Trump's America, March 2017: Using His Inside VOICE

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/03/20/world/europe/paul-manafort-ukraine-allegations-trump.html

this guy again

list your particulars and the board will review your non-purge application xp

Plenty of non-Dems, few non-libs, you will probably be purged for heresy regardless of affiliation cos it's ILX

Is any regular here (openly) a conservative?

dandydonweiner had his moments

the last big shot Capital D Democrat "I worked for Obama appointees, you waste of space" got permanently banned

dandydonweiner is still around! he said a nice thing about me recently

Oh yeah, the gabbinator. Good times.

there was that jackass from wooden wand who we drove out. dandydonweiner is a rational and intelligent man in comparison

i have long thought that if someone waltzed onto ILX with conservative viewpoints and the ability to coherently back them up, they'd be an instant ILX celeb. it would be like gabbneb * 10. and i just want to pause for a second to let that image linger. there would probably be a few calls for purging but this thread would be a lot better

the last actual out-and-out conservative i remember on ilx was roger adultery -- anyone remember him?

Dom Passantino was the last trve conservative here imho.

^^^"that jackass from wooden wand who we drove out" xp

there was some dude named Stuart, maybe? like ten years ago.

*treads lightly*

i have long thought that if someone waltzed onto ILX with conservative viewpoints and the ability to coherently back them up, they'd be an instant ILX celeb. it would be like gabbneb * 10. and i just want to pause for a second to let that image linger. there would probably be a few calls for purging but this thread would be a lot better

― Karl Malone, Monday, March 20, 2017

In 2017 2007 1987, you couldn't coherently back up conservative policy unless you backed up RomneyCare -- er, Obamacare.

Nakh and I once made up a person like that -- congenial lawyer from north carolina who found ilx via the john fahey thread -- but decided not to create a sock out of him.

Damn Treesh, missed opportunity.

https://mlkshk-ada.kxcdn.com/r/192N3

Collusion that requires investigating

Lol I'd be dragged out of this place by the roots if I was found to be behind a project like that xp

Whoops!

http://www.latimes.com/business/hollywood/la-fi-ct-napolitano-fox-news-20170320-story.html

As I recall, there was briefly some poster who called himself Jay Bateman who pitched us a spiel about alphas and betas that might fairly be called alt-right, but he had such hot scorn heaped upon his head that he didn't last more than three days.

not being able to keep your job on Fox News is fucking profound

(to the article Ned posted)

People familiar with the situation who could speak only on the condition of anonymity said Napolitano is not expected to be on Fox News Channel any time in the near future. Napolitano was not available for comment.

yeah this is another good sign imo

IMPORTANT DISCOVERY:

https://twitter.com/cbenjaminrucker/status/843962317360500736

Meantime in the overall 'well well' category.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/noahkirsch/2017/03/20/russian-billionaire-family-trump-ties-ongoing/#5e2b873469b3

In an exclusive interview with FORBES, Emin Agalarov—a Russian pop singer, real estate mogul and son of one of the country’s richest people—described an ongoing relationship with the Trump family, including post-election contact with the president himself.

Among Agalarov’s most striking claims: that he and his billionaire developer father, Aras, had plans to build a Trump Tower in Russia that would now likely be under construction had Trump not run for office; that he has maintained contact with the Trump family since the election, and has exchanged messages with Donald Trump Jr. as recently as January; and that President Trump himself sent a handwritten note to the Agalarovs in November after they congratulated him on his victory.

“Now that he ran and was elected, he does not forget his friends,” Agalarov says.

...

On Monday morning, following this article's initial publication, a spokesperson for the Trump Organization replied to an earlier request for comment. "The Trump Organization does not, and has never had, any properties in Russia, and the press’ fascination with this narrative is both misleading and fabricated," she said.

FORBES' own investigation corroborates the claim that the Trumps never closed a deal in Russia. Nonetheless, Agalarov’s remarks seem to contrast the president’s repeated insistence that he holds no ties there, and come at a time of increased scrutiny for his administration on the subject.

...

Agalarov knows that maintaining that good favor will require continued contact with Trump's inner circle. To that end, he says he exchanged messages with Donald Jr. around the time of the inauguration, but was told no deals could be pursued until the company’s leadership structure had further settled into place. Donald Trump Sr.’s new role and the ever-growing firestorm surrounding his ties to Russia are unlikely to help matters either.

But Agalarov is almost certainly used to additional political scrutiny. His ex-wife, with whom he split in 2015, is the daughter of Azerbaijan’s president. As it happens, Trump once had a project there, too, though his company cancelled the transaction in December 2016 after development stalled. Agalarov says he played no role in arranging that deal four years prior, when Trump signed on.

