Slashdot Mirror

Oh dear, you sad semi-literate Trumpie, you missed all the references (not one of them is Reddit). Here they are so you can improve your reading skills.

1) The Guardian - Trump Tower meeting with Russians treasonous, Bannon says in explosive book

2) NBC - A Panama tower carries Trump’s name and ties to organized crime

3) Global Witness - Narco-A-Lago: Money Laundering At The Trump Ocean Club Panama

4) The Guardian - Trumps Panama tower used for money laundering by condo owners, reports say

5) Sketchy Donald Trump Deal Eyed For Ties To Iran | Rachel Maddow | MSNBC

6) The New Yorker - Donald Trump’s Worst Deal:
The President helped build a hotel in Azerbaijan that appears to be a corrupt operation engineered by oligarchs tied to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard

7) NPR - The New Yorker Uncovers Trump Hotels Ties To Corrupt Oligarch Family

8) Business Insider - Dossier author Christopher Steele: Trumps hotel and land deals with Russians need to be examined

9) New York Times - Trump Associate Boasted That Moscow Business Deal ‘Will Get Donald Elected’

10) The Washington Post - Trump’s company had more contact with Russia during campaign, according to documents turned over to investigators

11) Slate - An Intriguing Link Between the Mueller Investigation, Trump, and Alleged Money Laundering

12) GQ - Inside Donald Trumps Election Night War Room

13) Politico - Trump’s mob-linked ex-associate gives $5,400 to campaign

14) Raw Story - Longtime Trump business partner ‘told family he knows he and POTUS are going to prison’: report

15) The Spectator - Forget Charlottesville - Russia Is Still The True Trumps True Scandal

16) McClatchy - Donald Trump and the mansion that no one wanted. Then came a Russian fertilizer king

17) New York Times - Tracking the Yachts and Jets of the Mega-Rich

18) McClatchy - Trump, Russian billionaire say they’ve never met,

That's what they do in Vietnam.

Look at the bright side. At least their new frigate isn't stuck in a foreign port (Montreal) waiting for the ice to break up -- probably in March. https://www.washingtonpost.com... the-navy-built-a-fast-agile-warship-for-440m-its-been-stuck-in-ice-since-christmas-eve/

Not that it makes any difference. So they are in port in Montreal? If they weren't, they'd be in port somewhere else.

Look at the bright side. At least their new frigate isn't stuck in a foreign port (Montreal) waiting for the ice to break up -- probably in March. https://www.washingtonpost.com... the-navy-built-a-fast-agile-warship-for-440m-its-been-stuck-in-ice-since-christmas-eve/

"Cutting the military budget would be like cutting the cable bill when you can't afford the mortgage."

Sort of. If social security and medicare are your $2300 mortage, the military is your $600 car payment. Education is your $100 cable bill.

https://www.nationalpriorities...

Take a look at the 3rd chart.

The military budget is not as large as you might think, relatively.

I guess it depends "what you think", but no matter how you slice it it is still a massive amount of money; especially when put into perspective:

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

Even if we cut it in half the US still has vastly more invested than anywhere else in the world. (And if you look at that chart, of the next 14 after the US, most of them are pretty close allies too; so in terms of spending the US + allies still would drastically outclass all plausible opponents combined.)

Returning the mortgage analogy; my first home cost me $1200/mo in mortgage payments for a single bedroom+den apartment; and was probably among the least expensive places in the area; the loan payment of $600/month for a Porsche 911; on the other hand was an extravagance. Yeah the mortgage was the bigger expense, but it was still the car that was the extravagance.

If cash had been an issue at the time, I'd have traded down to a more sensible vehicle without a second thought... I'd have bought a $5000 used honda or VW, had no payment at all, and freed up 10s of thousands in cash in the process too depending exactly where along the loan it happened.

Likewise, the US military is a collection of exotic hyper-cars; it may not be the biggest piece of the total US budget but it is still a ludicrous extravagance. It's perfectly legitimate to argue that you improve the efficiency and reduce costs in social security and medicare, because you absolutely should do that. But refusing to even consider selling even one of your 918 Spyders or Rolls-Royces or Pagani's when cash is tight is a bit absurd.

Take a look at the full story on their website. In particular, look at the Editor's Note they added, which says:

An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that Russian hackers had penetrated the U.S. electric grid.

[Emphasis mine.] This actually reflects well on the Washington Post: when they found their story to be mistaken, they corrected their story, and added a note that they had done so, following proper journalistic practice. It reflects very poorly, however, on yourself, that you continue to believe the original version of the story, to the extent of "correcting" other people. That's exactly what this Slashdot article is about: the spreading of fake news.

Which is true.

Which is not true, as the Washington Post themselves acknowledged:

Editorâ(TM)s Note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that Russian hackers had penetrated the U.S. electric grid. Authorities say there is no indication of that so far. The computer at Burlington Electric that was hacked was not attached to the grid.

-- https://www.washingtonpost.com...

