no matter who's sitting on the throne (pun intended) ;)
Meanwhile Obamas laughing all the way to the bank and so will be Trump!
Calm down people, nothings gonna change, the poor will get poorer, the middle class will get poorer, aaahh, but the rich...well you know x*D
and the beat goes on, the beat goes on...la dee da di daa, la di da di deee!
Lilac: Some things WILL change, like my health insurance. Funny, but no Democrats ever wanted to take it away. So yeah, there is a difference, and folks are getting ready to die over it.
There is some lack of knowledge about the political Process. One criticism is that President Obama SHOULD have appointed the Supreme Court justice. That is notn the way the system works. He can only recommend and the Congress must approve the appointment. Congress made it clear that they would not hold hearings to approve anyone that he recommended. Blogs change nothing without action. The Tea Party targeted all Congressman in the 2010 Mid-term elections who supported the President in the 2008. They won 21 seats as many sat home telling themselves that 'we did our job now the Black President should do something for us'. Ignorance of the political process continues to hurt any chance at change. Keeping the conversation going is just good for self-promotion but accomplishes little. Many don't even know that Civil Rights Freedom Marches were to get the right to vote.
Blogging on Facebook and MySPAce is NOT a movement. A movement is what Medger EVers died for in 1963 and Andrew Goodman and Michael "Mickey" Schwerner from New York City, and James Chaney from Meridian, Mississippi died for in 1964 (the inspiration for the movie Mississippi Burning'). Their crime was helping blacks, many first generation descendants of slaves, register to vote. The oppressor has ALWAYS understood the value of the vote. It's the oppressed that doesn't have a clue. Many of the Pols being criticized pleaded with young people of color to understand why 1964 Voting Rights Act needed to be renewed intact. They did not recognize when SCOTUS Scalia said that the clause that gave the Fed approval over States Voting rights changes was no longer needed because the country was 'different now' that it was the same as the 10th (States Rights) Amendment that allowed enactment of Jim Crow segregation laws 100 years before. This time 39 states put in Voter Restriction laws, And still many minorities said 'what is the big deal about needing an ID to vote'. Get out and challenge someone or change. Blogging network without action is just mental masturbation and then you give other awards for doing it. Talking with the like minded is safe You really think that talk is a challenge to a Julian Bond of Rev. Jackson who witnessed blood being spilled by your Grandparents? Delusional at a whole 'notha level is more like it.
So Kellyanne wants us to look at what's in Trump's heart as opposed to what comes out of his mouth. OK, pull that pup out and let's examine it. I'll get my microscope.
You always have a new perspective. It never even occurred to me to believe Trump, Putin and Assange over James Clapper. I wasn't even aware that this idea was catching on. I thought that most everybody believed that Trump was just having a breakdown over all of this.
My point was simpler. These tricks didn't have to work and could well have backfired if people weren't so gullible.
But you have to be careful pigeonholing people. Back when the entire NSA eavesdropping leaks came out, it was my libertarian buddies, aka gun guys that liked Snowden. I considered him a dangerous traitor. I will give him credit. He blew the whole thing wide open. Without his information, nobody could have confirmed the extent of the surveillance going on. It was shocking. But I always considered it hopelessly naïve to believe that there was any privacy whatsoever with telephone calls and emails. I wonder who Snowden thought would save him when it came time to pay the piper?
Nobody knows what were Assange's motivations when he founded wikileaks. But it's easy to see what he needs today. He wasn't going to get it from John Kerry or Hillary Clinton.
Now Bradley Manning. That was a real soldier who fell on his sword to get the truth out about the excesses of the U.S. military machine. They probably don't even let him use a telephone.
Gets caught offering lots of money to progressives to interrupt the inaugural and it is all on tape-a counter sting run by people O'keefe stung before.
It just doesn't make sense. What does Assange get out of lying? What does he get with a Trump presidency vs. a Clinton presidency? It's illogical to think that, after these long years, NOW is the time Julian Assange chooses a side and starts lying. Assange's track record is orders of magnitude--one may argue infinitely--better than the CIA's and the Clintons.
We did it to ourselves by presenting an inferior made to order punching bag in HRC. Now we have 4 years to ponder that and take ownership of the damage done and will continue to be done, and the sickness that will now have to run its course as the McCarthy era previously.
What does Assange get out of lying? Protecting his source. No doubt he would have done the same for Bradley/Chelsea had he/she not spilled the beans him/herself
"and the sickness that will now have to run its course as the McCarthy era previously. "
Oh, you mean like every single person to support Trump being called a racist, white nationalist, xenophobe, Islamaphobic Hitler monster? LMFAO!
The things of which y'all accuse people are always the things of which you're guiltiest.
