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[PInk Tape]

https://twitter.com/BraddJaffy/status/798738692705816576?ref_src=twsrc^tfw

After ditching media, Trump went to dinner, got caught on camera saying "We'll get your taxes down—don't worry about it" to his rich friends

I'm not surprised. Nice that it got caught on camera, though.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...pen-clinton-email-probe-enabled-donald-trump/

Well, if Comey really did call Lewandowski (Who was a member of the Trump campaign) ahead of time then I AM FUCKING FURIOUS.

No Republican should ever be appointed to anything again.

Holy shit.

If this is true, then this needs to go to court. Seriously.

 

[Chumley]

how long until Morning Joe gets offered a cabinet position?

Don't even get me started. Their recent episodes. Holy shit.

Scarborough since Trump winning has become the most contemptible piece of shit on the news. I'd put him neck and neck with Hannity. It's fucking unreal, and somehow people with credibility keep going on his show just to get talked down and their words twisted by him.

Normalizing Trump is just the tip of the iceberg with what he's doing. He's ignoring certain stories, being selectively ignorant about others, and couching anything interpreted as a bad sign for Trump with "it's always like this" or "give him a chance it'll all be fine stop whining", and then he starts ripping the DNC for insignificant shit no one has even heard of.

I fucking hated him during the campaign but this is on another level entirely. And people like Rachel Maddow who would normally GO OFF on this fucking shit can't because he's a part of the same network. Fuck me.

 

[royalan]

Don't even get me started. Their recent episodes. Holy shit.

Scarborough since Trump winning has become the most contemptible piece of shit on the news. I'd put him neck and neck with Hannity. It's fucking unreal, and somehow people with credibility keep going on his show just to get talked down and their words twisted by him.

Normalizing Trump is just the tip of the iceberg with what he's doing. He's ignoring certain stories, being selectively ignorant about others, and couching anything interpreted as a bad sign for Trump with "it's always like this" or "give him a chance it'll all be fine stop whining", and then he starts ripping the DNC for insignificant shit no one has even heard of.

I fucking hated him during the campaign but this is on another level entirely. And people like Rachel Maddow who would normally GO OFF on this fucking shit can't because he's a part of the same network. Fuck me.

Not to mention he's incredibly sexist.

I mean, I've maybe watched 5 full episodes of Morning Joe, MAYBE. But if if I had a dollar for every time someone addressed Mika only for Joe to cut her off to answer for her...yeah, no.

Morning Joe is a stain on what has otherwise been the most fair television news source this election. Honestly, of all the television journalists/anchors who earned my respect this year, the vast majority of them are on MSNBC.

 

[Dan]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...pen-clinton-email-probe-enabled-donald-trump/

Well, if Comey really did call Lewandowski (Who was a member of the Trump campaign) ahead of time then I AM FUCKING FURIOUS.

No Republican should ever be appointed to anything again.

a) WTF at Lewandowski saying Comey gave him a heads-up.

b) "And then, Donald Trump won the election campaign by the largest majority since Ronald Reagan in 1984." This is laughably false on every metric. Like, I don't even know what reality he's talking about.

 

[Elaugaufein]

a) WTF at Lewandowski saying Comey gave him a heads-up.

b) "And then, Donald Trump won the election campaign by the largest majority since Ronald Reagan in 1984." This is laughably false on every metric. Like, I don't even know what reality he's talking about.

Electoral College vote margin maybe ? Only thing I can think of and too lazy to check.

 

[RastaMentality]

Electoral College vote margin maybe ? Only thing I can think of and too lazy to check.

the election before this one had a larger vote margin.

 

[HTupolev]

Electoral College vote margin maybe ?

Nope. This was very close; small vote points swings make for big EC differences.

Even 2012 had a bigger margin. So did 2008, 1996, 1992, and 1988. 1988 being particularly notable since Bush DOMINATED it; 426-111 EC and 8 points in the PV.

 

[CygnusXS]

Facts don't matter to them. Knowledge is only what they say exists.

 

[shinra-bansho]

Post-truth is the word of the year.

Also, just had a look through the Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipients.

And it's actually sad that even this is going to be something decided by Trump.
Like I shudder at who he'd give these to instead of people like Bill and Melinda Gates.