Was it even the Russian government doing anything at all anyway?
https://www.washingtonpost.com...

Where is this inaccurate tweet you speak of?

I do believe you fucking linked it in your comment.

Which is true.

Which is not true, as the Washington Post themselves acknowledged:

Editorâ(TM)s Note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that Russian hackers had penetrated the U.S. electric grid. Authorities say there is no indication of that so far. The computer at Burlington Electric that was hacked was not attached to the grid.

-- https://www.washingtonpost.com...

Was it even the Russian government doing anything at all anyway?
https://www.washingtonpost.com...

Where is this inaccurate tweet you speak of?

I do believe you fucking linked it in your comment.

Your second question: who's being extorted?
The DOT took away 1 regular traffic lane and built a toll lane, leaving 2 toll lanes. If you don't "pay to play", you end up sitting in traffic 3 hours on a 25mile drive. I live in Mukilteo and my wife worked in Redmond taking the 405 daily. Yes, I purchased a goodtogo pass, even after the savings of the fees, still cost $75 per week which is $3900 per year. Even in the toll lane, her commuter was 45min to an hour per way. Without the toll lane, in regular traffic lanes (for those who can't afford the $4K per year in tolls), it's 1-2 hours per way for 25 miles... That's obscene.
Add on top of the $4000 traffic tools the DOUBLING of my vehicle registration for the Sound Transit $54BILLION expansion, and the increased property taxes, again for the Sound Transit Expansion, and yes, the State is extorting money.
Is the 405 paying for itelf? It was passed into law under the conditions of the law states the two-year anniversary requirement that the toll lanes meet the 45 mph standard and collect at least enough money to meet operating costs or they “must be terminated as soon as practicable.” The estimated $18M in collection fees is actually $30M, but the speed is no where near 45 MPH average. Yet it's not terminated, like most legislators, ours are addicted to tax money.
Additionally, there's a new tunnel into Seattle being dug that will be a toll. The Seattle area has become the worst traffic area in the Country
https://www.seattletimes.com/s...
and all the State wants to do is capitalize on traffic jams, create revenue and fund homeless and drug "safe sites" where addicts get free needles and doctor supervision. https://www.washingtonpost.com...

from europe, it looks like both of your parties are completely corrupt. Is there any chance Sanders(or his entourage) can clean the dems up ?

Probably not.

Federal prosecutors step up probe of land deal pushed by wife of Bernie Sanders

Uh, hate to break it to you, but Europe depends utterly on the Americans to keep Putin's panzers out of Paris.

GOOD! Go the fuck home and leave the rest of the world alone for once. FFS.

Statements like that are exactly the kind of shitty, smug European attitude that results in Americans questioning the usefulness of NATO. Not only are you ungrateful, you go in the opposite direction and have a derisive view of the US despite how much you depend on it. Also what you just said has no grounding in reality, at all. You can't even base your hateful attitude on facts.

Only 2.7% of European troops are trained and equipped to a sufficient degree to be deployed in combat.

The Germans have literally had to use broomsticks in place of machine guns and only 8 of their 109 Eurofighters are operational.

All of the military forces of the entire EU combined only have 10% of the capability that the US military possesses. Russia is way closer to the US in military capability than the EU is.

In general, Europe depends on the US for defense and to protect their interests

NATO "allies" flat-out refuse to pay their fair share for their own defense. Mr Schulz said: "Of course, we are a strong and reliable Nato member. However, I'm not of the opinion that Nato member states have agreed to achieve this goal of spending two per cent of their GDP for defence. This would mean a substantial financial burden for Germany."

"UN isn't your personal lapdogs"

OK this is just crazy. Since when has the UN been anything other than a hotbed of hate for America? The US withdrew from UNESCO in 1984 because "because the agency has been politicized leftward and is financially irresponsible."

UNESCO promotes "Soviet-inspired" world disarmament in some of its education programs, boosting the needs of states over the rights of individuals and demanding a "new international economic order" critical of free-market capitalism. Poor, Third World nations have used UNESCO forums to vote sanctions against Israel, praise revolutionary organizations and to denounce and routinely outvote the United States.

The administration charged last December that UNESCO had "extraneously politicized virtually every subject it deals with; exhibits hostility toward the basic institutions of a free society, especially a free market and a free press; and demonstrated unrestrained budgetary expansion."

This is part of Humpty-Trumpy's "Making America Great Again" by eviscerating all those "job killing" regulations like:
* roll back protecting the environment: clean air/clean water, allowing coal companies to dump into rivers
* roll back privacy and corporate limitations in communications: killing net neutrality
* remove banking regulations https://www.washingtonpost.com...
* remove protections for Seniors in Nursing Homes: https://www.democracynow.org/2...
* giving National Park lands to developers: https://www.vox.com/energy-and...
and dozens more ever frighting yet to be seen "de-regulations" that reduce citizen rights, protections, and hand our wallets to corporations. All the while the GOP protects Trumpty by replaying a slow motion Saturday Night Massacre: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
People, the only way to change this is campaign finance reform. It has to start at the State level. The GOP is worried about a midterm slaughter and the Kock Brothers alone are using $400M to try and change past performance: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/2...

