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Astronaut Scott Kelly was bold enough to strap himself into a rocket, take a ride into space and stay on the ISS for a year....
But after he came back, he lacked the fortitude to tell some angry cranks to go pound sand when they got upset that he quoted Winston Churchill. He even bowed and scraped trying to get back in their good graces. That's some significant deterioration that may have been outside the scope of NASA's health research.
https://www.washingtonexaminer...

What do you think prisoners are going to do if they can vote? Elect Lex Luthor as president?

Yeah, pretty much. As a quick web search demonstrates, it's well known that most convicts vote Democrat by large margins, which is why they want to get them to be able to vote as soon as possible.

With Mueller failing to deliver any damage to the President, his haters need new stuff to throw — in the hope, something will stick...

Thankfully, the Republicans are here to let us know he is a furry and wants to run over children:

https://www.washingtonexaminer...
http://www.fox10phoenix.com/ne...

Are you for real? https://www.aim.org/aim-column... https://dailycaller.com/2017/0... https://www.washingtonexaminer...

And a great price.

BUILD THAT WALL!!! You have our undivided support, Mr. Trump.

Yes, I can. The flu epidemic, for one. That was easy. Of course, it's harder to remember Obama's because NONE of them were in the least bit controversial.

I recently reviewed them ALL as declarations of national emergencies have been a subject of the news recently and it WAS covered by the Fake News MSM .

NONE of those national emergencies were used as a means of subverting the will and power of Congress.

Most of them actually simply froze assets of bad actors in countries like Yemen or the Central African Republic.

BTW, why does Trump believe the US is so weak that we need Saudi Arabia's money? How many jobs are our arms sales actually creating?

“It’s $110 billion. I believe it’s the largest order ever made. It’s 450,000 jobs. It’s the best equipment in the world.”

— President Trump, in remarks to reporters, Oct. 13, 2018

“$110 billion in purchasing. It’s 500,000 jobs, American jobs. Everything’s made here.”

— Trump, in an interview with Trish Regan of Fox Business News, Oct. 16

“Who are we hurting? It’s 500,000 jobs. It’ll be ultimately $110 billion. It’s the biggest order in the history of our country from an outside military.”

— Trump, in an interview with Stuart Varney of Fox Business News, Oct. 17

“I would prefer that we don’t use, as retribution, canceling $110 billion worth of work, which means 600,000 jobs."

— Trump, during a defense roundtable at Luke Air Force Base, Oct. 19

“So now if you’re talking about — that was $110 billion — you know, you’re talking about over a million jobs. You know, I’d rather keep the million jobs, and I’d rather find another solution.”

— Trump, in additional remarks to reporters after the roundtable, Oct. 19

The truth is that it's more like thousands of jobs...maybe even more than 10,000. And before you say if we don't sell weapons to them, they'll just buy from Russia, China and maybe even India do you REALLY think they can get parts and service for all their American made aircraft? Do those countries sell THAAD systems? Is the security of our nation really dependent on supporting war crimes in Yemen?

It's absolutely absurd that anyone believes a word that Trump says.

"The reason I do not want military drills with South Korea is to save hundreds of millions of dollars for the U.S. for which we are not reimbursed," - Donald Trump

FACT: It's more like $14 million

I'll try to cite some NON-MSM sources for that:

Canceling Joint Exercise with South Korea Saved $14 Million: DoD
The Pentagon says next month's Freedom Guardian exercise with South Korea would have cost about $14 million, one month after President Trump said canceling the exercise would "save a fortune."
‘War Games’ Trump Said Were Too Expensive Cost Less Than a Fighter Jet
Pentagon estimates U.S.-South Korea military exercises, canceled as too provocative and expensive, would have cost $14 million

That President who spied on and persecuted media left the office in January, 2017. The current President doesn't like some of the press corp (like the previous President as well), but has not banned any news organization, nor spied on them, not prosecuted them.

adequate

I don't think that's how I would describe the care given by the VA.

Boeing with its longer range smaller plane nullified the advantage without incurring the disadvantages of the huge size.

Boeings military contracts help a lot.

At least $60 Billion expected according to that link. If it were not for these, Boeing would be in trouble too.

Partying in Puerto Rico.

There's nothing wrong with them wanting that, but if you let them come and immediately give them handouts, that's what they'll come for and we'll go bankrupt trying to take care of them all.