Ivanka, Donald Jr, Eric?
Ayn Rand? Alex Jones?
Rudy Giuliani, Steve Bannon?
Joe Arpaio?
Vladimir Putin?

 

[chadskin]

It's only been eight years but the 240p Youtube quality, the old CNN overlay and indeed the content make Obama's speech in Berlin seem like it happened a lifetime ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-9ry38AhbU

Yes, there have been differences between America and Europe. No doubt, there will be differences in the future. But the burdens of global citizenship continue to bind us together. A change of leadership in Washington will not lift this burden. In this new century, Americans and Europeans alike will be required to do more - not less. Partnership and cooperation among nations is not a choice; it is the one way, the only way, to protect our common security and advance our common humanity.

That is why the greatest danger of all is to allow new walls to divide us from one another.

The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand. The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down.

 

[cartoon_soldier]

Post-truth is the word of the year.

Also, just had a look through the Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipients.

And it's actually sad that even this is going to be something decided by Trump.
Like I shudder at who he'd give these to instead of people like Bill and Melinda Gates.

Ivanka, Donald Jr, Eric?
Ayn Rand? Alex Jones?
Rudy Giuliani, Steve Bannon?
Joe Arpaio?
Vladimir Putin?

Oh yea Rudy and Joe seem likely candidates.

 

[RastaMentality]

the dakota pipeline company's CEO donated $100k to the Trump campaign "after a friend asked him to".

The chief executive of the company building the contested Dakota Access Pipeline said Obama administration delays are cutting into revenue but won’t stop the pipeline from moving forward under a Trump administration, or sooner if a federal court intervenes.

“I’m pretty confident that worst case, Jan. 20, we get our easement and proceed,” said Kelcy Warren, the head of Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners LP, in an interview Wednesday, referring to the day Donald Trump is to become president.

Mr. Warren said he has never met or spoken with President-elect Trump, but he gave $100,000 this year to the Trump Victory Fund after a friend asked if he would contribute. He said he also wasn’t aware, until informed by a reporter recently, that Mr. Trump has an investment in Energy Transfer Partners. According to Mr. Trump’s campaign financial disclosure, he has investments valued at between $500,000 and $1 million in the pipeline builder.

https://www.google.com/amp/www.wsj....-will-disappear-under-donald-trump-1479327104

These sound like great people.

 

[Pixieking]

Board game reviewer/Cool Ghosts co-founder (I think?), Matt Lees:

Over the past few days I've spoken to quite a few Breitbart readers, and this is what really jumped out at me.

https://twitter.com/Jam_sponge/status/798839209125560320

Vaguely related:

My wife has been trying to convince a colleague that Trump is an awful person. He said to her yesterday "I looked on Youtube for the things you said, but I couldn't find them... Where are they?"

This is a white male, late 40s.

I mean, what the fuck are doing looking for news on Youtube, man?

 

[Andrin]

What I don't understand is that there's now evidence out there of both the FBI as well as a foreign government (the Russian government no less) actively working together with one campaign with the goal of tricking the voters and influencing the election and nothing is being done about it. That, combined with the evidence of up to a million voters being denied their right to vote through outright illegal voting suppression tactics, should be grounds for a reelection, no? Can a reelection even be done?

 

[Chumley]

Board game reviewer/Cool Ghosts co-founder (I think?), Matt Lees:

https://twitter.com/Jam_sponge/status/798839209125560320

Vaguely related:

My wife has been trying to convince a colleague that Trump is an awful person. He said to her yesterday "I looked on Youtube for the things you said, but I couldn't find them... Where are they?"

This is a white male, late 40s.

I mean, what the fuck are doing looking for news on Youtube, man?

That article is pretty spot-on. I watched it happen to some guys I played games with years ago and recently reconnected with for Overwatch. In their late teens and early 20's, they voted for Obama and were excited about the future. Now they're in their late 20's and none of them are at where they want to be at, and they've decided to blame globalism and liberals and PC culture and whatever else, so they turned to Trump. It's insane and stupid to me, but a reality for them. They think Brietbart and those types are speaking the truth and every other media company is just full of shit. They are incredibly angry and trying to have any rational discussion with them is fruitless, their sense of humor also revolves around unrepentant racism and using the word "cuck" all the time. This is all really typical and not unique, but it was just kind of jarring to me since I used to like these people.