Lawyers for the 33-year-old, who lives in Suffolk, had argued that Love should be tried in Britain for allegedly hacking into US government websites and that he would be at risk of killing himself if sent to the US.

Before blowing that off as outlandish, Sweden is known for keeping suspects incommunicado for weeks without even charging them, and then deporting them to other countries to face other charges. Obama had Chelsea Manning tortured with solitary confident for months - yes it's torture and it causes permanent damage after a couple weeks - and she eventually attempted suicide.

If the government decides not to hold the executives available, who will?

Perhaps we need to learn from the example that Vietnam sets.

"Social Justice Warrior" is a term that arose on Tumblr and Livejournal to describe a certain kind of keyboard warrior (related to what we used to call "flame warrior").

That's completely wrong. In fact, there's an article from The Washington Post that proves you wrong. The reporter dug into the etymology of the term and found the opposite of what you're incorrectly claiming.

The article repeatedly contradicts what you're saying (I changed some of the quotation marks and apostrophes since Slashdot still can't handle Unicode characters):

More than 20 years ago, the term was generally used as a neutral or even complimentary describer.

"All of the examples I’ve seen until quite recently are lionizing the person," Katherine Martin, the head of U.S. dictionaries at the Oxford University Press, said in an interview last month.

But a cursory search for the phrase turns up several positive uses, spanning from the early '90s through the early '00s.

Baptist minister, the Rev. James Obey Sr.'s, 1992 obituary in the Houston Chronicle was titled, "Social justice warrior dies."

ArmoredDragon is right, and you're wrong. All of the evidence suggests that it's a term that they came up with to describe themselves, and this usage predates the websites you listed.

Vietnam knows how to deal with corrupt bankers. They apply the actual death penalty.

Every state government ought to have a group whose sole purpose in to investigate and prosecute suspected crimes by local police.

We also need to outlaw qualified immunity.

Haha, this wasn't the 1st FISA warrant on Carter Page, who became a person of interest to the FBI in 2013. The Steele document was a thing until 2016!

This has NOTHING to do with Manafort's laundering and Russia connections, contact between Papadopoulos and Russia, or Russia hacking the DNC to help the GOP win the election, or Trump's son and son-in-law meeting with Kremlin connected Russians, or Trump firing the FBI director, because, by his own admission, he wanted to hinder the Russia investigation.

It's fun seeing Nunes go to battle with the people investigating the campaign _he_ worked on. A decent person would recuse themselves. This has all the hallmarks of political theater aimed at confusing rubes who will jump at anything that makes their side look good. I'm sure McCabe said lots of things, but the simple fact is that Carter Page is marginal to the Trump-Russia investigation, and besides, this wasn't even the first warrant application. And it's easy for Nunes to omit details to pull the wool of partisan nitwits, because partisanship makes people dumb.

Haha, this wasn't the 1st FISA warrant on Carter Page, who became a person of interest to the FBI in 2013. The Steele document was a thing until 2016!

This has NOTHING to do with Manafort's laundering and Russia connections, contact between Papadopoulos and Russia, or Russia hacking the DNC to help the GOP win the election, or Trump's son and son-in-law meeting with Kremlin connected Russians, or Trump firing the FBI director, because, by his own admission, he wanted to hinder the Russia investigation.

It's fun seeing Nunes go to battle with the people investigating the campaign _he_ worked on. A decent person would recuse themselves. This has all the hallmarks of political theater aimed at confusing rubes who will jump at anything that makes their side look good. I'm sure McCabe said lots of things, but the simple fact is that Carter Page is marginal to the Trump-Russia investigation, and besides, this wasn't even the first warrant application. And it's easy for Nunes to omit details to pull the wool of partisan nitwits, because partisanship makes people dumb.

Haha, this wasn't the 1st FISA warrant on Carter Page, who became a person of interest to the FBI in 2013. The Steele document was a thing until 2016!

This has NOTHING to do with Manafort's laundering and Russia connections, contact between Papadopoulos and Russia, or Russia hacking the DNC to help the GOP win the election, or Trump's son and son-in-law meeting with Kremlin connected Russians, or Trump firing the FBI director, because, by his own admission, he wanted to hinder the Russia investigation.

It's fun seeing Nunes go to battle with the people investigating the campaign _he_ worked on. A decent person would recuse themselves. This has all the hallmarks of political theater aimed at confusing rubes who will jump at anything that makes their side look good. I'm sure McCabe said lots of things, but the simple fact is that Carter Page is marginal to the Trump-Russia investigation, and besides, this wasn't even the first warrant application. And it's easy for Nunes to omit details to pull the wool of partisan nitwits, because partisanship makes people dumb.

Haha, this wasn't the 1st FISA warrant on Carter Page, who became a person of interest to the FBI in 2013. The Steele document was a thing until 2016!