No matter the current hiatus, should the Trumps ultimately seek to resume their dealings with the Agalarov clan, they will find a partner eager to collaborate. “Anything Trump related I would be interested to pursue,” Agalarov says. “I think today the Trump brand is stronger all over the world. And him being the president; I mean, it’s a big brand now.”

the biggest brand

Operatives for Russia appear to have strategically timed the computer commands, known as “bots,” to blitz social media with links to the pro-Trump stories at times when the billionaire businessman was on the defensive in his race against Democrat Hillary Clinton, these sources said.

Funny how little Drudge Report gets mentioned in all of this. He certainly was central to the key Brietbart / HeatSt / ZeroHedge / etcetc articles that spun the campaign. Bill Clinton's black son, emails, and so on.

And those "articles" weren't the key thing - they were created to float those stories, not primary sources.

Nakh and I once made up a person like that -- congenial lawyer from north carolina who found ilx via the john fahey thread -- but decided not to create a sock out of him.
― Treeship, Monday, March 20, 2017 7:23 PM (fifty-eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sounds like a parody of somebody i've heard of, did you mean to do that

Dom Passantino was the last trve conservative here imho.

― Le Bateau Ivre, Tuesday, March 21, 2017 12:20 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

he was many things but a conservative wasn't even remotely one of them

otm

https://twitter.com/SteveKopack/status/843993865841459200

Reuters reporting exclusively: Rex Tillerson is going to skip the NATO meeting on April 5 and 6 and will visit Russia in late April.

lol

Perfect timing!

Good timing, Rex.

I want to say there are a couple of people so libertarian they sometimes come off conservative? I think the gun threads bring out some pretty diverse/extreme views on all sides. Speaking of diversity, I think there's an impressive variety of liberal views here, which is interesting (to me). Cynicism courses through us all, though.

I'd love to hear a good, coherent conservative defense here. I have a good friend who is socially liberal but fiscally conservative, which seems to be a relative political minority. He votes Dem, but I have a few really lefty pals he's riled up in recent years.

Good timing, Ned.

But you can't be "socially liberal," as in support gay marriage and abortion rights, and be "fiscally conservative." Access to abortion is a question of economics. So is gay marriage.

How many congressional republicans are on board with the Trump admin's pro-Russia stance? It's mind boggling to me that they are just cool with it.

...OK...

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/mar/20/us-forbids-devices-larger-cell-phones-flights-13-countries?CMP=edit_2221

xpost I don't know, don't want to put words in his mouth, but for what it's worth he's a banker and European (Croatia) and is constantly warning that the stuff that happened (is happening?) in Spain and Greece could easily happen here, and is imminent in places like England and France, if not here. Which, I don't know, maybe it is, on paper at least. He's kind of a get your houses in order before you do all the good stuff you want to do sort of guy.

But you can't be "socially liberal," as in support gay marriage and abortion rights, and be "fiscally conservative."

sure you can. they're both sliding scales.

xpost Re: bigger than cell phone devices: Huh.

If you're a woman who needs an abortion because she can't afford to keep the fetus, it's no longer a "social issue." And gay men and women marry for tax breaks too.

...and, as jic points out, they're also broad groupings of convenience. plenty of room for disagreement w/in the ranks.

which is why I won't let them get away with the convenience and neither should you

I want to say there are a couple of people so libertarian they sometimes come off conservative?

I mostly identify as anarchist so yeah I get into this spot sometimes.

"anarchist" means a lot of things, mostly I have affinity for the Schiz-Flux/Situationist/Living Theater schools, old Anarchy magazine, Crimethinc to a degree and also e.g. the old school Mother Earth anthology writings of Voltairine de Cleyre & Emma G, I'm definitely not a liberal and as Josh notes the gun control threads highlight some of the differences there.

Morbs mentioned elsewhere about how lotsa leftier/anarcho folks no longer post here (hoos, table, 69 maybe, etc.) and although I recall that comment being part of a bad faith attack I still think about it and can see why that seems to have happened to a degree, this board can be really centrist-liberal a lot of the time imo. it's not like some terrible thing but sometimes I notice it.

that being said I get a lot out of this thread although I wish some folks would keep the color-commentary posting count down a bit.

Funny how little Drudge Report gets mentioned in all of this

well, he IS gay, the psychotic little closeted fuck, and probably not as useful as Roy Cohn

bad faith is the only kind in politics.

Anyone read the NYT Mag feature story on 'how the Democrats became the Party of No'? Chuck Schumer as a Dickensian comic "reluctant firebrand".