 

[Chumley]

Not to mention he's incredibly sexist.

I mean, I've maybe watched 5 full episodes of Morning Joe, MAYBE. But if if I had a dollar for every time someone addressed Mika only for Joe to cut her off to answer for her...yeah, no.

Morning Joe is a stain on what has otherwise been the most fair television news source this election. Honestly, of all the television journalists/anchors who earned my respect this year, the vast majority of them are on MSNBC.

I listen to the recording of their show semi often on commutes. You're right, the show is pure trash and it really is a stain on MSNBC. Joe does not have any good moments, maybe the only one in recent memory is when he shut down Ben Carson for being a dipshit. That's it. He's completely up his own ass and for as many people shit on Bill Maher for being smug, this guy makes him look modest, and he's not even right about the things he says.

 

[Pixieking]

What I don't understand is that there's now evidence out there of both the FBI as well as a foreign government (the Russian government no less) actively working together with one campaign with the goal of tricking the voters and influencing the election and nothing is being done about it. That, combined with the evidence of up to a million voters being denied their right to vote through outright illegal voting suppression tactics, should be grounds for a reelection, no? Can a reelection even be done?

If all this happened in a different country - say, an African or South American country, where international observers were sent to ensure the election was fair - then, yeah, it would be grounds for calling for a re-election. As it is, I think the combination of not wanting to antagonise Trump + wanting to just move on + the view that "It's America and America can't be corrupted" have all combined to just make everyone ignore the facts.

Edit: Also, interesting to think about the part Hillary could have played in this. She could have gone all out on her intelligence briefings and made for a strong case that Russia had interceded in the election. She could also have argued that Comey violated the Hatch Act (she was, after all, a lawyer, and I'm sure she could see all the connections). She could have even argued that Wikileaks is essentially bankrolled by Russia. But I think she could see that that would push a lot of volatile people on both sides into almost-open warfare.

Whether or not she should have done all those things, and consequences be damned, is going to be something for the historians.

 

[Diablos]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...pen-clinton-email-probe-enabled-donald-trump/

Well, if Comey really did call Lewandowski (Who was a member of the Trump campaign) ahead of time then I AM FUCKING FURIOUS.

No Republican should ever be appointed to anything again.

"The FBI's director James [Comey] came out on a Friday and he said they may be reopening the investigation into Crooked Hillary's emails."

That's what it says now. Either they were being misleading or some lawyers got to them??

 

[Pixieking]

"The FBI's director James [Comey] came out on a Friday and he said they may be reopening the investigation into Crooked Hillary's emails."

That's what it says now. Either they were being misleading or some lawyers got to them??

Probably lawyers - UK paper, UK libel laws.

 

[Diablos]

But did he say it or not is what I want to know. Dammit

 

[Doc Holliday]

Well... it's Orange county...

I live in NYC now, no incidents from OC friends btw.

And I meant Orange County California not sure why someone assumed Florida lol

 

[M.D]

Not sure if anyone here is following politics from Israel, but yet another case of Netanyahu being corrupt has been exposed. I hope elections are coming up soon.

 

[chadskin]

@LOS_Fisher:
Trump told May in 1st convo: “If you travel to the US, you should let me know”. Eyebrows sky-high in Whitehall over casual open invite 1/2
Trump also told May his late mother was a big fan of the Queen & asked PM to pass on his regards to Her Maj. 2/2

lmao

 

[Pixieking]

Democrats Can't Write Off the Last Senate Race

The 2016 elections aren't quite over yet. No, I'm not talking about the millions of ballots still being counted that will eventually lock in Donald Trump's exact Electoral College win while continuing to increase Hillary Clinton's raw vote lead above the 1.2 million where it currently stands, although those are important too. No, I'm talking about the U.S. Senate runoff election in Louisiana, scheduled for Dec. 10.

 

[dynamitejim]

Board game reviewer/Cool Ghosts co-founder (I think?), Matt Lees:

https://twitter.com/Jam_sponge/status/798839209125560320

I just don't buy it. There are other groups who have been failed by this country much worse for much longer, economically and otherwise. Why haven't they turned to hack news sources that lie to them and promote virulent hatred?