This has NOTHING to do with Manafort's laundering and Russia connections, contact between Papadopoulos and Russia, or Russia hacking the DNC to help the GOP win the election, or Trump's son and son-in-law meeting with Kremlin connected Russians, or Trump firing the FBI director, because, by his own admission, he wanted to hinder the Russia investigation.

It's fun seeing Nunes go to battle with the people investigating the campaign _he_ worked on. A decent person would recuse themselves. This has all the hallmarks of political theater aimed at confusing rubes who will jump at anything that makes their side look good. I'm sure McCabe said lots of things, but the simple fact is that Carter Page is marginal to the Trump-Russia investigation, and besides, this wasn't even the first warrant application. And it's easy for Nunes to omit details to pull the wool of partisan nitwits, because partisanship makes people dumb.

How about 18 U.S. Code 953 - Private correspondence with foreign governments

You are referring to the Logan Act.

Now, what if I told you, that in the Act's over two centuries of existence, only 2 people were indicted under it (in 1802 and 1852)? And neither of them convicted? You may as well bring up anti-sodomy laws, which Trump may well have violated too, in his wilder days...

Now, if we start using the Act, we ought to begin not with Trump, who's communications with any foreign government was entirely ordinary, and protected by the First Amendment, but with folks like Hanoi Jane (who went to Vietnam while the US was in actual war with the country), or Jesse Jackson (for his, ahem, intercourse with Fidel Castro)?

Are you sure, you want to throw those folks into the furnace of your hatred of Trump?

Everything that Muller has that came from these FISA warrants is now "fruit of the forbidden tree".

As noted elsewhere, it's fruit of the poisonous tree, and you might want to re-consider that argument, as even some Conservatives are abandoning it. From The Nunes memo is out. It’s a joke and a sham.:

There is also this remarkable passage from the Nunes memo, concerning former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos, who is cooperating with Mueller as part of a plea deal:

The Papadopoulos information triggered the opening of an FBI counterintelligence investigation in late July 2016 by FBI agent Pete Strzok. Strzok was reassigned by the Special Counsel’s office for improper text messages with his mistress, FBI Attorney Lisa Page where they both demonstrated a clear bias against Trump.

This is apparently supposed to show that the investigation was opened by a biased FBI agent. But it actually shows that the FBI investigation predated the supposed misuse of the Steele dossier, and it shows that the cause of the investigation was information provided by Papadopoulos, which is what the New York Times reported. Remember, this Times report was widely mocked by Trump allies. Yet the memo actually lends that story more credence and, in the process, undercuts the whole alt-narrative that the genesis of the probe was illegitimate.

Some conservatives reached the same conclusion:

In reflecting more on this, I think Nunes may have just blown up the core Trump defense to the “Russia investigation” — that it was all fruit of the poisonous Steel tree. Not true. It was already underway. https://t.co/gUvGgSUyY1
— David French (@DavidAFrench) February 2, 2018

Carter Page was under investigation before even the GOP contracted GPS Fusion.

In addition, the investigation was working with George Papadopoulos, who is cooperating with Mueller as part of a plea deal, *before* the Steele dossier came into play -- as noted in The Nunes memo is out. It’s a joke and a sham.,

[Nunes Memo] The Papadopoulos information triggered the opening of an FBI counterintelligence investigation in late July 2016 by FBI agent Pete Strzok. Strzok was reassigned by the Special Counsel’s office for improper text messages with his mistress, FBI Attorney Lisa Page where they both demonstrated a clear bias against Trump.

This is apparently supposed to show that the investigation was opened by a biased FBI agent. But it actually shows that the FBI investigation predated the supposed misuse of the Steele dossier, and it shows that the cause of the investigation was information provided by Papadopoulos, which is what the New York Times reported. Remember, this Times report was widely mocked by Trump allies. Yet the memo actually lends that story more credence and, in the process, undercuts the whole alt-narrative that the genesis of the probe was illegitimate.

Ok, so all your evidence is two copy-paste articles (the Verge is simply repeating the Twitter blog) showing some memes and a link to Google Search?
However I clicked on your Google search, on top of the list I found an article from the WaPo with a collage of "Russian Propaganda" memes. On top of that collage there is a meme-like picture showing Sanders and the text "Clinton foundation is a problem". The problem is that Sanders actually said that: again "fake news" are truer than MSM news.

From the lists I could find online, it appears that the prominent people who have been caught up in the #metoo accusations in 2017 run somewhere between 25-1 or 50-1 in favor of left-wingers and Democrats vs. conservatives/Republicans. They're almost all in left-wing dominated industries, as well.

It's gotten to the point where I actually have a little more sympathy for left-wing accusations of sexual harassment based on the fact that maybe instead of exaggerating, they're just describing their personal experience with how it works in left-wing dominated places like Hollywood, the media, the Democratic Party and academia and the right-wingers just don't understand as much because they don't experience it as much in their institutions.