Where's you're evidence for this? Immigrants pay taxes, just like everyone else. Immigrants are also less likely to take advantage of public services. If you look at something like social security, illegal immigrants are a boon for the system, because they are contributing to something that they will never be able to take advantage of. There are many, many economic benefits from immigration, and if we didn't have lots of immigration, we would be facing the same problems Japan is having. If you look at the GDP projections over the next few decades, the US is going to struggle to maintain economic dominance, just because population is exploding in many other countries, and GDP growth is tightly related to population. When you think about it, there are only two ways to increase GDP: add more people, or increase your per-capita GDP. China, India, and many countries in Africa have massive population growth, and are simultaneously improving per-capita GDP rapidly. Clamping down on immigration, which has made the US what it is, is going to slow our economic growth at a time when many other places are accelerating and becoming far more competitive.

But what the liberals are proposing now simply won't work. You can't have everyone come and then also take really good care of them.

Liberals aren't generally proposing this - they've voted regularly in favor of increased funding for border security.

You're conflating immigrants with illegal immigrants. Legal immigrants as a group are less likely to take advantage of us. Illegal immigrants, and anchor babies, are far more likely to take advantage. By mixing the positive stats of legal immigrants with the negative stats of illegal immigrants you're painting a rosy picture that isn't true. Indeed it's this type of shady use of language that keeps many Americans from understanding the true impacts of illegal immigration. Citations: https://cis.org/Report/63-NonC... https://www.washingtonexaminer...

He is wrong. It's more, about 80%. At least that's the latest numbers I can find.

Seems like a rather big clue that they went after everyone exact the far-right AFD.

OMG False flag operation. It wasn't us! It's just like in America we're being victimised. They probably hacked themselves.
https://www.washingtonexaminer...

Story explaining how Clinton (Bill) sold top secret missile technology to China in return for donations to the DNC. Gore, running in 2000, at the time was questioned in a debate and basically said Janet Reno would have to prosecute them and she was told not to.

So its not likely to be stolen, but sold off by the DNC for campaign donations.

But over time you can't expect federal workers in "essential" positions to continue working without pay.

All actually essential functions would receive emergency funding if truly needed, even if the workers did not take advantage of the many free loan options they have. Remember they are still going to receive all the pay they would have had they been working, so those loans are paid back as soon as the shutdown is over.

Do taxes stop being collected? No? Well then the government actually has money to pay whoever it likes, doesn't it?

Oh and it the reason the coast guard got money at all was Trump intervened to make that happen...

The federal government is proving it is replaceable or unnecessary. Beyond protecting the border, consumables and printing currency they should transition more and more to the states or stop doing it all together. $21T debt says it is not working.

Dept of Commerce => mostly close
Dept of Education => states
Dept of Interior => states
Dept of Agriculture => states
Dept of Labor => states
Dept of Transportation => states
Dept of Energy => close, universities
HHS => states
BATFE: firearms, tobacco and alcohol => states
BATFE: firearms, explosives => FBI
EPA=> states
TSA => mostly close, rest to FBI

Stop all welfare payments to non-US citizens and stop all federal subsidies to energy companies, farmers, defense contractors, etc.

Given the realities of climate change, air pollution, and poverty it is immoral to oppose nuclear energy. Also assuming renewables can replace fossil fuels is the equivalent to believing in the toothfairy.

Schumer NEVER offered $25 billion for the wall. NOT EVER. The closest he ever came was when Chuck (in his own words) ""In exchange for strong DACA protections, I reluctantly put the border wall on the table for discussion," - NOTE: he did NOT offer anything other than DISCUSSION. this was the typical Democrat faux-border-secutiry deal just like the one they made with Reagan in 1986. No actual substance and no actual border security were proposed by Schumer.

Schumer has repeatedly said NO MONEY for the wall - EVER.

TRUMP OFFERED TO LEGALIZE MORE DACA KIDS THAN THE DEMOCRATS REQUESTED IN EXCHANGE FOR WALL FUNDING, and Pelosi and Schumer walked away. This offer risked angering Trump's own supporters as even the liberals at NBC admitted.

There's more scandals than that in just Obama's 8 years as President, let alone the City and State political machines.

Several Illinois governors are in prison right now.