 

[Deleted member 231381]

Democrats Can't Write Off the Last Senate Race

It's a long-shot, but everyone has to start somewhere and there's precious little else the Democrats can do for the next two years.

 

[BrokenIcarus]

I just realized how absolutely amazing MGS2s ending is in light of our "post truth" society. Damn.

 

[Deleted member 231381]

I just don't buy it. There are other groups who have been failed by this country much worse for much longer, economically and otherwise. Why haven't they turned to hack news sources that lie to them and promote virulent hatred?

IIRC, direction of travel is a better predictor of authoritarianism than absolute position. If you're a minority in America, until very recently, your social and economic status has pretty consistently been getting better. This isn't to say your status is acceptable; there's a lot of work to be done and the position of minorities in America is disgraceful. But if you're in the rural working class, your social and economic status has stagnated and in some cases declined. This isn't to say your status is worse than minorities; but they have hope and you have despair.

 

[Pixieking]

I just don't buy it. There are other groups who have been failed by this country much worse for much longer, economically and otherwise. Why haven't they turned to hack news sources that lie to them and promote virulent hatred?

"Make America Great Again". For minorities - of all kinds - America hasn't been great since, what... early 1800s? Even then that was just a flood of migrants, not women's rights, LGBTQ, or local ethnicities. Whereas, it's always been Great to White Men. And White Men believe that equality for all comes at the expense of privileges for them - to White Men, it's never a rising tide raises all boats. (Edit: Generalistion of White Men, obviously)

For proof, look at the gamers who are afraid of more games for women and minorities, and games that involve politics - they believe that the games that they want aren't being made, due to these newer types of games.

(So weird to write all this with the Civ VI opening music and theme playing.)

Required reading:

Obama Can and Should Put Merrick Garland on the Supreme Court

Come January, President Barack Obama will be consigned to the sidelines as Donald Trump occupies the Oval Office and begins the work of dismantling his legacy. But there is one action that Obama could take on January 3, 2017 that could hold off some of the worst potential abuses of a Trump administration for up to a year. Obama can appoint his nominee Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court on that date, in between the two sessions of Congress.

This! All of this!

Why January 3? Because the president’s recess appointment powers were significantly constrained by a 2014 Supreme Court ruling. In a 9-0 decision in National Labor Relations Board v. Noel Canning, the Court said the president cannot appoint individuals to fill vacancies if the Senate holds “pro forma” sessions every three days. Though these sessions, common since 2011, merely gavel in and gavel out the Senate chamber, they have the practical effect of keeping the Senate active, therefore blocking the recess appointment power.

But even the Court’s most conservative members acknowledged that a president can make recess appointments during “inter-session” recesses—such as the break between the first and second year of a Congress, or the break between outgoing or incoming Congresses. There simply has to be an end point there, as a metaphysical matter. Theodore Roosevelt once used a short inter-session recess to make hundreds of appointments.

 

[BSsBrolly]

"Make America Great Again". For minorities - of all kinds - America hasn't been great since, what... early 1800s? Even then that was just a flood of migrants, not women's rights, LGBTQ, or local ethnicities. Whereas, it's always been Great to White Men. And White Men believe that equality for all comes at the expense of privileges for them - to White Men, it's never a rising tide raises all boats.

For proof, look at the gamers who are afraid of more games for women and minorities, and games that involve politics - they believe that the games that they want aren't being made, due to these newer types of games.

(So weird to write all this with the Civ VI opening music and theme playing.)

Required reading:

Obama Can and Should Put Merrick Garland on the Supreme Court

If only Obama had the balls to do that... you know goddamn well republicans would if they were in the position to.

 

[kirblar]

If you are blaming Neoliberalism, you already blaming a made up boogeyman. It's very easy to go from one to another.

 

[Pixieking]

If only Obama had the balls to do that... you know goddamn well republicans would if they were in the position to.

Yeah... The article pretty much says he won't, given what we know about Obama's attitude.

Meanwhile:

Matthew Yglesias Verified account
‏@mattyglesias

This seems to confirm, incidentally, that Trump is doing diplomatic talks over non-secure phone lines.