But it's crazy the left gives Hillary Clinton any credibility at all when it comes to sexual harassment and rape reports, when she's been one of the most consistent enablers out there (for Bill, and Weinstein, and in her own campaign), yet still claims as recently as yesterday that “For most of my life, harassment wasn’t something talked about or even acknowledged.” The article goes on to mention "Except for the bulk of the 1990s, when her husband was accused by multiple women of harassment and by one of rape and Hillary worked to publicly discredit them. Other than that, no knowledge."

And now let's have a word from Actual Reality:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2018/01/30/fact-checking-the-2018-state-of-the-union-address

The African American unemployment rate has been on a relatively steady decline since it hit a peak of 16.8 percent in March 2010, during the Great Recession. The rate had already fallen to 7.7 percent when Trump took the oath of office — it is now 6.8 percent — so Trump taking credit for this is like a rooster thinking the sun came up because he crowed.

Apparently, Trump thinks clean coal means washing the coal before burning it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

EXTRA! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT!!!
Yes, sleazy publishers have always screamed their headlines to sell newspapers. For some reason, remnants of this marketing practice continue in the internet age. It's a delicate balance; trying to appeal to the unwashed masses who have some reading ability without offending the educated reader with crass commercialism. In which group are Slashdot readers?

"Judges Say the UK's Digital Surveillance Program Snooper's Charter Is Illegal"

After reading that headline 4 times and failing to make sense of it, I tried to read TFS. Eventually I understood a bit more. Why Does Every Word Begin With A Capital? Let's try this again:

"Judges say the UK's digital surveillance program Snooper's Charter is illegal"

Now we see that 'Snooper's Charter' is a thing, and the rest are ordinary words. Notice that in this century, many forward thinking publishers no longer scream their headlines. Here are some:
https://www.theguardian.com/wo...
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
http://www.miamiherald.com/new...
http://www.chicagotribune.com/
https://www.cnbc.com/ ...

Either that wind or up doing the low grade copy for the Washington Post

you would think over time people would become less gullible, not more.

and sure, if you train an AI long and hard enough, it will probably be able to tickle out something that looks like meaning from that nonsense. just like if you train an AI to see dogs, it can identify weird dogs in literally any image.

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

Texas was the first such state to hit "peak water" and that was almost 20 years ago.

A cute turn of phrase I hadn't heard before, and it looks like it was coined fairly recently. It took about 60 years for the "peak oil" meme to quiet down, so I suppose this one will run along for a while as well.

Kansas hit peak water in 2010. Its available water is also dropping annually.

The first article I found that wasn't from an activist says that Kansas isn't projected to "peak" until 2040 under current usage, and farmers have agreed to short-term reductions that should push that out to at least 2070.

> I would love to see the base commanders go Full Metal Jacket
> on the soldiers for being so dumb. Fucking meat heads.

No one will be punished... because it was the idiot higher-ups at the Pentagon who were handing out free FitBits to their soldiers. And no, Trump was not president in 2013.

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

> But the Pentagon has encouraged the use of Fitbits among
> military personnel and in 2013 distributed 2,500 of them as
> part of a pilot program to battle obesity.

WaPo article says yes.
Stupid spreads like wildfire.

Both parties are the same way.

That statement is simply not true.

Both parties suck at many things, but the democrats have always treated state's rights more seriously than republicans, who only pay attention to it when it hampers their business interests.

They sure are and not just on federalism. State's rights are normally associated with the right but the left pushes them just as much when they serve their purpose. They have the same policies on executive power; it is great when their own party has it. Also known as the "it's not evil when we do it" rationalization.

https://www.washingtonpost.com...
http://reason.com/archives/201...

I would not expect the Dutch intelligence to announce publicly that they had hacked a Russian hacker group. There are articles that suggest that they did, indeed, tell the NSA about the successful infiltration years ago.

* https://www.washingtonpost.com...

You seem to be suggesting that they should have immediately announced it in the press at the time so that you, personally would be aware of it. Why would they do this, rather than leak it quietly and as necessary to allied nations' security agencies? As soon as the break in is publicized, it's over.

Yes, there has been plenty evidence of Russian influence, unless you explicitly define Russian influence down to the size of a point mass.

Just this week it was revealed that Dutch intelligence caught the Russians hacking into the DNC, by them themselves first hacking into the servers that the Russian operatives used and watching them do it. Given the costs to Dutch intelligence having their own espionage ops outed combined with the other circumstantial evidence, this story is a lot more believable that the half hearted denials coming from the Russian government and their allies.

You have to be willfully obtuse to think that hacking the DNC and dumping their internal communications for the world to see is not Russian influence, and a whole lot of it at that.