Now you're just trolling. Rod Blagojevich, Dan Walker and Otto Kerner were all Democratic politicians.

Which is exactly why some want all of us so poor that the only thing we can do is spend what little money we get.

If I'm reading you correctly between the lines, that's a fine policy proscription for small minds: anything that smacks on the surface of sticking it to The Man is inherently good, therefore any nuanced understanding of systems theory can go fly a kite.

It's certainly the case that the haves in any political order stick it to the have nots (who generally prove twice as quick to stick it back should the tables turn, but I digress).

The have nots usually have more viable options than they think they have, and get themselves all hung up fighting the wrong battles.

Return of pork barrel politics? Democrats plot to revive earmarks — 13 Democrats 2018

Now that Democrats are poised to take charge in January, there is nothing to stop them from inserting earmarks in the fiscal 2020 spending bills next year, and lawmakers said they are hoping to soon get a piece of the federal spending pie for specific needs in their districts.

"I hope they come back," Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., who will take over as majority whip next year, told the Washington Examiner. "I was against them ever leaving."

Instead of fawning over Grover Norquist's ridiculous anti-government ideology, we could actually fight a specific battle worth winning.

Personally, its my considered opinion that clue helps.

Isn't the timing interesting here. Supposedly this occurred in 2017 and was reviewed at that time, but the Post is just now running the article? Couldn't have anything to do with a court ruling last week that Hillary has to answer more questions about her email use, does it? I can't seem to find that article in the Post either. Can we say deflection?

Now I wonder how these two usages will match up. Let's see, did both of them setup a private server to purposefully hide emails from the records retention act? Did both of them transmit classified information over those emails? Did both of them delete 33000 emails that were under subpoena? Did both of them have their emails routed to the laptop of a convicted sex criminal? Did both of them destroy devices that were under subpoena?

Should be an interesting investigation.

Hillary has been ordered to testify under oath about her email server.:

Hillary Clinton must answer more questions under oath regarding her emails...

One could almost say that dragging up year-old news that Ivanka used a private email address a few times but stopped when told and never lied about it is merely whataboutism from the media, still trying to cover for Hillary:

Sept. 25, 2017

WASHINGTON — At least six of President Trump’s closest advisers occasionally used private email addresses to discuss White House matters, current and former officials said on Monday.

The disclosures came a day after news surfaced that Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and adviser, used a private email account to send or receive about 100 work-related emails during the administration’s first seven months. But Mr. Kushner was not alone. Stephen K. Bannon, the former chief White House strategist, and Reince Priebus, the former chief of staff, also occasionally used private email addresses. Other advisers, including Gary D. Cohn and Stephen Miller, sent or received at least a few emails on personal accounts, officials said.

Ivanka Trump, the president’s elder daughter, who is married to Mr. Kushner, used a private account when she acted as an unpaid adviser in the first months of the administration, Newsweek reported Monday. ...

How is using the Trump Organization's server any better than using one in her own home or office?

I cannot believe I am reading this sentence on a site full of people with deep technical understanding.

How is it different? Hillary's server contained MANY classified emails, and was stored in a closet in a bathroom in Denver!!

That means it was never administered with the care at corporate system would be - and indeed as a result, we can be pretty sure almost every state actor had access to the inner workings of the secretary of state. We know for sure the Chinese did. That's just remote access,, since it was stored in a persons home a common burglar could have easily just walked away with the server since it also lacked any of the physical security a corporate system has. Who knows if anyone did just that and cloned the drives, returning the system with no-one even knowing.

But lay all that aside, it also as I said laid bare the workings o the secretary of state. No disrespect to Ivanka but who cares if whatever she was doing leaked? What the wife of a president has to say has vastly less impact than the day to day emails of the secretary of state.

To this day I remain convinced that Hillary should not just have been imprisoned, she should have been tried for treason for her actions regarding state email. It mystifies me how anyone with even the slightest understanding of system administration and/or handling of classified material could feel any differently; it makes me think anyone who feels otherwise has probably been corrupted beyond redemption to be a tool for one particular political force. Why? Why on earth would you sacrifice technical understanding and morality to support such obviously criminal actions? Baffling.

Ballots found after the election, breaking heavily for Franken.

Felons casting illegal votes in MN

Ballots "found" 5 weeks after the election change the results by being just enough in favor of the loser, the Democrat, who by virtue of the found ballots, won the election.

