When did Trump develop fealty to Russia, & why does it persist after their cyber attack?

By Editorial Board December 30 at 7:01 PM

ALTHOUGH PRESIDENT Obama’s sanctions against Russia for interfering with the U.S. presidential election came late, his action on Thursday reflected a bipartisan consensus that penalties must be imposed for Moscow’s audacious hacking and meddling. 

But one prominent voice in the United States reacted differently. President-elect Donald Trump said “it’s time for our country to move on to bigger and better things.” Earlier in the week, he asserted that the “whole age of computer has made it where nobody knows exactly what is going on.”

No, Mr. Trump, it is not time to move on. U.S. intelligence agencies are in agreement about “what is going on”: a brazen and unprecedented attempt by a hostile power to covertly sway the outcome of a U.S. presidential election through the theft and release of material damaging to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. The president-elect’s dismissive response only deepens unanswered questions about his ties to Russia in the past and his plans for cooperation with Vladi­mir Putin.

For his part, Mr. Putin seems to be eagerly anticipating the Trump presidency. On Friday, he promised to withhold retaliatory sanctions, clearly hoping the new Trump administration will nullify Mr. Obama’s acts. Then Mr. Trump cheered on Twitter: “Great move on delay (by V. Putin) — I always knew he was very smart!”

For any American leader, an attempt to subvert U.S. democracy ought to be unforgivable — even if he is the intended beneficiary. Some years ago, then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned of a “cyber-Pearl Harbor,” and the fear at the time was of a cyberattack collapsing electric grids or crashing financial markets. Now we have a real cyber-Pearl Harbor, though not one that was anticipated. Mr. Obama has pledged a thorough investigation and disclosure; the information released on Thursday does not go far enough. Congress should not shrink from establishing a select committee for a full-scale probe.

Mr. Obama also hinted at additional retaliation, possibly unannounced, and we believe it would be justified to deter future mischief. How about shedding a little sunshine on Mr. Putin’s hidden wealth and that of his coterie?

Mr. Trump has been frank about his desire to improve relations with Russia, but he seems blissfully untroubled by the reasons for the deterioration in relations, including Russia’s instigation of an armed uprising in Ukraine, its seizure of Crimea, its efforts to divide Europe and the crushing of democracy and human rights at home.

Why is Mr. Trump so dismissive of Russia’s dangerous behavior? Some say it is his lack of experience in foreign policy, or an oft-stated admiration for strongmen, or naivete about Russian intentions. But darker suspicions persist. Mr. Trump has steadfastly refused to be transparent about his multibillion-dollar business empire. Are there loans or deals with Russian businesses or the state that were concealed during the campaign? Are there hidden communications with Mr. Putin or his representatives? We would be thrilled to see all the doubts dispelled, but Mr. Trump’s odd behavior in the face of a clear threat from Russia, matched by Mr. Putin’s evident enthusiasm for the president-elect, cannot be easily explained.

Read more on this topic:
 
Greg Sargent: The Trump camp’s spin on Russian interference is falling apart
Ruth Marcus: On Russia, Trump is incapable of looking past politics
Jennifer Rubin: A moment of truth on Russia

Why Donald Trump Is Going To Be A Uniquely Terrible President

America has elected a dim-witted demagogue. We're in for a long, bumpy ride.

By D. Watkins / Salon

Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore / Flickr

“The world was gloomy before I won – there was no hope. Now the market is up nearly 10% and Christmas spending is over a trillion dollars!”

“Doing my best to disregard the many inflammatory President O statements and roadblocks. Thought it was going to be a smooth transition – NOT!”

“We cannot continue to let Israel be treated with such total disdain and disrespect. They used to have a great friend in the U.S., but not anymore. The beginning of the end was the horrible Iran deal, and now this (U.N.)! Stay strong Israel, January 20th is fast approaching!”

These are tweets from President-elect Donald Trump’s account.

“Aren’t you scared?” my friend Q asked, tilting his red cup back as I filled mine up. “The world will be laughing at us. He’s like a substitute president. Trump is the substitute teacher of presidents!”

We laughed even though it wasn’t funny.

“Substitute teacher?” I replied, scratching my head.

