US Politics, February 2018: Our country was founded by geniuses, but it’s being run by idiots

It’s like Lil Wayne said, repetition is the father of learning

Several xps to the Steve Schmidt tweet: I don't understand people who lived through the George W. Bush administration and still thought the office of the presidency had any dignity left.

Trump has clearly demonstrated that there's still tons of dignity left to shed, we seem to find new lows every day

a bit i guess? we have done this panto before

demonstrably unqualified republican bozo gains office, outrage o'erfloweth, deomcrats threaten to leave the country, no one actually does apart from me

deomcrats threaten to leave the country

hell, no! I won't go! this land is my land; it was made for me. I have I it on good authority.

tracer if you give me a job i'll leave too

this assemblage of allegations that are individually and provably false but that piled together sound like something real. It would take you so much time to debunk everything in that paragraph that by the time you were done you'd already be six talking points behind

Oh look https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/perspectives/PE100/PE198/RAND_PE198.pdf

The country has effectively employed new dissemination channels and messages in support of its 2014 annexation of the Crimean peninsula, its ongoing involvement in the conflicts in Ukraine and Syria, and its antagonism of NATO allies. Like a “firehose of falsehood,” the Russian propaganda model is high-volume and multichannel, and it disseminates messages without regard for the truth. It is also rapid, continuous, and repetitive, and it lacks commitment to consistency. These techniques would seem to run counter to the received wisdom for successful information campaigns, but research in psychology supports many of the most successful aspects of the model. Furthermore, the very factors that make the firehose of falsehood effective also make it difficult to counter. Traditional counterpropaganda approaches will likely be inadequate in this context.

I honestly assume they adopted the firehose-of-falsehood model from News Corp and its tentacles. Certainly not the other way around.

they're gonna find the real killer, like OJ did

hey they have geraldo working for them... he's good at finding stuff right

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nH46Gc8fiPA&feature=youtu.be&t=07

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nH46Gc8fiPA&t=08

man i suck at making jokes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nH46Gc8fiPA

this should end well

Two guests on @chrislhayes' show last night - @RepJerryNadler & @PhilippeReines said alleged Russia email hacking/troll farm activity is equivalent to Pearl Harbor. https://t.co/XlZU7wq3Cn https://t.co/T3wz6WtJmu

— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) February 17, 2018

The president's new Twitter banner is a photo of him smiling and giving a thumbs up while meeting tonight with police officers who responded to the massacre of 17 people, most of them students, at a high school in Parkland pic.twitter.com/3NoH95CqKQ

— Mark Berman (@markberman) February 17, 2018

That Twitter thread has moronic nonsense.

Ha xpost

This is as scary as shit and so many progressives and liberals are falling for it. I don't know what we can do. Twitter and Facebook hide and demote anything that contradicts the Russia-gate narrative.

— EdgeOfSanity (@Quentin_Mann) February 17, 2018

will someone think of poor liberals and progressives like Quentin Mann

very kind of you alfred

(to mention me upthread i mean)

For my part, as a Bernie supporter, I have chosen to realize that today’s announcements are actually NOT ABOUT ME what a concept

― El Tomboto, Saturday, February 17, 2018 12:55 AM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

same and seeing that "People 4 Bernie" felt compelled to issue a statement about this mueller move made me want to throw my computer at a wall

you're one of my lights, HOOS

we literally were not talking about bernie at all until the tweet maura linked brought him up!

(not trying to imply anything about maura, just that it wasn't like rabid bernie stans, a group that does not include me, weren't itching for a fight about it AFAICT)

*were lol

anyway I saw the first "chapo is russian" take today so that was inevitable

For my part, as a Bernie supporter, I have chosen to realize that today’s announcements are actually NOT ABOUT ME what a concept

― El Tomboto

It’s kind of about them though if people are going to be suspecting all left opposition of being a russian psy op now

anyway, this better end up with trump getting indicted for something

that would be nice

These indictments provide political cover for the investigation, and may provide additional witnesses.

Peeling an onion. Just like his Enron investigation.