I mean... Holy. Shit. The guy who ranted about classified emails potentially being read, talking business on non-secure phone lines. What a fucking dumbass.

 

[Aaron Strife]

Democrats Can't Write Off the Last Senate Race

Would be nice if we could pick this one off, although I'm very skeptical.

Foster Campbell (the Democrat) seems to be a Bel Edwards clone, which is a great fit for the state, but JBE's win had a lot to do with Vitter being a massive piece of shit, and Jindal being a terrible governor. It was the perfect storm.

I guess if I was Campbell I'd try to sell myself as a check on a Trump presidency + GOP Congress. The silver lining of Trump winning is we have a good foil for downballot Democrats to kick around for the next four years. Anti-Bush sentiment helped us win seats in unexpected places in 06/08.

So best of luck to him. Hope we can make the Senate one seat closer.

Probably the biggest failure of the DNC over the last eight years is the complete erosion of the downballot. Not just Congress, but state legislatures as well. Kos had a good post about this today - how do we turn the tide on the GOP running *33* state legislatures?

I think we can flip the Minnesota House in 2018, but what I'm seeing here is the DFL turning it into a cities vs. country game, and that doesn't work. Not only does it not work for legislative races (cool you elected 30 ultra liberals in D+80 districts, what next?), as we saw in the presidential election it can easily backfire - tremendously - in state races. Now that doesn't mean we have to run racist conservative jackasses flaunting around their rooty tooty point n' shooties in every district, but certainly we can find a balance between appealing to building our support in rural areas while not throwing our allies under a bus.

We have the better policies, we have the better ideas. We just need to own them.

 

[Y2Kev]

Did Darrell Issa lose yet

 

[Plinko]

People are saying dems aren't putting full efforts into the Louisiana runoff. This is why the DNC needs new leadership ASAP.

 

[dynamitejim]

If you are blaming Neoliberalism, you already blaming a made up boogeyman. It's very easy to go from one to another.

I mean Obama (if he could) and Biden both probably would have won if they ran and they both were supporting the TPP the whole year. They've been pretty chummy with Wall Street as well.

 

[Diablos]

Would be nice if we could pick this one off, although I'm very skeptical.

Foster Campbell (the Democrat) seems to be a Bel Edwards clone, which is a great fit for the state, but JBE's win had a lot to do with Vitter being a massive piece of shit, and Jindal being a terrible governor. It was the perfect storm.

I guess if I was Campbell I'd try to sell myself as a check on a Trump presidency + GOP Congress. The silver lining of Trump winning is we have a good foil for downballot Democrats to kick around for the next four years. Anti-Bush sentiment helped us win seats in unexpected places in 06/08.

So best of luck to him. Hope we can make the Senate one seat closer.

Probably the biggest failure of the DNC over the last eight years is the complete erosion of the downballot. Not just Congress, but state legislatures as well. Kos had a good post about this today - how do we turn the tide on the GOP running *33* state legislatures?

I think we can flip the Minnesota House in 2018, but what I'm seeing here is the DFL turning it into a cities vs. country game, and that doesn't work. Not only does it not work for legislative races (cool you elected 30 ultra liberals in D+80 districts, what next?), as we saw in the presidential election it can easily backfire - tremendously - in state races. Now that doesn't mean we have to run racist conservative jackasses flaunting around their rooty tooty point n' shooties in every district, but certainly we can find a balance between appealing to building our support in rural areas while not throwing our allies under a bus.

We have the better policies, we have the better ideas. We just need to own them.

Well stated. We have the ideas and we have to sell them better but the problem is there's such a deep hole we need to dig out of. That's why I am not thinking 2018 will bode well for us. I think if nothing else Dems simply stand their ground and manage to not get wiped out more than they already have.

I just... can't wrap my head around how we pick up the pieces. The Democratic Party is basically dead everywhere.

 

[Deleted member 231381]

Required reading:

Obama Can and Should Put Merrick Garland on the Supreme Court

It's not a matter of can and should. As far as I'm aware, the President requires a 10-day recess to make a recess appointment. As long as the Republicans control the Senate, they can continue calling special sessions. If they can get past noon on the 25th of December, they're alright. That wouldn't even be that exceptional - the Senate held a special session until the 24th only a few years back. Unless there's something I've missed, it would take an enormous strategic balls up to get Garland onto the Supreme Court.