You do know that ballots can be traced do you not? I get a numbered ballot that corresponds to a number on the sheet I have attached my signature on, after the ylook it up after I show them my ID and confirm a few other things. You also know that the ballot is not secret? In the local courthouse my voting record is there for everyone to see if they wish.

So instead of the whining and moaning and "Muh Voter fraud!", the evidence is right there in front of everyone. If these ballots were found, following the path backward on each and every ballot is so simple that you could have irrefutable evidence of direct fraud in a few hours.

Wonder why that did not happen? Hint: constant accusations of voter fraud are a much more effective fearvote tool. The touchstones of political parties are not there to be cured, they are there to be wielded like a bludgeon.

Ballots found after the election, breaking heavily for Franken.

Felons casting illegal votes in MN

Ballots "found" 5 weeks after the election change the results by being just enough in favor of the loser, the Democrat, who by virtue of the found ballots, won the election.

Right now, the housing market is in deep trouble. In fact, in most places, housing prices are going down and houses are staying on the market longer. People are staying in their houses longer, and there are still 2.2 million people who are underwater on their mortgages and can't get out. We're seeing housing as one of the sectors that's dragging the entire economy down, and keeping economic growth below the rate of inflation. And that was before the stock market stagnated (it's down for 2018). When you hear campaign claims that we are in a "strong economy", don't believe it.

These are some articles from the past few days, including from a source with a strong conservative bias:

https://www.washingtonexaminer...

https://finance.yahoo.com/news...

https://www.marketwatch.com/st...

You got a link to the Broward county voter registration lookup site to prove that registration? The guy is a convicted felon who probably can't even vote.

Well, the very conservative Washington Examiner is reporting it, so I guess it could be fake.

But you will also note that the story doesn't say he was a convicted felon, only that he had been arrested before on felony charges, and did jail time, but not necessarily for the felonies.

https://www.washingtonexaminer...

Government should not advocate for large business and enterprises but for individual people.

But, but, but... Corporations are people - I remember hearing and reading about that. We were told to "get over it".

And yet Canadians come across the US boarder for healthcare treatment, the US offered to take in the babies that the UK determined they wouldn't treat and allowed to die any many people still have private health care in UK.

It also seems you've bought into the propaganda of the Cuban healthcare system. They don't use the same metrics in counting infant mortality as the US, when there's troubling pregnancies they push abortions so they have one of the highest abortion rates. They have a two tiered system where the elites get the better care because of the tourist paid system and the poor have to bring their own bedsheets for hospital stays.

Germany's appears to be tilted toward the elites.

Regular salaried employees must have public health insurance. Only public officers, self-employed people and employees with a large income, above c. €50,000.00 per year (adjusted yearly), may join the private system.

Why would they allow public officials to have private insurance if they offer universal coverage?

France's system isn't a bad one, they seem to have found a good balance between cost and service. Even though it is provided by the government, 95% of French citizens do pay for a complimentary health insurance plan.

But keep in mind the following statistics when reviewing the various structures.

US Population: 326,766,748
Germany Population: 82,293,457
UK Population: 66,573,504
France Population: 65,233,271
Canada Population 36,953,765
Cuba Population: 11,489,082

The lowest populated nation in the list, Cuba, is actively encouraging foreigners to come for treatments as a way to earn money to keep they system going.

The second lowest population, Canada, regularly crosses into the US to get healthcare because of long waiting times.

France has the most balanced model however the UK and Germany show growing reliance on private healthcare offerings.

Then you hit the US which is 5x the size of the only nation, France, that seems to have the right balance.

So what might work for 65m population will not automatically scale to a 326m population.

However, the formation of the United States was supposed to be of independent sovereign States that could choose for their own citizens what was best. If the federal government would actually get out of the picture and let the State's run their own affairs as they're supposed to be allowed to do, then perhaps there could be a better healthcare system for the citizens, just one adapted to each State's needs.

From a mechanics of dealing with copyright it isn't bad.

The Europeans might not like the idea of Google or Facebook interfering in their elections
https://www.washingtonexaminer...

You go through the bloodiest conflicts in human history, and the whole better to seek forgiveness than ask permission idea gets a little threadbare.

it doesn't change the fact that insurance premiums went up tremendously after its passing

Funny. Actually what is happening is premiums are rising, for Obamacare recipients only, not for people on other plans. But it gets better. Why are they rising?