"Protecting his source"
"No comment" works quite well for that. Lying will damage the WikiLeaks brand. WikiLeaks is trusted because, in ten years, they haven't lied. Once. About anything. They just release the information. It's y'all carrying the DNC's water by propagating this Russian conspiracy.
Simmer down, you Alex Jones'! They turned the frogs gay!
Who the fuck accused anyone of being called anything? The sickness will be the right wing agenda. Repealing Obamacare, persecution of powerless minorities, redefining evangelism as "religious freedom", voter suppression, right wing social engineering aka the Ryan budget, dirty air dirty water and clean coal, the "2A" as not a right but a responsibility, and a whole lot more ...
"Lying will damage the Wiki Leaks brand"? Yeah, and so will sources of leaks drying up because they don't think their identity is being protected. As such Wiki Leaks will no doubt see to it that their content is genuine but won't hesitate to lie their ass off to protect their source when "No Comment" doesn't work quite as well as they (or you) would like.
Wikileaks is hosted in Russia, and Putin is sort of picky about stuff like that. The intelligence report did note that the GRU used US based outlets for it's propaganda and fake news instead of Wikileaks. Assange just published what they told him to, he's of no special consequence other than the platform he has that was previously trusted by many on the left, making it especially useful to Putin for this purpose. I have noted in several comments here how much Putin hates Hillary Clinton, or says he does, because she poked at him when he was politically vulnerable. So he acted a lot like a Republican and blamed all of his problems on someone who had nothing to do with them beyond mentioning them in public. So what does Assange get out of Hillary losing the election? He gets Putin being happy for the service he provided him, something that is probably fairly valuable to someone who can't leave the embassy without being arrested and extradited for rape and espionage.
Lance, I'm more than willing to admit fault if I misread you. But one doesn't simply use "the McCarthy era" without directly implying McCarthyism, for flip's sake. lol
"won't hesitate to lie their ass off to protect their source when..."
As a huge fucking cynic, I have no issue with cynicism. For instance, I'd question claims made to me by about 99.9% of all people. Though I'm not so cynical when it comes to my family. They have an impeccable track record of telling the truth.
Notice that the only conceivable way you can cram Russian hacking--for which there's still zero evidence--into the narrative here is to simply create a conspiracy theory behind WikiLeaks in wanting to maintain source-guarding credibility.
Besides, their credibility says you're wrong. They're willing to tell the truth. If Russia hacked the fucking DNC, it wouldn't need Julian Assange to protect it. 1) Putin would likely brag about it and rub it in Obama's face! WTF can Obama's weak-ass do about it? 2) There'd actually be evidence. 3) They would have hacked better shit than run-of-the-mill media corruption. For fuck's sake, everyone who isn't a progressive in America already knew that CNN = Clinton News Network. There were no great revelations there. Everyone on the right already knew that Clinton destabilized the Middle East for Saudi oil money, expecting white countries to bear the full brunt. The emails weren't revelations to anyone but the left. And now many on the left are desperate to find some boogeyman so they can go back to believing Clinton isn't the epitome of corruption.
Assange is honest. Always has been. But for Russia, for Trump, he's suddenly a liar. LOL
Who else can you say that about? Not HRC. Not Obammy. Not the CIA. Not the FBI. WikiLeaks is the honest player in this whole fiasco, yet in order to push for your white corporate masters the lie of Russian hacking, you have to malign the integrity of perhaps the only honest player involved in any capacity in the elections.
Drumpf could easily pardon Assange. Pardons are non-reviewable, except when a Democrat uses it then it gets all kinds of reviews. I can just about guarantee an Assange pardon would be swept under the rug because the rules do not apply to wingnuts.
Obama could too. Any president could. WTF is your point? Are you really going Alex Jones level on us? Assange is lying about Russia so that Trump will pardon him? LOL Assange isn't leaving that fucking embassy. He'll likely die there.
You think the election results were due to a "defective Constitution"? Fuck you, Field. The voters elected our next President. Our Constitution is the greatest document on Earth and those who hate this country should visit Somalia, Sudan, or Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, South Africa, Libya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The McCarthy reference was a tangential reference to another sickness that eventually ran its course. No doubt there will be some similarities but the extent of such remains to be seen.
Just because you have not been personally presented with the evidence does not necessarily constitute zero evidence. "Assange is honest ... always has been" ... until he isn't. Some cynic.
Clinton News Network = CNN who hired Trump's fucking campaign manager? Who had the Trumpettes (Jeff Lord God King, Gay Paris Dennard, Kaylee MacEnany) trotting out on heavy rotation? Have a fucking idea Josh.
As we await the inauguration of Führer trump, I think that the following article is apropos. 
Egberto says the Democrats won the national popular vote for the Senate!
ReplyDeleteEgberto doesn't understand each state votes for its own senators, and their is no "national vote"!