I never really thought about it like that, but Q is so right. I instantly flashed back to sixth grade, seventh grade, eighth grade and straight through high school, and to the universal language all kids speak: A substitute in the classroom means a day off, no work, a break until the teacher decides to come back and question why nothing got accomplished while they were away, as if they already don’t know the answer.

No one ever thinks about, looks for or honors substitutes; they have no Sub Of The Year Awards, appreciation days or even a system to gauge their effectiveness. The only difference between Donald Trump and a classroom sub is that I can never imagine a substitute taking credit for fixing or even trying to fix a school system.

Like Donald, substitutes are outsiders, nothing like the people responsible for shaping a normal routine. Full-time teachers normally hold degrees in their fields and have completed the work to attain and maintain some type of official certification. They are qualified, for the most part. Teachers don’t just step into a classroom one day because they are bored with business or want to somehow Make Teaching Great Again. But I do remember a number of substitutes from my years in school who would say things like, “I don’t need this job, I have my own business! You need me more than I need you, and all you kids will fail at life!” Sounds familiar.

My favorite sub in middle school was Mr. Yancy. He’d make those types of statements over and over again, but we never really listened, because he was a sub! But we liked to hold a trash can above his head and slam dunk paper balls on him until he threatened to call the principal. On good days, Yancy would try to block the dunks or attempt to slam one himself, which is why we liked him, but all in all, no one really learned anything, because we couldn’t take him seriously. It reminds me now of how we think of Trump and his sophomoric Twitter tirades as a joke, too. Which brings me to the fear question my friend Q raised.

Other countries follow our celebrities and public figures; they pay attention to our reporting and are witnessing Trump’s incomplete, logic-free stump speeches. They see the way in which he celebrates racism and divisiveness — to many of his fans, the good ol’ days. What are they thinking? Will they still want to do business with us? Will they continue to see us as a super power, or are we now super idiots?

Hopefully they’ll be able to understand that this is just a brief four-year intermission, a last hopeless attempt at sustaining white supremacy. Like Yancy, Trump will disappear. He’s a substitute who won’t be around for long. Some things may become chaotic during his tenure, like with any substitute, but real leaders will return some day soon, and we can get back to business as usual.

D. Watkins is the author of The Beast Side: Living and Dying While Black in America. He has been published in Salon, New York Times, the Guardian and other publications, and he is a frequent contributor to NPR and CNN. 

Fuck You, Donald Trump

Fuck You, Donald Trump

Fuck you, Donald Trump.

Fuck you for being a hypersensitive, grossly plump caricature of a human being; a squirming mass of cockroaches lurking under a skinsuit veneer.

Fuck your wanton plundering of our social fabric, your willingness to tear down the structure that allows you to exist, your glorification of the worst parts of humanity, all in the name of your own insatiable greed and depravity.

Fuck your racebaiting, fearmongering, Nazi-enabling rhetoric that allows the darkest and most destructive corners of our collective zeitgeist free reign to terrorize the rest.

Fuck your ignorant paucity of intellect, your narcissistic belief in your own ego, your inability to recognize your own descent into fascism.

Fuck your promotions of white supremacists to positions of power, of science denying crackpots to oversee our future, of bootlicking toadies to oversee your transition.

Fuck your misogynistic views on women’s rights, fuck your archaic beliefs on the freedom of press and religion, and fuck your idiotic venality when it comes to the destruction of a country that, while not always achieving freedom for all of its citizens, has done the best to get there in the entirety of recorded human history.

Fuck you, Melania Trump.
Fuck you for being willing to support this disgusting slime mold because it means you can live a life of privilege and luxury, never mind the hardships that will befall women across this nation due to your husband’s philistinic views.

Fuck you for posing for puff pieces in entertainment magazines while the cabal of shitgoblins your partner is assembling gets ready to reverse everything that has allowed you to possess even the most moderate amount of power.

Fuck you for taking the easy choice, the choice to suck the dick of a loathsome troll in order to wear Hugo Boss dresses, instead of taking a stand in order to protect the fifty percent of our population who shares your gender.

Fuck you for smiling and waving at the cameras when your husband is on record as saying, “Grab them (women) by the pussy. You can do anything.”