Hillary and Bill took hundreds of millions of dollars that were donated for Haitians and spent it on themselves. Bill then proceeded to go down there and RAPE little girls. These are the people you wanted in the White House? For shame. #HillaryForPrison

Lie
But you know that

Now looky here, everybody knows Hillary Hussein Clinton is the one who's to fault for the plutonium-210 pizzagate poisoning. But that whole Benghazi investigation was just a Republic party plot to distract Fox news's excellent infestigative reporters from the real conspiracy: the Wall Street branch of the Youth International Party's (Yippie$) involvement in the Iraq-Contra affair. You thought Jerry Rubin was dead? Not exactly fool, just more fake news. In a rare instance of cooperation between the Wall Street and Haight Street branches of the increasingly misnamed party, we uncovered Donald 'The John' Trump's actual Nicaraguan birth certificate and used it as leverage to blackmail him into running for president. Ever since then, Jerry has been controlling him and I've been getting free Ganja from the Sandinistas

Worth repeating. I am somewhat surprised that the CIA director does not fly with Air America in your melodramatic whimsy dialogue. The big question though is: who actually got all the money Trump borrowed to buy up casinos years ago, the Clinton Foundation? My take on what is happening is that if Mueller really does have the goods on His Majesty when it comes to the bucks being laundered by the Russian mob associates of Putin then shit is about to really hit the fan. We have all known for years that the CIA under just about every president since it evolved past the OSS stage has let the clandestine works of American intelligence agencies run amok and get involved with organized crime in a big way.

Perhaps having clandestine branchs of government that are corrupted by organized crime affiliations that in turn can twist arms all the way up the chain of command to the commander in chief of the US is at the very core of the problem. We all know who shot Bobby, who was in principle the last real threat to organized crime in the US, but do we really know why Sirhan Sirhan did it or indeed if he was the one who fired the fatal shots? But then again the Washington Post is without a doubt the countries largest fake news organization. At least according to the Orange Chimp mafia/Putin sock puppet in the Whitehouse.

Mueller is either the biggest patsy being set up for disgrace as an investigator or shit is about to really hit the fan, the extent of which could quite easily go into much more than just what it is purported to be investigating. A rats nest of connections and corruption stretching back decades.

Whether or not the actors behind the scene that are creating a State run by organized crime in the West are exposed this time around is anyones guess. My fear is that instead they will come out of hiding in the woodwork of their skyscraper offices and become American's worst nightmare, a full fledged organized crime based dictatorship. Instead of a bunch of hidden back room criminals. You can tell their modus operandi has been to date to twist arms and kill people, if they are finally exposed it won't take long for them to turn to open extortion and murder of their opponents the same way Putin operates in Russia.

PS. I ain't a commie or a shill just a person who asks questions as to why organized crime has been allowed to exist in the US and associate with branches of government. Bobby knew that we had made a deal with the devil and might have done something about changing things; perhaps that is why he and his brother both died.

I have a feeling you're young. Seems you've fallen victim to some fake news. Happens.
About chip -
https://www.washingtonpost.com...

So it wasn't even an issue. Kimmel was slapped down over this as well. This is politics. A lot of bullshit. Another example you see flung around is the abortion issue. It's not going anywhere. Yet we hear that Trump will get rid of it, as if a President can do that. Same thing when Reagan was President. Guess what, it survived him too. They'll get women whipped up in a froth over it, however. Dianne Feinstein was funny recently when she said this budget was going to kill a lot of people... gloom, doom and they asked her how she was going to vote and she said - well I'm not sure yet. I couldn't have been the only guy thinking - WTF? Did you hear what you just said or do you just read what you were told to read?

Second paragraph, It's Schumer. If nothing else, we should respect the man's name. Even if they are a bottom feeding suction eel, just kidding. He wasn't a doormat. In fact to even say that makes me laugh. That's selling him way short. He negotiated everything he wanted. He was done. Then he pulled this seemingly out of his ass and I just don't understand why. Daca isn't legal in the first place. Obama said so and even lost a case on it, yet they still are trying to make it law somehow. In order to do that Congress has to make the law. It can't be an EO, which is what it is right now. Well, sort of, it was vacated by a court though it still seems to be out there somehow because crazy judges keep doing injunctions to keep it there when they know it's crap. They are known as activist judges. When they decide to legislate from the bench. They need to be deported. At the very least held accountable when they commit crimes and they aren't right now. Even murder.

Your third paragraph you seem to think you're actually up on how the Senate and House works and yet you don't know that they need the 60 votes even though I think even CNN has mentioned it a few times. That is how you get something called reconciliation. Where they merge the House and Senate bills and that becomes a bill that the President can sign. It avoids the full vote of the houses. That's why each side wants to get that magic 60 so they don't have to deal with the other side. Because you know, the other side is a bunch of assholes, no matter who is in majority at the time. This is the same thing that happened when it shut down with Obama. They didn't have that magic 60. There is something that some people call the nuclear option that needs a simple majority. However in that case the house would have to change their bill to be identical to the Senates and vote all over again. IMHO that is what I want. I want the full house to approve it and not just probably 5 or 6 people that will meet and decide. It would mean certain people would lose a lot of power and I'm really good with that. This is probably why we are where we are. Certain people have too much control and it's not in the Constitution.