Egberto works for the Daily Kos, telling the lies Americans won't tell.
I say we deport Egberto.
"There is now a unified government in the United States of America, but America did not vote for it. Republicans orchestrated it using a defective Constitution, because real democracy was never its principal tenet."
ReplyDeleteYesterday, we bashed the Republican's heads in with the Constitution, outlawing freedom of association, manadating demographic change for the country, forcing them to buy health insurance whether they wanted it or not, making homo marriage the law of the land and forcing Christian bakers to bake them cakes. We even used it to put cross-dressing perverts in their daughter's public restrooms.
But today, it's the Constitution's fault we lost the election!
Real democracy is the kind where WE win with the votes of California and New York and get to force the losing 49% to do exactly what WE want!
Why did those founding fathers not give us that kind of system?
Well, I guess this answers the question. This is the tone, every single night, for at least the next four years.
ReplyDeleteKeep preaching that Trump is Hitler and his supporters are racist. However, don't forget to feign shock and surprise when low-IQ blacks raised by single mothers kidnap, rape, torture, murder and maim even more people based on the fearmongering.
Brilliant.
"There is now a unified government in the United States of America, but America did not vote for it. Republicans orchestrated it using a defective Constitution, because real democracy was never its principal tenet. Given the indoctrination by enough Americans of our forefather's virtual infallibility, it’s unlikely any amendment to mitigate this failure will be coming anytime soon."
ReplyDeleteLMAO!
As far as I'm concerned let's scrap that old rag! Burn it all down! Loot, pillage, assault, robbery, rape and murder are the order of the day (or year).
I can’t say whether or not it is fruitless to debate, ponder or argue what brought us to this new low. The obvious reason to attempt to understand it would, of course, be to never let it happen again, no matter what. I could surely cast some blame, responsibility, negligence of public duty. There have been myriad problems with the public discourse these last two years. I have my own theories. This is what I really think it is.
ReplyDeleteAmericans are just plain, fucking stupid. Shallow, empty Americans who watch TV and listen to talk radio and dick around on the internet with all of its foibles, cesspools and traps are just stupid on fire with gasoline. With their heads cut off.
Wouldn’t you have to be pretty stupid not to see through the email leaks? Wouldn’t you have to be pretty fucking stupid to listen to that traitor, James Comey.
Yeah. Russia hacked our email servers, Assange made one last desperate ploy for clemency from his new sovereign. Hillary can’t be trusted. You know, Hillary lied, people died.
But wouldn’t you have to be pretty fucking stupid to buy into all of that.?
LOL
ReplyDelete"Americans are just plain, fucking stupid."
Followed immediately by...
"Yeah. Russia hacked our email servers..."
When it comes to unintentional partisan comedy, nobody's good enough to make this shit up.
White corporate media pushes, without evidence, the strict conjecture that Russia not only hacked the DNC but also that they did so in order to help Trump win. And people who believe media, whose lies are never ending, have the unmitigated gall to call other Americans stupid. This blog is a laugh-a-minute riot!
Assange was a hero of the progressive world when he was shitting on right-wing politicians with the information leaked. He and Snowden were considered gods. Americans had to be plain fucking stupid to not listen to Assange and trust WikiLeaks. Though as soon as the leaks come out about Hillary, it's all lies and misinformation and Russia did it in order to tamper with our elections and Assange is a pedophile who can't be trusted, and on and on it goes.
There's a much simpler explanation that leftists aren't even considering: Assange is telling the truth. Someone with actual MORALITY inside the DNC got sick of how corrupt it was and decided to leak information (which is flatly, roundly, universally pooh-poohed as meaningless fiction by collectivst apologists).
But, please, go out in the streets with signs and sing this tune to the top of your lungs! The more we get to know the progressive left in America, the more power it loses! It was gaining momentum when it was just about safe spaces in college and the myth of white privilege. But it jumped the shark to all whites are stupid racist fascists, and the dominoes have been falling.
One thing about conservatives as is regularly proven here is that they seem to have absolute certainty in their positions and beliefs. While this may be admirable they seem to miss the point that not everyone agrees with them or chooses to want to live by their beliefs. I agree that the constitution may be part of the problem, Wyoming should not have the same senitoral power as California. Agree with your premise.
ReplyDeletePX
There are numerous undemocratic features of our system.
ReplyDeleteThe Senate and the Electoral College system for electing the president are undemocratic by design, right out of the gate, a "gift" from the Founding Fathers.
The House is at least temporarily rigged by Republican gerrymandering of electoral districts, in the wake of their party winning many state legislatures in 2010. Having legislatures draw districts on a partisan basis is a terrible system. In the 21st century, districts should be drawn randomly by computer algorithm to prevent this sort of rigging by whichever party happens to be in power whenever re-districting is scheduled.