Fuck your betrayal of everything Susan B. Anthony and other suffragettes fought for, fuck your tacit acceptance that a woman should be an accessory to a man, fuck your self-centered interest in insuring your own well-being over the well-being of the country that allows you such a lifestyle.

Fuck you, Ivanka, Eric, and Donald Trump Jr.
Fuck you for being willing lackeys of this pusillanimous ape, for carrying his water on television and in media interviews.

Fuck you for clinging to his hairy teat, for not finding the courage to strike out on your own, for not recognizing that even though you can’t choose your parents, you can certainly choose your own path in life.

Fuck you for normalizing this piece of shit wannabe-Hitler, for treating his wretched series of business enterprises as anything other than the fraudulent snake-oil jobs that they are, for bowing beneath the lash instead of standing tall and making your own way, despite the loss it might incur.

Fuck you for the hate and pain you will inflict on hundreds of thousands of American citizens because you couldn’t muster the courage to say, “No, this isn’t right, and even though I’m related to you by blood, I refuse to proceed with this abhorrent state of affairs.”

Fuck your greasy, slimy, frat-house words and beliefs, your ideals that would tear us apart, your craven unworthiness to occupy a public space that you achieved through no merit of your own, one which you have no idea what to do with other than to cause hurt.

Fuck you, Jared Kushner.
Fuck your anti-Semitism.

Fuck your quisling compliance, your willingness to see those like you tortured and degraded in order to further your own lot in life.

Fuck your manipulation of our media through your financial control of the Observer, fuck your sheltered life of wanton privilege, fuck your inability to understand the arc of history.

Fuck everything you do to uphold a wretched lout who would suffer no qualms in ordering you in front of the firing squad if it meant he might live another day.

Fuck you, Republicans who refuse to disown this bloated leech.

Fuck your cowardice, your disavowal of the solemn duties of your office?—?keeping this country safe from tyrants and demagogues.

Fuck you for meekly bending the knee in compliance, instead of speaking truth to power.

Fuck you for choosing political expediency over courage, fuck you for sacrificing the poor and the sick, fuck you for dragging our government into a hole from which it may never recover.
Fuck you, members of the media.

Fuck your constant pursuit of ratings, of quarterly profits, of giving this tinpot cumdumpster a platform with which he can influence a large part of our country

Fuck you for buying into the idea that racism should be afforded an equal platform with equality, for calling a Nazi anything other than a Nazi.

Fuck your smarmy think-pieces attempting to normalize a new hegemony, fuck your cowardice in the face of totalitarianism, fuck your CEOs and VP's and executive producers who are willing to feed the innocent to the depraved in order to forestall their own demise.

Fuck you for not doing your job.

Fuck you, Trump supporters.
Fuck you for your willing ignorance, your inability to understand that a fascist is telling you exactly what he wants to do to you.

Fuck you for tearing apart the rule of law, and bringing back the rule of force.

Fuck you for not caring, for believing the easy lies you read instead of using your brain to find the truth.

Fuck you for putting your petty hatreds and squabbles ahead of everything that once made this country great, and fuck you for unwittingly causing it to fall.
Fuck you everyone who refuses to take a stand against this man.

Fuck your inability to understand history.

Fuck your selfish interests that ignore the fact that if one of us isn’t free, none of us is free.

Fuck your willingness to normalize this dictator, your filthy desire for more lucre, your inability to fight for your fellow citizens and everything this country once stood for. The Founders would be ashamed of you.
Fuck your blind optimism that things will somehow magically turn out okay, fuck your American exceptionalism draped in the corpses of communities of color, fuck your overwhelming ignorance that could be solved if you simply wished to learn and ask ‘why.’

Above all, fuck your cowardice, your self-loathing hypocrisy, your myopic blinders keeping you from identifying the single greatest threat our republic has faced since we took up arms against the British, because if someone other than you suffers, somehow that makes it just fine.

Fuck you, Donald Trump, for turning my country into something that it never should have become, for turning it into something no country should ever become.

Fuck you, Donald Trump, for driving us into conflict, one that will most likely end in violence.

Fuck you, Donald Trump.

https://medium.com/@ChrisWarcraft/fuck-you-donald-trump-c644ae3dd94c#.26s36lva0

I need to laugh, mainly because of the fucked up year that we just went through.  This is some of the funniest shit that I could come up with. dlevere.