Here, they even tell you it's for the budget - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

What will happen during Trump's presidency remains to be seen. In the first year we've seen economic growth, is anyone disputing that? Anyway, I think it's interesting to keep note of the headlines as times goes on.

Back in February 2017: "Trump is upset the media is not reporting a meaningless statistic about the national debt" https://www.washingtonpost.com...

In January 2018: "December US budget deficit shrinks to $23.2 billion" https://wtop.com/national/2018...

I don't claim to know the future, but looking at the past it seems like people's concerns re: this president have been pretty overblown. I will watch impartially as the story unfolds.

That's not a very good "safety measure"; innocent people have a right to be secure in their property, and seeing their door being bashed in without warning, basically gives the inhabitants carte blanche to pull out any guns they can find and open fire in the direction of intruders; the result could be fatalities of members of their "surprise raid team", and it will all be legally protected self-defense.

In a word, no. Even if the police lacked a warrant, innocent people would still lack any right to be secure or be armed.

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

urgent need for a massive reskilling programme

As the swamp's "favorite" President seeks to cut down the number of people paid by the taxpayer (especially for things other than security), a "report" comes out suggesting yet another way, the taxpayers' monies can be spent.

Why should I be compelled to pay for somebody else's education, again? Because I studied Math, while these slobs were playing football in school — when not robbing me of my lunch-money?

Collapse of U.S. society? More details of the collapse:

Links about Trump
from 18 different organizations

Trump moving toward starting a nuclear war:

> Trump Says His "Nuclear Button" Is "Much Bigger" Than North Korea's (Jan. 2, 2018, New York Times)
Two unstable people threaten each other.

> How Does Trump Trump Trump? Start a War. (Jan. 6, 2018, Huffington Post)

> Cartoon: "My nuclear button is bigger than yours!"" (Jan. 4, 2018, Gary Varvel at ArcaMax.com)

Trump's lies:

> In 298 days, President Trump has made 1,628 false and misleading claims. (Nov. 13, 2017, Washington Post)

> President Trump's Lies, the Definitive List (Dec. 14, 2017, New York Times)

> In a 30-minute interview, President Trump made 24 false or misleading claims. (Dec. 29, 2017, Washington Post)

> 10 Falsehoods From Trump's Interview With The Times (Dec. 29, 2017, New York Times)

> Trump takes credit for zero aviation deaths worldwide. (Jan. 2, 2018, Trump's Twitter account)
Replies:
"I'm gonna take credit for puppies being cute..."
"Guess who's responsible for designing the cute kangaroo pouches that keep little Joeys safe? That right, it was Me. ME. ME!"
"That's a job well done, thank you, but don't forget I gave dolphins their blowholes! Without me, they would've drowned!"

Books about Trump:

> Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff (Published Jan. 5, 2018)
Four days after publication, there were 1,432 customer reviews; 82% were 5-star reviews.

> Trumpocracy: The Corruption of the American Republic by David Frum (Published Jan. 16, 2018)

> Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency by Joshua Green (Published July 18, 2017)

> Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win by Luke Harding (Published Nov. 16, 2017)

> It's Even Worse Than You Think: What the Trump Administration Is Doing to America by David Cay Johnston (Published Jan. 16, 2018)

Sexual abuse:

> The 19 Women Who Accused President Trump of Sexual Misconduct (Dec. 7, 2017, The Atlantic.com)

Trump is said to have paid to avoid publicity:
Lawyer paid $130k to silence adult-film star over sexual encounter with Trump: report (Jan. 12, 20

Collapse of U.S. society? More details of the collapse:

Links about Trump
from 18 different organizations

Trump moving toward starting a nuclear war:

> Trump Says His "Nuclear Button" Is "Much Bigger" Than North Korea's (Jan. 2, 2018, New York Times)
Two unstable people threaten each other.

> How Does Trump Trump Trump? Start a War. (Jan. 6, 2018, Huffington Post)

> Cartoon: "My nuclear button is bigger than yours!"" (Jan. 4, 2018, Gary Varvel at ArcaMax.com)

Trump's lies:

> In 298 days, President Trump has made 1,628 false and misleading claims. (Nov. 13, 2017, Washington Post)

> President Trump's Lies, the Definitive List (Dec. 14, 2017, New York Times)

> In a 30-minute interview, President Trump made 24 false or misleading claims. (Dec. 29, 2017, Washington Post)

> 10 Falsehoods From Trump's Interview With The Times (Dec. 29, 2017, New York Times)

> Trump takes credit for zero aviation deaths worldwide. (Jan. 2, 2018, Trump's Twitter account)
Replies:
"I'm gonna take credit for puppies being cute..."
"Guess who's responsible for designing the cute kangaroo pouches that keep little Joeys safe? That right, it was Me. ME. ME!"
"That's a job well done, thank you, but don't forget I gave dolphins their blowholes! Without me, they would've drowned!"

Books about Trump:

> Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff (Published Jan. 5, 2018)
Four days after publication, there were 1,432 customer reviews; 82% were 5-star reviews.