We have single-candidate, winner-take-all electoral districts, which punish urban liberals for living in overwhelmingly Democrat-packed districts (a district with 92% Democrats gets the same number of representatives as a district with 52% Democrats -- only one representative -- whereas if those same people were more geographically spread out, they'd score more representatives and Congress would more accurately reflect the partisan mix of the nation). A proportional voting system would cure this.
On top of those in-built flaws in our system, which Republicans obviously have no incentive to change because they are benefiting from the unfairness of them, there are the more recent outrages to both law and common sense -- namely, the bullshit Supreme Court ruling that gutted the Voting Rights Act and allowed Jim-Crow-esque racist voter suppression to return, and the stupid "money equals speech" Supreme Court ruling that opened the floodgates on campaign financing and gave the rich even more influence on our government than they'd already had.
The votes were never there for single payer. The Medicare buy in was killed by Joe Liebermen and Ben Nelson, and the whole plan was sabotaged at every step of the way by evil Republicans who just want poor people to die.
ReplyDeleteAt least the Democrats tried to help. The Republicans actively harm. No, the Democrats aren't perfect. Never were, not even in FDR's time, and can't be now that the Republicans have lost their damn minds and become so uniformly radical-right that the Democrats have to cover the left and the center.
Which they can't, so there is no functioning political left in this country. We're too busy doing the Republicans' jobs to effectively promote any left leaning policies, even though they consistently poll better than the racism and austerity promoted by Republicans.
The Republican electorate is shrinking and aging out and they have to cheat to win with them, but they cheat effectively, ran a brilliant strategy in 2010 to gerrymander the house, and have a right wing media infrastructure that has, as Driftglass put it:
"Once Fox News and hate radio had manufactured a critical mass of fact-proof idiots ...the Party of Lincoln irrecoverably reshaped itself to accommodate them.
They have passed beyond the reach of reason, so the only viable way to impede their stampede to ruin is to trash their getaway car.
The Big Lie of "Both Sides Do It" is their getaway car."
So, really, to become governable again a lot of work must be done, and there really isn't any question about which party to invest that work in, and it ain't the party that's actively trying to kill us.
-Doug in Oakland
Moving beyond gripes about our undemocratic government, there's a lot more that is wrong.
ReplyDeleteOur media is desperately broken and stupid and infected with "false balance" issues, refusing to arbitrate between truth and lies. They just report "this side says X and that side says Y," never pointing out that one side is provably wrong or lying. It is the job of journalists to help the public sift through what is fact and what is fiction.
The ultimate example of this is on issues like climate change, where you've got an actual climate scientist expressing the consensus view of his entire profession in a debate with some right-wing politician who's a flunky for Exxon with a degree in history from Bayou Gator State University. There should be no "debate" here. One of these people is an expert on the subject, while the other doesn't know jack about it and his views have no value so we shouldn't be hearing them.
What's next? A debate about what causes cancer, between a leading research oncologist ... and some dude the news network grabbed from the garden center at Home Depot?
It's no surprise that Americans are so politically dumb when news media are actively working to make them dumber. If I have to listen to one more "credible expert versus lying dumbass" debate, in which the network treats the two as equals ...
Then you have the flaws in the Democratic Party.
ReplyDeleteSome of those are about policy. The main flaw I see that helped lead to the disaster of Trumpism is acceptance of the free-market consensus on trade and labor. Democrats have concentrated their efforts on things like improving social mobility, on helping people move "up the ladder" with improved access to education, along with trying to provide public services like healthcare and welfare. That's just not good enough. Making it easier for more people to climb from the bottom to the top of the ladder is fine and all, but fundamentally, things are getting worse and worse for workers on the bottom and middle rungs of the ladder.
There is increasing job instability and wage stagnation for everyone, except the guys at the top, who are making out like bandits. And there is geographically unequal development. People in some rural areas have every reason to be pissed that the bottom has fallen out of the economy in their sections of the country. Trump has capitalized on this. He is a colossal boob who is incapable of addressing these problems, but he is pretending he will, and along with offering up heaps of racism, that seems to have bamboozled enough suckers to win him the election. If Democrats had put any effort at all into thinking about globalization and trade issues, or better supported labor rights and unions, they might be in better shape.
The Democrats also have massive strategy problems that have been obvious for years. They concentrate all their efforts on winning national races, neglecting the state governments where important policy is made. They can't manage to turn out voters in midterm elections when a presidential candidate isn't on the ballot, and fail especially badly in getting minorities and young white voters to show up. They don't bother even trying to counter the hideous right-wing brainwashing that is going on through wingnut media in rural areas, even in purple states, the deliberate fueling of racism and resentment and hatred of government.
