The Trump Administration: A Clusterfuck in the Making

[Tangent]

@Rick_Kitchen

Mike Pence went to the San Francisco 49er/Indianapolis Colts game today and left when players knelt during the Anthem. Trump tweeted that it was planned ahead of time that Pence would leave if any of the players knelt.

If Trump would shut up about it, it would probably eventually stop.

Trump doesn’t actually want it to stop. He loves nothing more than to crow (or tweet) about something like this. It’s an easy ‘win’ for him with his hardcore base, plus it gives him sort of a free pass to criticize “those people.”

[JackieLikesVariety]

@ThelmaLou

I don’t know what you mean. What I mean is we don’t need another Bernie Sanders or other unlikely wannabe to run in order to make an ideological point and divide the Democratic vote.

Bernie was not only viable, he was the best candidate. he did not run to “make a point” he ran on the issues and to win.
and I not only would but I did vote for a woman

[JackieLikesVariety]

the hell with hoping to make the edit window (again)

I really hate it when it’s suggested it’s Bernie’s fault we have the current shit stain in the white house.

:mad:

[Tangent]

@JackieLikesVariety

Bernie was not only viable, he was the best candidate and I not only would but I did vote for a woman

I agree Bernie was viable. I also think a vote for Jill Stein in swing states in the general election was ill-advised for those with liberal and progressive values.

[jsc1953]

@ThelmaLou

I don’t know what you mean. What I mean is we don’t need another Bernie Sanders or other unlikely wannabe to run in order to make an ideological point and divide the Democratic vote.

I agree. What I meant was a “well, duh” comment at the WaPo pointing out the obvious – unifying behind a candidate improves your chances.

[snoe]

@ThelmaLou

I don’t know what you mean. What I mean is we don’t need another Bernie Sanders or other unlikely wannabe to run in order to make an ideological point and divide the Democratic vote.

One recent historical parallel that might provide a ray of hope: Ralph Nader’s popular vote share dropped from 2.7% in 2000 to 0.38% in 2004. There are lots of possible reasons,* but I suspect one of the likely top factors was voters reassessing the individual importance of voting after the Florida 2000 debacle and turning away from protest/spoiler votes.

(*Nader didn’t run with the Greens in ‘04, for one – not that the Greens’ institutional support did much for their candidate that year. He got only 0.1%.)

[Sherrerd]

@DragonAsh

Your snark would be a lot funnier if you weren’t so full of shit. Here’s what you said:

This needs to be examined. Who bought up bonds at the much-lowered price? Who traded in shares of the affected bond insurers?

You wanted to know who had bought the bonds after the comment.

Nothing in that first post of mine on the topic, required that the hypothetical insider-trading actions had to be taken “after” Trump’s comment. Fixated on “proving” that my post theorized only post-comment action, you chose to misread one general sentence as representing a literal plan of action for Trump-circle profiteering off of the power of the presidency to screw with markets.

This fixation of yours makes you, simply, wrong.

Well, not just wrong. Suffering from a bad case of projection, in the “full of shit” department.

@DragonAsh

You clearly had no understanding that what would have been more important would be any activity before the comment.

Clearly you are wrong. And looking quite foolish, with your odd little fixation.

@Sherrerd

As with any insider-trading investigation, it would be important to look at what was going on in advance of the Presidential remark. Did someone in Trump’s circle take actions that resulted in large profits, due to the suddenly-falling price of the P.R. bonds–almost as if they knew ahead of time what the President would say? That sort of thing.

[Merneith]

@Tangent

I agree Bernie was viable. I also think a vote for Jill Stein in swing states in the general election was ill-advised for those with liberal and progressive values.

I agree with both those statements. That said - the onus is still on the Democratic candidate to unite all her voter segments. It’s unfortunate that Hillary thought that pointing at her XX chromosomes was sufficient to qualify her as the Progressive candidate.

[Rick_Kitchen]

@Merneith

I agree with both those statements. That said - the onus is still on the Democratic candidate to unite all her voter segments. It’s unfortunate that Hillary thought that pointing at her XX chromosomes was sufficient to qualify her as the Progressive candidate.

Please point to any time she did that.

[enipla]

@Rick_Kitchen

Please point to any time she did that.

I would like to see this too.

I’m not a big Hillary fan. I liked John Kasich. Typically I will vote Dem. I would have voted for Kasich over Clinton.

But I DID KNOW what a fool. What a self serving moron that Trump would be and clearly is. How anyone can support this asshole surprises me. But then I also did not know how many racist idiots there are in this county. All Trump had to do is shine a light on them, and sure enough, they all scurried from under the rug.

I don’t think that Trump is smart enough to understand this. HE DOESN’T CARE as long as he thinks he is popular. He DOSEN’T CARE that his supporters are a bunch of xenophobic, racist morons as long as he thinks he’s popular and can rake in the $.

[ThelmaLou]

@JackieLikesVariety

…
I really hate it when it’s suggested it’s Bernie’s fault we have the current shit stain in the white house.