Better be

Honestly, we may come into an impasse in which many involved in the campaign (certainly Manafort and Jr.) are indicted for conspiracy against the U.S., but there is nothing that rises to "high crimes" from DJT himself. I believe there will be money laundering charges generally unrelated to the campaign, going back decades, and I'm not sure that's within Mueller's scope.

The best I hope for from this administration is that its crippled from committing further harm. A DJT indictment isn't neccessary for that.

The best I hope for for the investigation is that it causes any future narcissist opportunists to realize that campaigning for the presidency isn't a marketing move, and will put everything they or their associates have ever done under a microscope. We don't need all politicians to be saints, but we deserve better than the devil incarnate.

but there is nothing that rises to "high crimes" from DJT himself

At least no evidence that connects him directly. He has a very limited inner circle who would probably have to testify against him, if he is ever to be tied in directly to the Russian tampering. I think it's not too likely Don Jr., Ivanka or Jared are going to turn state's evidence against him. Manafort probably expects a pardon. Flynn may not know enough to nail Trump without corroboration from others or unassailable documentary evidence.

We'll see.

I’m not sure whether or not this is horrifying, inevitable, or horrifying that it was inevitablehttps://t.co/rubwCTGBmS

— Rob Flaherty (@Rob_Flaherty) February 18, 2018

aaah fuck this president.

Obviously at this point a twitter jokester will post a screenshot of an e-mail from Mueller demanding that the FBI reassign all Florida personnel to the Trump investigation, and within a week 25 percent of the country will believe it.

I don’t really care about the FBI. It’s a reactionary organization, but I’d venture a guess that they were too busy spying on Black activists and entrapping people to get to this call. That’s their back to basics program, honestly.

— Dominick (@FanonsDream) February 18, 2018

one thing that's important to keep in mind with the FBI is that the agents working on the trump case are also the only people capable of handling tips about potential mass shooters in the Florida office.

SO the prez pretty much blamed the school shooting on the Russia investigation today

I definitely disagree him on that one.

so good of simon h to share the absolute worst tweets and threads so i know to avoid them if i see them in the wild. you and morbs are doing the lord's work.

How long before Trump exploits the failures of the FBI in this case?

― Video reach stereo bog (Tom D.), Friday, 16 February 2018 13:56 (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I thought it would be within the week. Of course he's never going to shut up about this now.

lmao stevie, regardless of yr politics, if you earnestly think Dominick's tweet there represents anything near the worst of twitter you're in for a shock

Did he get locked in the shitter this morning?

17 kids were murdered

this is our president tonight pic.twitter.com/bShXe55ucs

— Tim Dickinson (@7im) February 18, 2018

Eh -- this line of attack is lame. We're back to criticizing Dubya for playing golf as if that's the problem.

yeah the "have you no decency" line won't change anyone's mind

we all already know the answer

But there are other people than those who needs to change their minds or die.

It's really not hard to ditch the lines of attack that will never work

Having students protest gun massacres every damn day is one good start

You guys are so hard on him, it's pretty obvious to me that he is being very strong in public, putting up a good front, and that the second the cameras are off and he's somewhere private, he just breaks down in tears. That's why he is reportedly such a homebody. He likes hanging at his own places because he knows all the hideaways where he can escape and just have a good cry.

Same with those porn stars and Playboy models. He just wanted someone to talk to, man. Someone like him, who knows what it's like to be objectified, to be dismissed as stupid or nothing but good looks, to hurt. Someone real. If it turned to sex that's just because of the close, honest connection they established, over shared experiences, over the disrespect born of being self-made but mocked by peers as a poseur or fake, over the dark strains of self-loathing that stem from growing up in a tough family where love came conditionally and at a premium.

You all should be ashamed of yourselves for ignoring his clear pain just to score easy laughs and cheap political points.

he asks for two scoops to feed one under the table to the cutest little black russian terrier puppy he's too bashful to admit he bought himself for christmas in 2016 to celebrate the defeat of crooked hillary. tax cuts

I'm mostly just appalled that, in lieu of showing up in person to offer condolences, he's apparently just paid Madame Tussaud to truck his 'thumbs up' model from appearance to appearance.

He's too cheap for wax, that shit is cardboard.