Prices for Obamacare plans are rising in part because insurers prepared for the expectation that Trump would end payments to them known as cost-sharing reduction subsidies. Trump ended the payments earlier in October, noting they had been ruled illegal by a federal judge under former President Barack Obama because they had not been appropriated by Congress.

https://www.washingtonexaminer...

http://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2018/07/16/around-the-halls-brookings-experts-react-to-the-trump-putin-meeting-and-nato-summit/

A foreign policy establishment that serves its own goals instead of obeying the elected government. That's the definition of "deep state".

http://www.washingtonexaminer.... "The election of Donald Trump was an assault on the federal bureaucracy"

Bill Kristol, the prominent Republican analyst who founded The Weekly Standard, wrote on Twitter, "Obviously strongly prefer normal democratic and constitutional politics. But if it comes to it, prefer the deep state to the Trump state."

The second time in history a deep state or shadow government was recognized was by Senator Daniel Inouye (Hawaii) who blew the whistle on the shadow government deep state during the Iran-Contra hearings in 1987.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlwGRIrfKcM

At the time, Inouye expressed that the "shadow government had its own funding mechanism, shadowy Navy, and Air Force freedom to pursue its own goals free from all checks and balances and free from the law itself."

Following Senator Daniel Inouye's testimony, years later a journalist named Danny Casolaro also warned about the potential of a deep state shadowy government which he deemed "The Octopus." The short end of the stick was Casolaro who was later found dead in the bathtub with his wrists on both hands slit multiple times and pages of his notes missing.

Hey, remember the Bankers' Plot? To overthrow FDR?

When Obama was in office, his speech writer called it "the Blob". It doesn't really matter what you call it, it's an unelected government and it does not give a shit about you or what you think.

The real employer is the EXECUTIVE BRANCH.

That is not true. Not generally and not specifically. President Trump does not sign the checks of his senior officials. Since the Carter Administration, White House senior officials, including cabinet secretaries are paid under a system separate from the GS system, because the pay of a GS-15 was considered insufficient for someone of the stature of a cabinet secretary who had been a CEO. And later, the "Senior Executive Staff" designation was also considered insufficient, so exemptions were created. But the pay structure and the way they get paid is the same, as is their employer, the United States Government. And their pay is set by the same civil service laws and under the same US code as senate staffers and Supreme Court Justices and postal employees.

And by the way, no cabinet secretary or head of an armed or intelligence agency can make more than the Vice-President, by law.

In case your interested, here are the salaries of non-cabinet staff from 2017. It is amazing how few of these people are still there.

https://www.washingtonexaminer...

And here are salaries of cabinet secretaries on down.

https://work.chron.com/much-mo...

I'm asking for evidence on your claim "he indoctrinated them according to a particular ideological playbook."

Here and here.

Poverty is a tricky issue. Ask the government of literally any red state except for Texas. Their economies are all garbage and their state's packed full of poverty.

Using correlations between state level political choices and poverty to try to make arguments about causation is utterly silly. Try again.

Oh geez, this is embarrassing for you https://www.factcheck.org/2017... [factcheck.org] . We gained a lot of jobs under him. Maybe you are the type to just make things up.

No, you're simply the type not to understand statistics. Let's take the first number: "The economy gained a net 11.6 million jobs." Sounds good, doesn't it? Except that the US population grew by about 20 million people during Obama's presidency, so this is below what was needed simply to keep the labor participation rate the same.

Yup, it's really looking like you're the type to make shit up. Medicare costs us less than $11,000 per user ( https://www.kff.org/medicare/s... [kff.org] , https://www.healthaffairs.org/... [healthaffairs.org] ) and currently covers about 15% of the population ( https://assets.aarp.org/rgcent... [aarp.org] ). Per American that comes out to 1,600 per person so no it does not cost more per American than any socialized system. In fact, it's not even close.

The Medicare budget is $1055 billion and the Medicaid budget is $579 billion. There are 326 million Americans. When you do the math, you get $5000/American.

Well I don't think being "fully privatized" would get us healthcare coverage for our poorest as we're already pretty privatized and can't do that but we can certainly agree Obama Care isn't great.