> Trumpocracy: The Corruption of the American Republic by David Frum (Published Jan. 16, 2018)

> Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency by Joshua Green (Published July 18, 2017)

> Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win by Luke Harding (Published Nov. 16, 2017)

> It's Even Worse Than You Think: What the Trump Administration Is Doing to America by David Cay Johnston (Published Jan. 16, 2018)

Sexual abuse:

> The 19 Women Who Accused President Trump of Sexual Misconduct (Dec. 7, 2017, The Atlantic.com)

Trump is said to have paid to avoid publicity:
Lawyer paid $130k to silence adult-film star over sexual encounter with Trump: report (Jan. 12, 20

That and the three killings a day is why it's clear that the police need more protection against lawsuits.

They changed the Trending section LAST NIGHT. That was BEFORE the #trumpshutdown had more tweets than #Schumershutdown.

Do you have a citation for this claim?

Let me guess, that poll is D+23 ? D+30 ?

Are we really going to have to have this discussion? Party affiliation is a fluid notion; people change whether they self-identify to pollsters as a given party to a large extent whether they are happy with the party or not. Using a high party affiliation is exactly the sort of notion that was the basis for "unskewing" polls in 2008 and 2012.

I guess you didn't take a Civics class to learn what is a Super majority. The Republicans DON'T control the Senate, which is why we're here.

This is a complete abuse of language. They have a majority. They don't have a super-majority. Control of the senate is exactly what they have, and is reflected in who the majority leader is, who controls committees, etc. Senate control is not determined by having enough votes to override a flilibuster. This is why for example PredictIt discusses what party will "control the senate" https://www.predictit.org/Market/2703/Which-party-will-control-the-Senate-after-2018-midterms. This is standard language. Now, putting the language issue aside, the point that the Republicans don't have enough votes to overcome a filibuster is a valid one in terms of explaining part of what is going on, but the idea that that means the Republicans lack control is pretty awful phrasing both in terms of denotations and connotations.

Because in 2013, in that case, it literally was. The Republicans at the time voted AGAINST the bill because it contained OBAMACARE financing. The contents of the actual CR was the issue that caused the shutdown, and it was all in order for sitting President at the time to pass his legislative agenda.

That wasn't Trump's argument. See here http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/369756-trumps-comments-blaming-obama-for-2013-government-shutdown-resurface.

Yesterday's bill was different. It had none of Trump's agenda even in it. The Democrats even got a bone in the form of 6 years of CHIP financing.

Schumer, the guy you like blaming, explicitly offered funding for the wall in negotiations with Trump. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/01/20/schumer-offered-trump-something-democrats-hate-to-get-something-republicans-broadly-like/.

It doesn't because the Democrats did not vote against the contents of the bill. They voted because the bill didn't contain non-CR, non-related items, mostly Amnesty for a bunch of illegal aliens. Maybe you should ask yourself why the Democrats voted against 6 years of CHIP funding and an open governement, to try and force Amnesty of some 3M illegal aliens. Seems mighty Anti-american to me.

Disagrees with you doesn't make something "Anti-American" and it is disturbing that people decide that legitimate disagreements are in that category. Your comment also ignores that the people in question literally came here as young children and have lived in the US their entire lives, engaging in study here and economic productivity. If you want to throw around words like "Anti-American" I suppose someone can say that doing economic damage to the US as part of punishing people for the actions of their parents sounds Anti-American. But the majority of Americans, and even the majority of Republicans are in favor of DACA- see the last link above. The idea that DACA is somehow uniquely D

Eventually, of the tax cuts stimulate the economy, they might pay for themselves or even turn a profit.

No, they don't. https://www.washingtonpost.com... and while each big tax cut has made those rosy predictions/promises, they've NEVER happened.

https://www.gq.com/story/repub...

The University of Chicago polled 38 economists, and 37 said it would blow up the country's debt. The one guy who responded that it wouldn't later said he misread the question, and, yeah, those other 37 are right.

The TrumpShutdown Hashtag got far more Tweets than SchumerSchutdown http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trumpshutdown-beats-schumershutdown-hashtag-battle-assign-blame/story?id=52487452. Twitter didn't make a political decision there. This is also in keeping with the fact that more Americans blame the Republicans than the Democrats for the shutdown https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/more-blame-republicans-than-democrats-for-potential-government-shutdown-post-abc-poll-finds/2018/01/19/c4fce2f6-fd32-11e7-ad8c-ecbb62019393_story.html?utm_term=.2b05358862e7, and that you can make reasonable arguments blaming a whole bunch of groups for the shutdown depending on what you want to focus on https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2018/01/18/if-the-government-shuts-down-heres-your-cheat-sheet-on-which-party-to-blame/?utm_term=.e08056687732, but given that the Republicans control the House, the Senate and the Presidency, and Trump explicitly said repeatedly during the Obama administration that any shut down would be the President's fault http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/369756-trumps-comments-blaming-obama-for-2013-government-shutdown-resurface, #TrumpShutdown makes a fair bit of sense anyhow.