By PW Staff

David Bowie, Prince, Zsa Zsa Gabor all gone. Just to screw with us, rocker George Michael who famously wrote the tune “Last Christmas” died...on Christmas.

Carrie Fisher died and Debbie Reynolds a day later.

There was Zika in South America, Brexit in the U.K., and wildfires in Tennessee. An alligator swallowed a 2-year-old in Florida, and they murdered that gorilla Harambe in Cincinnati. A bunch of armed white dudes took over a federal building (and beat the rap); a bunch of unarmed black men were shot and killed by cops (and never got justice).

Then someone retaliated by assassinating police officers in Dallas. There were mass shootings in Orlando, Chicago and Kansas and a warehouse club fire in Oakland. America continues to fight wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and did little as thousands were being decimated in Syria.

Back home in Philadelphia, some idiot ripped off the banister from the Union League steps, Teamster boss John Dougherty got pinched and people got robbed while wasting hours of their lives trying to find those coveted Charizards in Pokemon Go.

Oh and then as a nation, we elected Donald Trump as leader of the free world.

How to Tell Black People Apart

By Jessica Dickerson 

David Alan Grier may be responsible for solving Hollywood's most awkward problem - those moments when black celebrities are confused with other black celebrities. We're sure you remember the Samuel L. Jackson debacle, the Alfre Woodard, Idris Elba disaster, or the Octavia Spencer red carpet mishap.

This infomercial for David Alan Grier’s book “How To Tell Black People Apart” featured on Jimmy Kimmel Live is not only the funniest thing we've seen all day, but it's also just what the world needs.

In it, Grier shares the side-splitting acronym you’ll never remember: PATWWFLLM. Which stands for “Pay Attention To What We Fucking Look Like Motherfuckers!!!”

The book may not be real, but the problem sure is. Hopefully Grier’s spoof is as educational as it is hilarious.

 

O Holy Night worst rendition ever FUNNIEST SONG ON EARTH

If you need a good laugh, and I mean 'can't breathe, stomach hurts' belly laugh, listen to the worst rendition of Oh Holy Night ever. Warning, put all drinks down and take a few deep breaths first so you don't suffocate from laughter. It starts out as sounding like a merely poor rendition of the song, but just wait.

 

Wing - Dancing Queen 

For 8 years, I've watched you be the better man

By babylonsister

Emerging Christian pastor to President Obama: For 8 years, I've watched you be the better man
By Leslie Salzillo
Wednesday Dec 28, 2016 · 2:21 PM EST

In this open letter to President Obama, John Pavlovitz writes about how history will secure the President’s grand legacy and body of wor. After watching President Obama for eight years, Pavlovitz shares his observations. Here are some excerpts from his June piece.

• I’ve watched the way you’ve absorbed a billion body blows from your critics; brutal words that run far deeper than policy or platform, words composed within poisoned hearts long before you served a single day in office.

• I’ve watched you bombarded with a daily Molotov cocktail of white privilege and hidden or overt racism disguised as objective opposition.

• I’ve watched your wife and children attacked with a ferocity and malevolence that defy any sense of decency and that have no precedence.

• I’ve watched your birthplace called into question, your personal faith ridiculed, your very humanity discounted.

• I’ve watched you endure the incessant, bitter venom of those for whom the color of your skin was always going to be a problem.

• And through all of it, I’ve watched you be the better man.

Pavlovitz tells President Obama that “In the face of a sustained, spitting, violent, raw-throated hatred, you’ve never responded in kind.” He writes that Obama never allowed himself to be defined by bigotry and never disrespected his critics — by becoming them. This, Pavlovitz says, will be President Obama’s greatest legacy.

The truth is, many of us understand that the Evangelical Right, the NRA, FoxNews, and far too many ordinary folks living here were simply never going to be okay with a man of color leading them and succeeding—and yet you have done both.

Eight years later, those same people still strain to bait you into reciprocating bitterness and in fulfilling their toxic prophecies of you, while you simply continue to do what you do with nobility, compassion, good humor, and steadfast, unapologetic conviction.