You're right: I was imprecise. We have a fully privatized system, albeit a corrupt one. What I meant was that our two realistic alternatives are a fully nationalized system (like the UK and France) or a minimally regulated free market system. And a minimally regulated free market system would lower costs so much that even the poorest Americans could afford it.

Hmm. Lets just explore for a moment who is demanding racial segregation in the US.

http://www.spiked-online.com/n...
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
https://www.thecollegefix.com/...
https://www.wsj.com/articles/5...
https://www.washingtonexaminer...

Are those "rich reichtard nazis"? I'm not familiar with the term, so I'll have to assume so for the moment.

Pretty damn good

https://www.washingtonexaminer...

Trump is ahead of his promise to de-regulate.

Oh you didn't actually want to hear that did you ? I get a vibe your pretty happy with the swamp as long as it makes life difficult for people you resent.

Sorry, but most cuban health care facilities don't even have working toilets. Patients are instructed to bring their own supplies from home.

They have a little bit of decent health care, but it's reserved for Communist Party elites and foreign visitors who can pay. Everyone else in the country gets lousy health care where after waiting forever to see someone, they have to hope they washed their hands by bringing in their own soap and water and didn't go near the atrocious conditions of the rooms.

See also:
http://blog.acton.org/archives...
https://www.therealcuba.com/?p...
https://www.nationalreview.com...
https://www.washingtonexaminer...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
and many, many others with photos and videos documenting the real care there.

https://www.washingtonexaminer...

I notice that you and you pal above have failed to address the basic point instead chose to point out that example of propaganda was gun control. The article is about PROPOGANDA but instead, you do like the current press does which uses false analogies, obfuscation, straw men arguments, and flat out lies to change the subject of whatever you do not want closely examined. You and your ilk disgust me. You are liars, and at best "useful idiots" if you are not actually foreign agents or provocateurs.

In closing, go fuck yourself.

Too bad paywall... But some form of criminal conspiracy? Like conspiring with a presidential candidate to win a debate? So far, what we have are people being indicted for actions taken prior to the Trump campaign (and, in fact, often whilst working with strong Democrat lobbyist groups), or for "lying" about something that wasn't criminal, prohibited, or illegal in any way, shape or form (basically a process crime).

Now, there ARE several indictments of Russians, but given that the previous Administration told the cyber security chief to stand down about investigating any issues, well - it seems that the previous Administration should be held complicit to any Russian wrongdoing.

As someone that automates jobs, and builds systems which improve efficiency, I don't want to pay for either a basic income, or a guaranteed job for someone else. If I did, I am pretty sure I could easily move my company, and myself, to one of the Norse countries and do that already. It seems to me that the only way to accomplish either of these would be through the force of law.

It is very, very easy for corporations, and high net worth individuals (i.e. the people building the automation) to simply go someplace where these proposed laws don't apply. This is exactly what has happened with many, many, many jobs as the laws in the United States became more 'progressive.' This is what continues to happen with the western democracies, as they have even more laws in line with these types of things. I am arguing the along the correlation/causation line, which might not be super strong, but I think it is.

I am constantly reminded of what a pain it is to comply with U.S. labor laws. I spent about 15 hours (Jira for time tracking!) dealing with the unemployment insurance hiring a W2 in a state other than my own, and those kind of things are draining on my psyche. Thankfully my accountant is awesome and happy with all the bizarre challenges, and does not charge me an arm and a leg for this kind of stuff. These types of things make me want to continue to develop my offshore team, which has exactly the same labor protections as buying a ream of paper from Walmart.

These things aren't free - Obama basically destroyed the healthcare industry in the U.S. by trying to give people 'free' healthcare (mine costs 3x as much, and many older people are spending more on healthcare than on housing - i.e. my parents.) A universal basic income will be funded through some kind of tax, and even with the argument that all the other social programs can go away (which they cannot, unless you are OK with letting someone starve when they spend their UBI on lottery tickets at the beginning of the month.) There will be significant costs associated with both a universal basic income, or any kind of make-work project. There is no such thing as a free lunch, even with hypothetical magical AI robots. The scary thing is that people discussing such issues, and more importantly voting on such issues, seem to lack any notion of economic repercussion.

Oh dear. Sounds like you have half the country tied up in a neat box you despise. That must be uncomfortable.