I can go on and on with the gripes here.
Agreed. We truly need a labor party here but the two parties dominate the process so that may be a while coming.
DeletePX
Be sure to check out the Aviation Legacy Weekend Black History Month Celebration. It will take place at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum over the Feb 24-26 weekend. Check out the FB page and plan to hang out with tons of Black aerospace professionals and have a good time. If you're lucky you might even get to hang out with the X man.
ReplyDeletePX
"in a debate with some right-wing politician who's a flunky for Exxon with a degree in history from Bayou Gator State University."
ReplyDeleteI've been saying this for many years now, but no one will listen to me. And while my qualifications are not in climatology, I do have two degrees (biology, evolutionary biology) in hard scientific disciplines, so I'm not just pulling crap out da ass here. The number-one reason--the biggest reason, beyond all others!--that right-wing nutjobs stand in opposition to climate change is that the progressive left has made it political.
And look--I mean objectively; seriously, if you fancy yourself an honest person, look objectively--at the left's track record on "science." Neil deGrasse Tyson said himself that the anti-vaccine movement is only around because of the left pushing it. Long before Trump got on board with this anti-science BS, it was the left pushing it. Look at how progressives claim that gender, and even BIOLOGICAL SEX, are just "social constructs" and that sex can literally be fluid and that there may be infinite genders! This is the type of horseshit pushed by your ideological brethren.
Y'all are quick as jackrabbits to put Republicans on blast if they don't believe in the theory of climate change*, but y'all don't say a mumbling fucking word to those morons who cry that BIOLOGY and the HUMAN GENOME is a social construction! The right-wing might have a lot of stupid elements; truly. Religion, anti-gay, et al. But they're fucking as observant as anyone. They see these progressive morons spitting this shit in the wind that is more anti-scientific than the Bibles on their nightstands! They see that A, B, C, D, E, F, G is ALL bullshit non-science. And you question why they would think H is also bullshit? Progressives presenting themselves as anti-science means climate change will ALWAYS sound like gender fluidity when it comes from the left.
But y'all won't let the scientists have the stage. Millennial activists, with less education than the people you're lambasting, and biased "journalists" take the reins here. They push a with-us-or-against-us dichotomy out the right-side of their mouths, while saying being born with a penis and gendered "male" is a gross mistake of patriarchy out the left-side.
Until which point y'all reign in your own lunatics, you cannot expect the right-wing to change. It's illogical.
The number-two reason so many decry climate change is that they're given such a large platform to do so! A few voices are amplified to seem like millions upon millions of voices.
Every single scientific theory in history has its naysayers. Medical science has its detractors. Evolution has its detractors. Fucking GRAVITY has its detractors! But because liberal media want to make the right-wing look regressive and stupid, they'll pull these nuts out of the cracks and crevices and thrust them into the limelight.
*The hallmark of a theory--in fact, the only way something goes from hypothesis to theory--is for the predictions to come true. Climate change predictions do not. Have not. Will not? Hell if I know. But while objective data does show increases, which could be/probably are causation (human) and not just correlation, the scope of the effects must be reworked, if these scientists want to be true to science.
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah (flash tits) blah blah blah (use caps to make sure they see my tits) blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
ReplyDeleteMust have been a mean, green, hater's moon last night. Sure brought out the haters en masse.
ReplyDeleteThe truth of the matter is-wingnuts are more than willing to lie, cheat, murder their own kids, commit treason, violate the constitution-whatever it takes to win and then claim god is on their side.
Too bad god doesn't exist because it would be swell watching these lying, phony kristian fuckers burn in Hell where they belong.
They aren't really useful idiots, but, they can be entertaining.
Democracy is horrible, and inevitably leads to tyranny.
ReplyDeleteWhich is why the founding fathers limited democracy and established a representative Republic.
Those interested in tyranny work tirelessly to erode these restraints. Especially right after they lose an election.
Those interested in tyranny work tirelessly to erode these restraints. Especially right after they lose an election
ReplyDeleteI noticed how Dems are trying to roll back regs to protect the poor and elderly, disabled, Gays. the environment and Dems are sure enough trying to gut government tax revenues so they can cut social programs and hand more taxcuts to the koch bros. Bad Dems, bad!
Wingnuts must all be breeding, regardless of age to allow this many suckers to be born every day.
"I noticed how Dems are trying to roll back regs to protect the poor and elderly, disabled, Gays. the environment and Dems are sure enough trying to gut government tax revenues so they can cut social programs and hand more taxcuts to the koch bros. Bad Dems, bad!"
ReplyDeleteActually, moron from Iowa, none of that stuff is Constitutional.
There is no constitutional right to criminalize disapproval of degeneracy.
There is no constitutional right to income redistribution.