 

[shinra-bansho]

It's already confirmed that he isn't using secure lines to talk to other world leaders.
Malcolm Turnbull had to get Trump's mobile number from an Australian golfer friend of Trump's. :|

 

[metalslimer]

Louisiana doesn't want a check on Trump. I mean I suppose you might as well try but they need some dirt on Kennedy to have a shot.

 

[Frank the Great]

Is it time for the Dem candidate to run on marijuana legalization in 2020?

 

[Diablos]

It's already confirmed that he isn't using secure lines to talk to other world leaders.
Malcolm Turnbull had to get Trump's mobile number from an Australian golfer friend of Trump's. :|

But emails emails emails. This country's institutions and the media have failed its people in a way I don't think we've ever seen.

 

[Pixieking]

It's not a matter of can and should. As far as I'm aware, the President requires a 10-day recess to make a recess appointment. As long as the Republicans control the Senate, they can continue calling special sessions. If they can get past noon on the 25th of December, they're alright. That wouldn't even be that exceptional - the Senate held a special session until the 24th only a few years back. Unless there's something I've missed, it would take an enormous strategic balls up to get Garland onto the Supreme Court.

Well, what you post there seems to go against what the author says. Specifically:

However, legal scholars refer to this language as “dicta.” It was not relevant to the actual decision in Noel Canning, which was solely about whether pro forma sessions were legitimate. The clause about the length of a recess, more provocative lawyers argue, is authoritative but not binding. They say it goes beyond the facts before the Court, represents the individual views of the judge, and cannot be cited as legal precedent.

Obama was a lawyer, right? I'm sure he's seen the work-around there. It's just whether he wants to antagonise Trump. If (privately) Trump has signaled a willingness to not throw everything of Obama's administration out the window, Obama may see it as politically wiser to not force Garland. Though, with Trump, that'd be risky, since he's so changeable.

 

[Slurpy2k20]

Don't even get me started. Their recent episodes. Holy shit.

Scarborough since Trump winning has become the most contemptible piece of shit on the news. I'd put him neck and neck with Hannity. It's fucking unreal, and somehow people with credibility keep going on his show just to get talked down and their words twisted by him.

Normalizing Trump is just the tip of the iceberg with what he's doing. He's ignoring certain stories, being selectively ignorant about others, and couching anything interpreted as a bad sign for Trump with "it's always like this" or "give him a chance it'll all be fine stop whining", and then he starts ripping the DNC for insignificant shit no one has even heard of.

I fucking hated him during the campaign but this is on another level entirely. And people like Rachel Maddow who would normally GO OFF on this fucking shit can't because he's a part of the same network. Fuck me.

He's filth, often condescending when his argument is completely full of shit. What's actually worse is Mika, who either just stays fucking silent while he rants and rips into guests baselessly, or she jumps in only to agree with him and bully the guest further. Not sure why she's even there, she adds absolutely nothing and doesn't seem to have any real voice or opinion of her own.

 

[daedalius]

Man I really hope Obama makes recess appointments, or at least tries to!

 

[Deleted member 231381]

Well, what you post there seems to go against what the author says. Specifically:


Obama was a lawyer, right? I'm sure he's seen the work-around there. It's just whether he wants to antagonise Trump. If (privately) Trump has signaled a willingness to not throw everything of Obama's administration out the window, Obama may see it as politically wiser to not force Garland. Though, with Trump, that'd be risky, since he's so changeable.

I think the person who wrote this is stretching. I'm not a legal expert by any means, but the Supreme Court ruling is fairly clear. Like, the ruling itself is actually from a case instigated by Obama - it was the final appeal of something that went all through the DC Circuit and had basically the same conclusions, after Obama argued that "the appointments were valid, because the pro forma sessions were designed to, through form, render a constitutional power of the executive obsolete" and that the Senate was for all intents and purposes recessed." (direct quote) If there was something he could do, I have no doubt he would have done it then - it's essentially exactly the same case.