The entire country doesn't divide into "conservatives" and "non-conservatives", no. Also the concept of a significant proportion of a country supporting evil is hardly new throughout history. You don't even have to bring up a certain Charley Chaplin lookalike to do this, you can stay in the same country, and read some first hand accounts of, say, lynchings in the early 20th Century. Trigger warning: the movie versions are very, very, very, toned down. To the point you'd think they were almost humane.

That's a bit like attacking all Catholics because of some piece of dogma you despise

Not really, no. Leaving aside the fact that if that was what I was doing, then it's still different: people can easily say "I'm not a conservative" on a whim, and they know what the current definition of conservative is. People can't just distance themselves from a religion overnight, and they rarely agree with one another about the specifics.

But I'm not "attacking conservatives" because I disagree with something conservatives believe. I'm saying that there are some deeply repugnant views that people who self identify as conservatives believe in. And that's just a fact. Talk to them. I have. I've heard the same thing from at least two so far, "He's just saying what we all really think."

If you doubt such a high proportion of the country doesn't believe this shit, then ask yourself how it has happened before? This isn't something new, significant proportions of a country becoming suddenly totally OK with horrific human rights abuses is a pattern repeated throughout history.

You might have thought so. But after all that has happened, how can you possibly still believe that? Pussy-grabbing, the Russia connections, the affairs, twitter tirades, sackings, ... Clearly, they stick with him no matter what. Just like the Russians support Putin, and China supports Winnie. He is "their guy". He knows it "I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldnâ(TM)t lose voters.".

Gotta admit, I'm not following here, you appear to agree with me that people who continue to self identify as conservatives have no problems with whatever the President does. If someone has no problems with what the President does, then how can they possibly claim they're against the repugnant policies I mentioned?

Where is the conservative opposition to Trump? Not the Never-Trumpers, they're an insignificant rump who are ridiculed by most conservatives, and as I pointed out, the vast majority of Republicans still support Trump, love Trump, think he's the greatest. And they do this knowing he's stealing people's kids and putting them in camps where everyone knew they would be abused.

They know what he is. They know what he's doing. They love him. Get your head out of the sand, a significant proportion of this country has repugnant views.

I'll just finish by leaving this here. Bear in mind that the 28% isn't opposition to ICE due to their inhuman acts, it's a mix of a tiny minority who may believe that, people with no view either way, and people who don't think ICE is hard enough or doing a strong enough job of throwing out foreigners.

You said "Its long been a tactic of the right to equate anyone who expresses disagreement with their extremism as extremists themselves", which was clearly the portion of the comment I was replying to

So, if that is the part you were taking issue with, then what non-extremism on the right do you think I was equating to extremism of the left? Do you think labeling liberals as fascists is not extremist?

Meanwhile, lets continue to examine how extremism has become mainstream in the right. For example, birtherism. They elected the guy who made his entry into the party by pushing birtherism. Not enough? Lets look at a "well respected" journal of mainstream conservatism - the National Review. Dinesh D'Souza, pardoned felon, and ridiculously over the top troll, is on the masthead. And the magazine's senior editor is the author of the book "liberal fascism."

But there's undeniably a tendency of the modern Left to misuse the label for dramatic effect.

No. You are just ignorant of history. People just like you were saying the same shit about germany in 1934. Its not like the nazis appeared fully-formed and gassing jews out of nowhere. We have been here before. The NYT even ran an op-ed rationalizing nazis as just having "economic anxiety."

We are stealing brown babies from aslyum seekers and then shipping the parents back to their countries without their kids. And in response trump's approval rating with republicans has soared. How much more nazi do we have to get for you?

notice, no americans in that indictment... and probably there is an expectation that this "accusation" won't be defended.

Foreign governments rarely show up to a US court to argue they were not guilty.

Thus a baseless accusation can stand because there is no due process because there is no trial generally.

I'd like the Russians to show up. Just send some lawyers to represent their clients. Force the Justice Department to actually argue their case in a court of law.

Already, the justice department was surprised when some Russian companies they accused sent lawyers. And the result was effectively a retraction of the accusations almost immediately.

Some people will accuse me of political bias... these people haven't been paying attention to this circus.

https://www.washingtonexaminer...

https://www.politico.com/story...

Effectively, an accusation was made where there was no belief that there would be a defense because there typically isn't one in these cases. Lawyers showed up unexpectedly... and it turns out that the Mueller team actually isn't ready to argue the case.