Interference in those areas by the federal government is specifically prohibited by the Constitution, who reserves those powers to the States.
The fact that we have federally created protected classes and coerced wealth transfers is evidence of the tyranny of democracy.
Your Government Week in Review. Note items 2, 3, and 8. GodDAMN Republicans, giving over the country to uninterrupted corporate devastation! We're on the fast track now, folks:
ReplyDelete1. Trump fires all Ambassadors and Special Envoys, ordering them out by inauguration day.
2. House brings back the Holman rule allowing them to reduce an individual civil service, SES positions, or political appointee's salary to $1, effectively firing them by amendment to any piece of legislation. We now know why they wanted names and positions of people in Energy and State.
3. Senate schedules 6 simultaneous hearings on cabinet nominees and triple-books those hearings with Trump's first press conference in months and an ACA budget vote, effectively preventing any concentrated coverage or protest.
4. House GOP expressly forbids the Congressional Budget Office from reporting or tracking ANY costs related to the repeal of the ACA.
5. Trump continues to throw the intelligence community under the bus to protect Putin, despite the growing mountain of evidence that the Russians deliberately interfered in our election.
6. Trump breaks a central campaign promise to make Mexico pay for the wall by asking Congress (in other words, us, the taxpayers) to pay for it.
7. Trump threatens Toyota over a new plant that was never coming to the US nor will take jobs out of the US.
8. House passes the REINS act, giving them veto power over any rules enacted by any federal agency or department--for example, FDA or EPA bans a drug or pesticide, Congress can overrule based on lobbyists not science. Don't like that endangered species designation, Congress kills it.
We - progressive, liberal, libertarian and conservative - need to all wake up to what is actually happening to our beloved country.
#UnitedWeStand
Alexander Dickhead- the constitution sez equal rights fer everyone. Nowhere does it say Dickheads have the right to decide who gets those equal rights, Dickhead.
ReplyDeletemike from iowa said...
ReplyDelete"Alexander Dickhead- the constitution sez equal rights fer everyone."
Really? Explain laws requiring Affirmative Action in college admissions, minority hiring quotas, government set asides for businesses owned by women or minorities, government mandated lower underwriting standards for private loans to non-whites, and "hate crime" laws that establish specially protected classes?
All of those things violate any concept of equality before the law, yet none have been ruled in violation of the Constitution.
How does that work, mike?
Actually affirmative action made it illegal to prevent a person from being discriminated against which was happening before the laws. Keep in mind for decades people of color and women were prevented from certain jobs. AA laws leveled the playing field and had people of color and women not been discriminated against there would not have been a need for these laws. I would recommend doing some research into AA and you will find some interesting facts.
DeletePX
"Executive Order 10925, signed by President John F. Kennedy on March 6, 1961, required government contractors to "take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed and that employees are treated during employment without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin."[1] It established the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity."
DeleteHidden Figures is #1 in the box office!!!
ReplyDeleteMy sista's in STEM DOMINATE!!!!!
Field so white he saves 15% with level billing and he only got his electric disconnected that one time in college.
ReplyDeleteField so black can't handle certain truths, so he deletes them.
ReplyDeleteA Dickhead- explain how sniffing paint fumes and having sex with yer dog are different. Explain why wingnuts can't lay eggs. Explain how it is you mouth breathers are conscious.
ReplyDelete@Yeshing - hard to believe - it's in "limited release" cf. "Fences" in "wide release." Good on them, a film about mathematicians?? Starring women? With no car chase? Nobody gets shot? There is a God.
ReplyDeleteYeah Jenny Bush's Hidden Fences comment shows how ignorance and stupidity reigns supreme in America.
ReplyDeleteClearly she didn't major in STEM in college.
Oh Field pleassee! Don't tell me you actually believe that! Puhleeeze!
ReplyDeletePolitics and those two parties is like a wheel that goes round and round, meanwhile everything stays the same! The homeless in the streets of this 'GREAT' nation! The mentally ill without care and in the streets too! The poor get poorer and the rich...well you know!
Sure, Obama is doing this bad thing and the other bad thing but really that's just part of the game, so now Trump can say 'I can't do this or that because Obama! xD
And this just goes on and on! Term after term no matter who's sitting on the throne (pun intended) ;)
Meanwhile Obamas laughing all the way to the bank and so will be Trump!
Calm down people, nothings gonna change, the poor will get poorer, the middle class will get poorer, aaahh, but the rich...well you know x*D
and the beat goes on, the beat goes on...la dee da di daa, la di da di deee!
Lilac: Some things WILL change, like my health insurance. Funny, but no Democrats ever wanted to take it away. So yeah, there is a difference, and folks are getting ready to die over it.