John Pavlovitz tells President Obama, “You live the grace so many Christians invoke but rarely model.” The pastor adds, as a father, he realizes his children are always watching him, taking cues from the way he treats people and how he responds to adversity. He knows his children watch how he cares for those in pain, how he handles mistreatment and that his words will always be secondary to his conduct. “This is where I find my deepest gratitude for you in these days.” He tells the President, “For eight years you have worked for those who have been marginalized, even while so many have sought to marginalize you. “

Pavlovitz writes that he and so many others are trying to live passionately yet with integrity and are committed to standing upon principles and never upon people. He says, “We are seeing the way you’ve done it and are moved to move similarly together.”

So you’ll forgive me if I speak informally right now, and if I use words used often brandished by your critics to undermine the work you’ve done and the life you’ve lived and the character you’ve shown.

Without a trace of irony or sarcasm, let me simply say:

Thanks, Obama.

This. Once again, John Pavlovitz proves there are Christians out there who actually follow the words of Christ, who actually care deeply about others, and who are not afraid to speak out against religious hypocrisy. More, please — and thank you, Pastor Pavlovitz.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/12/28/1614975/-True-Christian-pastor-to-President-Obama-For-8-years-I-ve-watched-you-be-the-better-man?detail=facebook

FORTRAN for the Web

By Al Williams

There’s an old saying: “I don’t know what programming language scientists and engineers will use in the 22nd century, but I know it will be called FORTRAN.” FORTRAN was among the first real programming languages and, along with LISP, one of the oldest still in common use. If you are one of those that still loves FORTRAN, you no longer have to be left out of the Web development craze thanks to Fortran.io.

Naturally, the Fortran.io site is served by — what else — FORTRAN. The system allows for Jade templates, SQLite databases, and other features aimed at serving up web pages. The code is hosted on GitHub, and you can find several examples there, as well.

If you’ve ever wanted to do formatted I/O to a web page, here’s your chance. Come to think of it, why not? We’ve seen servers in BASIC and even in Linux shell script. Of course, today’s FORTRAN isn’t the one we learned back in the 1970’s (we assume if you didn’t learn about FORTRAN in the 1970’s, you quit reading this post a while back… prove us wrong and show us your FORTRAN projects).

Don't you dare tell me to 'get over it' or 'be tolerant'!

I listened as you called my President a Muslim.
I listened as you called him and his family a pack of monkeys.
I listened as you said he wasn't born here.
I watched as you blocked every single path to progress that you could.
I saw the pictures you made of him as Hitler.
I watched you shut down the government and hurt the entire nation, twice.
I watched you turn your backs on every opportunity to open a worthwhile dialog.
I watched you say that you would not even listen to any choice for Supreme Court no matter who the nominee was.
I listened as you openly said that you will oppose him at every turn.
I watched as you did just that.
I listened.
I watched.
I paid attention.

Now, I'm being called on to be tolerant.
To move forward.
To denounce protesters.
To "Get over it."
To accept this...
I will not.

I will do my part to make sure, this great American mistake, becomes the embarrassing footnote of our history that it deserves to be.
I will do this as quickly as possible, every chance I get.
I will do my part to limit the damage that this man can do to my country.
I will watch his every move and point out every single mistake and misdeed in a loud and proud voice.
I will let you know in a loud voice every time this man backs away from a promise he made to you.
The people who voted for him. Yes you, the ones who sold their souls and prayed for him to win.

I will do this so that you never forget.
And you will hear me.
You will see it in my eyes when I look at you.
You will hear it in my voice when I talk to you.
You will know that I know who you are.
You will know that I know what you are.
Do not call for my tolerance. I've tolerated all I can.
Now it's your turn to tolerate the ridicule.
Be aware, make no mistake about it, every single thing that goes wrong in our country from this day forward is now Trump's fault just as much as you thought it was Obama's.
I find it unreasonable for you to expect from me, what you were entirely unwilling to give.

-Author unknown

White Nationalists Are 'Prepared to Revolt' If Trump Runs From Their Support

Newly emboldened, these bigots will accept nothing less than full control of the Republican Party.

 

By Sarah K. Burris

 

Leaders in the right-wing white supremacy movement are threatening President-elect Donald Trump if he plans to abandon their efforts to influence his administration.

According to The Guardian, activists are concerned the so-called “alt-right” will remain on the fringe of the Republican Party instead of having a seat at the table.