Which begs the question of why they would accuse someone.

Is that how the FBI normally works? Accusing people of things they can't prove in court?

Generally not especially when the accusations are formal legal charges.

So why is Mueller not following standard FBI protocol? Why in fact, has everything to do with this cloud of issues not been done according to standard protocol?

Because it is a political game. And its one that I'm actually pretty happy we're having because all the rats are coming out of the wood work. We know who most of the bad apples are in the justice department just by seeing whether or not they follow protocol. If they break protocol... why did they do that? To serve the interests of justice? Or to help grinding a political axe? Because if the former, then very well... but if the latter... they probably shouldn't be in that position.

Kinda ironic given how much stick he gave crooked Hillary for ignoring security on email.

Hillary set up a private, personal email server in her basement and used that email server to carry out state department business.

1. State department business should be carried out on govt computers so that appropriate records are kept. It's the law.

2. Hillary's email server wasn't cleared for classified info. Hillary used her personal email server for sending/receiving classified info. That is illegal.

3. Hillary told her staff to remove classified markings on documents and send the classified info to her personal email server. That is illegal.

https://www.washingtonexaminer...

If Hillary was anyone else (or if the FBI had any integrity), she would be a convicted felon. When it comes to classified info, people have been convicted for far, far less.

Not that any of this excuses Trump. That being said, much of the time the current location of the US president isn't a big secret - in fact it's public knowledge.

Let us cut to the chase, what evidence would be needed to cause you to concede you were in error here? Just hypothetically.

Republicans must lead an effort to impeach Trump.

Yep, that's a high bar. But I have high standards, unlike Republicans.

Everything Trump has actually accomplished is something Republicans have been trying to achieve for years, or in some cases decades. (Note that several "accomplishments" on that list are not actually accomplishments or even things which have happened; for example "cutting government waste" while he has several cabinet members appearing before congress for frankly outrageous misuse of taxpayer funds, or "Defeating the Islamic State", which also has not happened.) Republicans might personally dislike Trump, but they are fully behind his actions. They are acting like they aren't in order to save face; at the end of all this they can say "he wasn't our candidate, but we had to work with him".

Really? He's above Obama for this point in his term, if but barely. Plus, he's been trending up since April started.

https://www.washingtonexaminer...

https://www.realclearpolitics....

I think you are a bit misinformed.

The fact that one cherry-picked poll, Rasmussen, has a favourable number doesn't mean much. There are many other polls that have Trump as low as 39 percent.

An article talking about some nuance in these types of numbers:

* https://www.factcheck.org/2018/04/presidential-approval-numbers/

As usually, 538 has some good data with their weighted average:

* https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/

Scroll down a bit and you can get comparisons with previous presidents: on Day 476, Obama had a weighted average approval of 49.5% to Trump's 42%.

Really? He's above Obama for this point in his term, if but barely. Plus, he's been trending up since April started.

https://www.washingtonexaminer...

https://www.realclearpolitics....

I think you are a bit misinformed.

President Trump really isn't establishment. He is an outsider to both national and Washington politics. He doesn't represent the interests of the traditional political establishment and when his two terms are up will go back to civilian life, likely never venturing into politics again. He isn't a life long, career politician or bureaucrat.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/10/14/the-ruling-classs-hatred-of-trump-is-different-than-yours/

More than fifty Republican "national security" "elites" ha-ve joined several top Republican office-holders, a good number of typically Republican newspaper editorial boards, and the "liberal" New York Times' editors in proclaiming Trump too stupid, sexist, juvenile, racist, volatile, ignorant, and vicious to be trusted with the keys to the White House.

Not a single solitary Fortune 100 chief executive endorsed Trump or donated to his campaign.

"The election of Donald Trump was an assault on the federal bureaucracy"

Yet for some reason, they aren't able to indict this person that is apparently the biggest criminal of the last 50 years?

Hillary isn't "free" until the statute of limitations runs out.

The Justice Department Inspector General is currently reviewing the previous investigation, and if irregularities are found, the investigation will be re-opened - the report should be out this spring.

As a reminder, these things take time - how long has Mueller been investigating "collusion" between Trump campaign and Russians? Despite one prominent CA Congressman reporting he has seen "more than circumstantial" evidence of collusion for over a year, none has come forward yet...