ReplyDelete-Doug in Oakland
There is some lack of knowledge about the political Process. One criticism is that President Obama SHOULD have appointed the Supreme Court justice. That is notn the way the system works. He can only recommend and the Congress must approve the appointment. Congress made it clear that they would not hold hearings to approve anyone that he recommended. Blogs change nothing without action. The Tea Party targeted all Congressman in the 2010 Mid-term elections who supported the President in the 2008. They won 21 seats as many sat home telling themselves that 'we did our job now the Black President should do something for us'. Ignorance of the political process continues to hurt any chance at change. Keeping the conversation going is just good for self-promotion but accomplishes little. Many don't even know that Civil Rights Freedom Marches were to get the right to vote.
ReplyDeleteBlogging on Facebook and MySPAce is NOT a movement. A movement is what Medger EVers died for in 1963 and Andrew Goodman and Michael "Mickey" Schwerner from New York City, and James Chaney from Meridian, Mississippi died for in 1964 (the inspiration for the movie Mississippi Burning'). Their crime was helping blacks, many first generation descendants of slaves, register to vote. The oppressor has ALWAYS understood the value of the vote. It's the oppressed that doesn't have a clue. Many of the Pols being criticized pleaded with young people of color to understand why 1964 Voting Rights Act needed to be renewed intact. They did not recognize when SCOTUS Scalia said that the clause that gave the Fed approval over States Voting rights changes was no longer needed because the country was 'different now' that it was the same as the 10th (States Rights) Amendment that allowed enactment of Jim Crow segregation laws 100 years before. This time 39 states put in Voter Restriction laws, And still many minorities said 'what is the big deal about needing an ID to vote'. Get out and challenge someone or change. Blogging network without action is just mental masturbation and then you give other awards for doing it. Talking with the like minded is safe You really think that talk is a challenge to a Julian Bond of Rev. Jackson who witnessed blood being spilled by your Grandparents? Delusional at a whole 'notha level is more like it.
ReplyDeleteSo Kellyanne wants us to look at what's in Trump's heart as opposed to what comes out of his mouth. OK, pull that pup out and let's examine it. I'll get my microscope.
ReplyDelete-Doug in Oakland
The only thing you'll see in Drumpf's heart is lust for Ivanka and Vlad "The Impaler" Putin-in equal measures.
ReplyDeleteJosh,
ReplyDeleteYou always have a new perspective. It never even occurred to me to believe Trump, Putin and Assange over James Clapper. I wasn't even aware that this idea was catching on. I thought that most everybody believed that Trump was just having a breakdown over all of this.
My point was simpler. These tricks didn't have to work and could well have backfired if people weren't so gullible.
But you have to be careful pigeonholing people. Back when the entire NSA eavesdropping leaks came out, it was my libertarian buddies, aka gun guys that liked Snowden. I considered him a dangerous traitor. I will give him credit. He blew the whole thing wide open. Without his information, nobody could have confirmed the extent of the surveillance going on. It was shocking. But I always considered it hopelessly naïve to believe that there was any privacy whatsoever with telephone calls and emails. I wonder who Snowden thought would save him when it came time to pay the piper?
Nobody knows what were Assange's motivations when he founded wikileaks. But it's easy to see what he needs today. He wasn't going to get it from John Kerry or Hillary Clinton.
Now Bradley Manning. That was a real soldier who fell on his sword to get the truth out about the excesses of the U.S. military machine. They probably don't even let him use a telephone.
More O'Keefe awkwardness.
ReplyDeletehttp://crooksandliars.com/2017/01/james-okeefe-stung-his-own-stinger
Gets caught offering lots of money to progressives to interrupt the inaugural and it is all on tape-a counter sting run by people O'keefe stung before.
It just doesn't make sense. What does Assange get out of lying? What does he get with a Trump presidency vs. a Clinton presidency? It's illogical to think that, after these long years, NOW is the time Julian Assange chooses a side and starts lying. Assange's track record is orders of magnitude--one may argue infinitely--better than the CIA's and the Clintons.
ReplyDeleteWe did it to ourselves by presenting an inferior made to order punching bag in HRC. Now we have 4 years to ponder that and take ownership of the damage done and will continue to be done, and the sickness that will now have to run its course as the McCarthy era previously.
ReplyDeleteWhat does Assange get out of lying? Protecting his source. No doubt he would have done the same for Bradley/Chelsea had he/she not spilled the beans him/herself
"and the sickness that will now have to run its course as the McCarthy era previously. "
ReplyDeleteOh, you mean like every single person to support Trump being called a racist, white nationalist, xenophobe, Islamaphobic Hitler monster? LMFAO!
The things of which y'all accuse people are always the things of which you're guiltiest.