“Their hearts are bigger than their brains,” said Mark Weber of the Institute for Historical Review. His organization is dedicated to exposing so-called “Jewish-Zionist” power. “Saying they want to be the intellectual head of the Trump presidency is delusional.”

Jared Taylor, who runs the magazine American Renaissance, a self-described “race-realist” publication, said that Trump initially promised his supporters that every undocumented person would be sent back. “Now he is waffling on that,” Taylor lamented.

Holocaust denier David Cole fears the movement will devolve into squabbles, in-fighting and online trolling instead of working to shape American policy.

“In January Trump will start governing and will have to make compromises,” the Taki magazine columnist wrote. “Even small ones will trigger squabbles between the ‘alt-right.’ ‘Trump betrayed us.’ ‘No, you’re betraying us for saying Trump betrayed us.’ And so on. The alt-right’s appearance of influence will diminish more and more as they start to fight among themselves.”

Peter Brimelow is the founder of Vdare.com, a site that claims Mexicans are working to remake the United States. He thinks that if Trump can’t deliver “important bones” a backlash will happen could.

“I think the right of the right is absolutely prepared to revolt. It’s what they do.”

Last month, a crowd of white supremacists gathered not far from the White House and were captured chanting “heil Trump” while giving a Nazi salute.

Taylor, who spoke at the conference, was disappointed by the display. “It was going very well until [then]. Richard Spencer has said that the way he closed the talk was meant as pure irony, and I hope that’s the case, that it was all ironic and over-exuberance. I don’t think that anything that has any whiff of Nazism is a particularly effective way to bring Americans or even Europeans to an effective understanding of race.”

Brimelow said that they weren’t there to look for jobs in Trump’s administration.

“These are not party loyalists,” he explained. “They know they’re entirely outside the establishment consensus. And they’re used to guerrilla warfare.”

Cole said Spencer, who was speaking at the time, overreached. “He blew a lot of goodwill … and became an embarrassment to some of his own people.” He said Spencer and the supporters will pay big for it.

“They’ll burn out. After Trump’s victory they had a belief they were behind it, or had a lot of clout,” Cole continued. “All they can hope for is to get something on the immigration reform/restrictions. Otherwise they’re enjoying the bragging rights, saying they won it, even though they didn’t.”

Those supporting Trump’s message against immigration and Muslims found a kinship with the candidate whose campaign claimed to have accidently used anti-Semitic and racist imagery. Trump pledged to build a wall along the US/Mexico border, institution a Muslim registry, deport 11 million undocumented people and appoint far-right judges to the Supreme Court. He hired Steve Bannon, who turned Breitbart News into a platform for white nationalists, as a senior advisor to the president.
Taylor thinks the far-right, as well as liberals, were easily swayed by the media’s bias. “Donald Trump was never a racial dissident of the sort that I am. He was never one of us. He’s an American nationalist. The left was wrong to think that he was dancing to the tune of people like myself.”

He thinks the alt-right needs to practice patience. “Racial nationalism has not triumphed in America. It will some day. But to think it has done so [already] is delusive.”

Sarah K. Burris writes about politics and technology for Raw Story. 

Someone answers the question: "Do I want Trump to fail?"

By Steve Marmel

Kellyanne Conway to Trump critics: Be careful what you say - I say fuck Kellyanne Conway and Donald Trump

By UCmeNdc

That didn't take long. Not even a week has passed, and the president elect's team is already warning Trump critics to be "careful" about the way they criticize Trump. (Freedom does not include criticizing President Trump.)

Donald Trump's minions seem to be confused about this, so let's fill them in on something they're going to need to know going forward: The President of the United States has the least legal protection against criticism or libel of anyone in the country. As the ultimate public figure, courts are obliged to grant public citizens wide leeway. This is why, for example, elected public officials, private citizens, and the Fox News channel have been repeatedly able to peddle 100% false information about Barack Obama for a decade with absolutely no repercussions.

To demonstrate how this works, I could, for example, say something like "President Donald Trump is a small-penised sex-obsessed pervert who stands accused of raping a 13 year old girl and who, given his temperament, has in all likelihood sexually abused at least one of his own children. He is mentally unstable and among the dumbest individuals ever to hold any public office anywhere, is quite probably colluding with Russia to undermine American interests, and spends his evenings aggressively masturbating to National Geographic footage of burrowing meerkats. His sole aim in acquiring the presidency is to convert the Lincoln Bedroom into a Rape Room, and he will sell an American nuclear weapon to ISIS for fifteen dollars and change if he thinks he'd make two dollars worth of profit on it."