Trust me, I'd like to believe otherwise. But I think the most likely outcome if Obama tried it would be the Supreme Court having to go through the farce of turning down Garland, which would be damaging for the Democrats and also a crushing humiliation of someone who is by all accounts a close personal friend of Obama. It's not something worth investing effort into.

 

[jmdajr]

I just realized how absolutely amazing MGS2s ending is in light of our "post truth" society. Damn.

Kojima man....

 

[BrokenIcarus]

Kojima man....

Yeah for real, wish the Patriots could steer us in the right direction.

 

[shinra-bansho]

Article in NYMag, not sure if posted - I'm guessing we were still in the anger phase when this was published. It is long. People may agree, disagree. But I thought it was a good read nonetheless.

Shattered: Hillary Clinton aimed at the highest glass ceiling. What broke instead was the coalition she thought would pierce it — and faith that it will happen.

Clinton preached to the congregation [at a black church] about the Founding Fathers — but not in the way that most politicians, in this era of right-wing deification of the country’s forebears, would invoke them two days before a presidential election. “Our Founders said all men are created equal,” Clinton said. “[But] they left out African-Americans. They left out women. They left out a lot of us.”

The congregation stood, hands in the air, calling back to her. “Our founders said our democracy should be shaped by ‘We the People,’ but we didn’t get to vote, did we? And even when the Constitution was amended to allow African-Americans to vote, it was still only men. And then, finally, when it was amended to allow women to vote, it took decades before that became a reality.”

The next night, Clinton stood alongside Barack and Michelle Obama before a crowd of 33,000 people outside Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, the spot where the architects of the nation had endowed its citizens with the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness — as they built their new country on the backs of enslaved African-Americans and subsidiary women. Clinton and the Obamas were taking an audacious risk in presenting themselves as united in a mission to broaden America’s notions of what leadership could look like, of what the power of expanded enfranchisement could mean for the kinds of people from whom it was withheld for so long.

But little more than 24 hours after these three historic figures made their case for doing more work to perfect our imperfect union, it was clear that half of the country would prefer to return to the Founders’ original vision, with people of color and women on the margins and white men restored to their place at the center. The enormity of the upset came at the end of what had already been a traumatic election for the women and immigrants and people of color to whom Clinton was trying to appeal, and who had spent months being derided, threatened, groped, caricatured, insulted, and humiliated by Donald Trump and his supporters.

Monday-morning quarterbacks now litter the field, pointing out the one outlier poll, or their generalized conviction that Hillary was a terrible candidate, or that Trump’s celebrity helped him, or that Clinton didn’t visit Wisconsin enough, and that any one of these things makes Tuesday’s outcome perfectly comprehensible.

But the argument that if Clinton had taken a firmer stand on trade, or spent more time in Green Bay, it would have mitigated the fact that 48 percent of voters chose a self-confessed sexual predator who was endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan, attempts to apply reason where there is only visceral incongruity. Clinton was surely a flawed candidate; but Trump was a catastrophically awful one. The disparity is enough to make one wonder if she ever really had a chance.

We are a female-majority country that had never before nominated, much less elected, a woman president, and in which the administration of our first black president has been unapologetically delegitimized by members of his opposing party, led by our new president-elect. The resounding, surprising, data-defying victory of a man who ran on open racism and misogyny, and was voted into office by 63 percent of white men and 53 percent of white women voters, was made possible by voters threatened by the increased influence of women and people of color.

It’s worth noting that more than 200 women have tried, mostly in vain, to make chinks in this hardest of glass ceilings, starting with Victoria Woodhull, a stockbroker and occultist who ran for president in 1872, nearly half a century before the passage of the 19th Amendment. A hundred years later, Shirley ­Chisholm made her historic run, which ended with negotiations over her earned delegates and a speech at the 1972 Democratic convention in Miami. Chisholm compared her campaign to Catholic Al Smith’s nomination in 1928, which she said paved the way for John F. Kennedy’s successful run in 1960. “What I hope most is that now there will be others who will feel themselves as capable of running for high political office as any wealthy, good-­looking white male,” she said.