"Protecting his source"
"No comment" works quite well for that. Lying will damage the WikiLeaks brand. WikiLeaks is trusted because, in ten years, they haven't lied. Once. About anything. They just release the information. It's y'all carrying the DNC's water by propagating this Russian conspiracy.
Simmer down, you Alex Jones'! They turned the frogs gay!
Who the fuck accused anyone of being called anything? The sickness will be the right wing agenda. Repealing Obamacare, persecution of powerless minorities, redefining evangelism as "religious freedom", voter suppression, right wing social engineering aka the Ryan budget, dirty air dirty water and clean coal, the "2A" as not a right but a responsibility, and a whole lot more ...
ReplyDelete"Lying will damage the Wiki Leaks brand"? Yeah, and so will sources of leaks drying up because they don't think their identity is being protected. As such Wiki Leaks will no doubt see to it that their content is genuine but won't hesitate to lie their ass off to protect their source when "No Comment" doesn't work quite as well as they (or you) would like.
Wikileaks is hosted in Russia, and Putin is sort of picky about stuff like that. The intelligence report did note that the GRU used US based outlets for it's propaganda and fake news instead of Wikileaks. Assange just published what they told him to, he's of no special consequence other than the platform he has that was previously trusted by many on the left, making it especially useful to Putin for this purpose.
ReplyDeleteI have noted in several comments here how much Putin hates Hillary Clinton, or says he does, because she poked at him when he was politically vulnerable. So he acted a lot like a Republican and blamed all of his problems on someone who had nothing to do with them beyond mentioning them in public.
So what does Assange get out of Hillary losing the election? He gets Putin being happy for the service he provided him, something that is probably fairly valuable to someone who can't leave the embassy without being arrested and extradited for rape and espionage.
-Doug in Oakland
Lance, I'm more than willing to admit fault if I misread you. But one doesn't simply use "the McCarthy era" without directly implying McCarthyism, for flip's sake. lol
ReplyDelete"won't hesitate to lie their ass off to protect their source when..."
As a huge fucking cynic, I have no issue with cynicism. For instance, I'd question claims made to me by about 99.9% of all people. Though I'm not so cynical when it comes to my family. They have an impeccable track record of telling the truth.
Notice that the only conceivable way you can cram Russian hacking--for which there's still zero evidence--into the narrative here is to simply create a conspiracy theory behind WikiLeaks in wanting to maintain source-guarding credibility.
Besides, their credibility says you're wrong. They're willing to tell the truth. If Russia hacked the fucking DNC, it wouldn't need Julian Assange to protect it. 1) Putin would likely brag about it and rub it in Obama's face! WTF can Obama's weak-ass do about it? 2) There'd actually be evidence. 3) They would have hacked better shit than run-of-the-mill media corruption. For fuck's sake, everyone who isn't a progressive in America already knew that CNN = Clinton News Network. There were no great revelations there. Everyone on the right already knew that Clinton destabilized the Middle East for Saudi oil money, expecting white countries to bear the full brunt. The emails weren't revelations to anyone but the left. And now many on the left are desperate to find some boogeyman so they can go back to believing Clinton isn't the epitome of corruption.
Assange is honest. Always has been. But for Russia, for Trump, he's suddenly a liar. LOL
Who else can you say that about? Not HRC. Not Obammy. Not the CIA. Not the FBI. WikiLeaks is the honest player in this whole fiasco, yet in order to push for your white corporate masters the lie of Russian hacking, you have to malign the integrity of perhaps the only honest player involved in any capacity in the elections.
Cynicism crosses into stupid levels sometimes.
Drumpf could easily pardon Assange. Pardons are non-reviewable, except when a Democrat uses it then it gets all kinds of reviews. I can just about guarantee an Assange pardon would be swept under the rug because the rules do not apply to wingnuts.
ReplyDeleteObama could too. Any president could. WTF is your point? Are you really going Alex Jones level on us? Assange is lying about Russia so that Trump will pardon him? LOL Assange isn't leaving that fucking embassy. He'll likely die there.
ReplyDeleteYou think the election results were due to a "defective Constitution"? Fuck you, Field. The voters elected our next President. Our Constitution is the greatest document on Earth and those who hate this country should visit Somalia, Sudan, or Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, South Africa, Libya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
ReplyDeleteThe McCarthy reference was a tangential reference to another sickness that eventually ran its course. No doubt there will be some similarities but the extent of such remains to be seen.
ReplyDeleteJust because you have not been personally presented with the evidence does not necessarily constitute zero evidence. "Assange is honest ... always has been" ... until he isn't. Some cynic.
Clinton News Network = CNN who hired Trump's fucking campaign manager? Who had the Trumpettes (Jeff Lord God King, Gay Paris Dennard, Kaylee MacEnany) trotting out on heavy rotation? Have a fucking idea Josh.
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