:mad:

It’s not Bernie’s fault. However, those who voted for him to make a point should have given some thought to how likely it was for him to REALLY be elected. A vote for Bernie was a vote thrown away. Suggest you get over this.

A vote for Ralph Nader was a vote thrown away.
A vote for Ross Perot was a vote thrown away.

[Merneith]

@Rick_Kitchen

Please point to any time she did that.

Actually, what she said was that she wasn’t part of the establishment because she was a woman.

It was during one of her debates with Bernie, actually, when he claimed she wasn’t really a progressive, and she went into a semantic debate about how it depends on what the definition of “progressive” is, then they started arguing about which of them was really more part of the establishment, and Hillary claimed she couldn’t possibly be part of the establishment because she was a woman:

Hillary Clinton just suggested she’s not ‘establishment.’ Come on.

@Hillary Clinton

SANDERS: So, Rachel, yes, Secretary Clinton does represent the establishment. I represent, I hope, ordinary Americans, and by the way — who are not all that enamored with the establishment. But I am very proud to have people like Keith Ellison and Raul Grijalva in the House, the co-chairmen of the House Progressive Caucus.

MADDOW: Secretary.

CLINTON: Well, look, I've got to just jump in here because, honestly, Sen. Sanders is the only person who I think would characterize me, a woman running to be the first woman president, as exemplifying the establishment. And I've got to tell you that it is ...

(APPLAUSE)

It is really quite amusing to me.

In reality, everyone on the planet other than Hillary Clinton understands that she - a first lady, a Senator, and a Secretary of State - is the Establishment, and her gender doesn’t change that.

So it wasn’t specifically “I’m obviously a progressive because I’m a woman”, but it was an attempt to claim that she was the outsider, in context of a conversation about which of them was the progressive.

I’m fully on board with agreeing that her gender would have made her presidency ground-breaking and I agree that sexism has a role in her defeat - but the disingenuousness of claiming that her gender was sufficient to grant her outsider status did her no favors in a race in which having genuine outsider status was a determining factor.

The Washington Post artice - written by Janelle Ross, a woman of color - concludes:

@Wapo article by Janelle Ross

Oh, goodness. Did Clinton really mean to suggest that she is not and cannot be a part of the “establishment” because she is a woman, on a Thursday night, on a debate stage in New Hampshire? Well, intended or not, she really did.

And this, folks, should not pass unnoticed.

There are those who insist that race, gender and any other aspects of identity which are immutable or visible are held in one’s pocket — or somehow cease to exist until such time that individuals elect to pull them out and “play” them like some kind of cultural ace card. These people are, to put it very simply, plain wrong — or, at least, fortunate enough in their own social standing to remain blissfully unaware.

So, Clinton’s fundamental claim that her status as a precedent-setting candidate — the first woman with a real and solid chance at a major party’s presidential nomination — is not the problem here. She is who she is. This is a statement of fact.

The problem is what followed — the “exemplifying the establishment” and the “quite amusing” parts. She all but said that a woman cannot be a part of the establishment.

And this, we must say, is simply false.

Instead of reassuring voters that she was an outsider, it reinforced Hillary’s status as a shady Establishment figure, as everyone in America responded with articles spelling out her Establishment bona fides. And none of that was Bernie’s fault.

[Monty]

She did not say what you said she did. Your own cite shows that she said that a woman running for president does not exemplify the establishment. Where is she wrong in that statement?

[Okrahoma]

@Monty

She did not say what you said she did. Your own cite shows that she said that a woman running for president does not exemplify the establishment. Where is she wrong in that statement?

She was a woman running for President. And she exemplified the establishment.

[The_Devil_s_Grandmother]

@jsc1953

Just picture enough legal Puerto Rican immigrants flooding Florida, and voting Democratic, to flip the state blue. The irony would be delicious.

As much as I would love for Florida to be as blue as California; I fear the price in lost lives, homes, and businesses is too high. I would far rather Guam and Puerto Rico become states. Heck, let’s go big or go home and make American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands states too.

[mikecurtis]

Dont have to make them states; just give the people there voting rights and proper representation - seeing as they are already citizens!

mc

[Monty]

@Okrahoma

She was a woman running for President. And she exemplified the establishment.

You are a complete idiot, in addition to being a pretty lame troll.

[Monty]

@The_Devil_s_Grandmother

As much as I would love for Florida to be as blue as California; I fear the price in lost lives, homes, and businesses is too high. I would far rather Guam and Puerto Rico become states. Heck, let’s go big or go home and make American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands states too.

I’ve floated that idea, or one where the Pacific territories are created as one state, while the Atlantic territories would be created as another state.

[Snarky_Kong]

Add DC to the list.

[Chimera]

Either that, or add a new category that gains Congressional Representation and 1 Senator.

All of the Pacific territories combined have about 270,000 population, less than half of Wyoming’s 580,000.