Chisholm did not linger on the fact that 32 years separated Smith’s candidacy and Kennedy’s election. Her own run would precede Jesse Jackson’s presidential campaign and Geraldine Ferraro’s vice-presidential nomination by 12 years, Barack Obama’s presidency and Sarah Palin’s vice-presidential nomination by 36 years, and Hillary Clinton’s nomination by 44 years.

Spending eight years in the White House made Hillary a part of the Democratic firmament, a celebrity who rubbed elbows with the rich and powerful. Which of course helped her when she embarked on her own political career, becoming the first woman senator from the State of New York. By the time she made her first bid for the White House in 2008, she — unlike all the women who had preceded her in presidential bids — had both the money and support of the party Establishment. Her decision to go work for her former rival Barack Obama further ensconced her in the Democratic Party’s highest echelons, which led to the sense of her 2016 run as inevitable, unstoppable.

It is a piteous irony that in finding a way past the specific hurdles long set before women with presidential ambitions — fund-raising and the support of a major party — Hillary Clinton also offered up to her opponents, on the left and the right, the ammunition to undercut the historic nature of her candidacy. The very fact that she had close relationships with big donors and garnered the support of major political institutions made her part of the political elite, vulnerable to the anti-­Establishment rhetoric of both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. It also kept her from being understood or celebrated as the historic outsider that, as a member of a gender historically denied access to executive power, she was.

This coalition-building was not just an illusion produced by a few high-wattage appearances. A poll released by the nonpartisan African-American Research Collaborative the Friday before Election Day found that while black voters were most motivated by jobs, 89 percent of respondents also were invested in comprehensive immigration reform, and support for same-sex marriage had risen 11 points since 2012 to 61 percent. Issues that used to divide marginalized populations — recall the passage of Prop 8 in 2008, thanks in part to a lack of support for gay rights among the African-American voters who turned out for Obama* — seemed to be, slowly but righteously, becoming common cause. The prospect of a truly intersectional Democratic movement seemed possible — not just possible but key to electing the first woman president, a woman who would not only shore up the Supreme Court but who was running on promises of comprehensive immigration reform, paid family leave, subsidized child care, a higher minimum wage, the repeal of the Hyde Amendment, and criminal-justice reform, all of which would of course have trouble getting past an obstructionist Congress, but nonetheless composed a blueprint for the future, an interlocking set of fixes that might begin to address structural barriers to equality. A more integrated progressive future was a glimmer in the eye of our sitting president, his would-be successor, and the coalition of voters that appeared to be forming behind her.

The heartbreaking conclusion, of course, was that the hopeful, future-­looking coalition would break down in the most depressing of ways: 53 percent of white women voters chose Donald Trump, a man who has been accused by over a dozen women of sexual assault or harassment, rather than Hillary Clinton, who not only is a woman but ran on a raft of policies that would better support women.

We have gotten a clear view of how deeply this country is invested in keeping women and people of color on the sidelines. This divide does not disappear now that the election is over, and the venom spewed by our future president and his supporters during the campaign is unlikely to subside. The reproductive-rights activist Alison Turkos has written of how, on the night of the third debate, she was walking in Manhattan in a Clinton-Kaine T-shirt when a man grabbed her and whispered in her ear, “Hillary Clinton’s a fucking cunt and so are you.” Swastikas, alongside SIEG HEIL graffiti, were spray-painted on a building in South Philadelphia on Election Night. Two Babson College students drove a truck waving a Trump flag through the campus of Hillary Clinton’s alma mater, Wellesley College, taking care to drive past Harambee House, the school’s African-American center, on Wednesday morning. On the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, traders booed Hillary Clinton as she was giving her concession speech, shouting “Lock her up!”

We are in a period of tremendous national turmoil. What we are seeing is a backlash not just against Clinton’s candidacy but against the entire eight years of the Obama administration. It’s not just about who gets to be president. It’s about who gets to vote for the president, who gets to stay in America and make their families here and how those families get to be configured. It’s about who controls the culture, who makes the art, who makes the policies, whom those policies benefit and whom they harm.

 

[thefro]

Alt-right people attacking Sanders hard on Twitter now.

Also strong rumors from the pro-wrasslin' side that Linda McMahon (former WWE CEO) is going to be Trump's Sec. of Commerce.