Welcome to the big leagues, President Summer Squash. You're going to have quite the adventure from here on in.

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/11/13/1598359/-Kellyanne-Conway-to-Trump-critics-Be-careful-what-you-say

America’s Second Civil War

By RKP5637

I often wonder if there will be civil unrest. How horrible what millions will be facing as America likely changes. This is an older article, but now the past is about to be the present on Jan. 20, 2017.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-dr-susan-k-smith/the-coming-of-americas-civil-war_b_9501120.html

Rev. Dr. Susan K. Smith
Writer, author, musician, pastor, preacher and social justice advocate.

I am really trying to figure out what is going on in America, and what will happen to America should Donald Trump win the presidency.

I never for a moment believed that Trump could not win the nomination, contrary to the pundits’ takes on television. I was furious that they could not see, or would not see, that this man had a platform and an audience.

Even now, some pundits and news people insist upon saying that Trump cannot win the presidency, but I believe they are wrong. Trump has a swath of supporters that is not backing down or backing away that we know about, but I believe his base of support includes a lot of people who will never admit publicly that they are rooting for him, but who are, nonetheless.

From the beginning, I was disappointed that so many people resonated with him. He was, and is, crude and rude. He is disrespectful to women; I was horrified when he characterized all Mexicans (the ones coming to the United States) as rapists and criminals. His disrespect of Sen. John McCain stunned me; like McCain or not, he is a war hero, but not to Trump. His parodying a man who was developmentally disabled made me sick. The fact that he says nothing of substance in his rallies is appalling. His arrogance at saying he will build a wall between the United States and Mexico and will make Mexico pay for it was hateful, and his plan to deport millions of illegal immigrants out of this country made me shake my head.

This is America, right?

His dog whistle language as concerns his feelings about black people is hardly subtle; his ordering his people to “get them out of here” when they have showed up at his rallies, and his reminding his followers that there was a day when they would have been able to take care of those protesters in a way that they would be taken out on a stretcher...was...well, really white.

But it wasn’t the fact that Donald Trump was and is so narcissistic and arrogant that bothers me so much. What bothers me is the blind following he seems to have, of both white and black people, who seem to think he can do no wrong. They do not care that he does not have any viable foreign policy; he seems to feel he will be able to act unilaterally and just ...get rid of people or nations he doesn’t like. His rambling about how he will just sort of magically fix the economy has made no sense to me at all. He has made all his followers believe that he and he alone can bring jobs back to this country. They believe him. He is right about one thing: he could go out onto Fifth Avenue and shoot someone and his supporters would still support him.

The question is “why?” So, the white working class is angry. So...what? What makes their anger so different, so virulent, and so strong and so much more worthy of mention? Why is their anger more important than that of all the other people in this nation who have been marginalized? Why isn’t more of the country upset that what seems to be the unifying thread holding his base together is white supremacy, racism, in its most ugly form?

Why is their anger more important than the anger of everyone else?

Could it be that these people have found out that white supremacy loves no person who is not only not white, but prefers people who are white with money? Could it be that they are realizing that the phrase in the Constitution, “all men are created equal” really does pertain now, as it did then, primarily to these wealthy, white landowners? Could it be that, as they have looked around, that they see how they are no better off economically than are black people, in spite of their being white?’

Don’t accuse me of playing the race card. It is the pundits and the news operations who have made it clear that it is angry white men who are behind Trump in the biggest numbers. It is angry white men who no longer have the manufacturing or construction or mining jobs they used to have so they could make a decent living. The pundits are pointing out the fact that the demographic that is most responsible for the Rise of Trump ...is angry white men.

They are tired of being “politically correct,” meaning, they can’t say the “n” word when they want. They cannot openly discriminate against black and brown people like they used to. The Black Lives Matter movement has been steadily dismantling their false confidence that the police take care of “the bad people,” who happen to be ...”the black people.” The shootings of innocent and/or unarmed black people by white police officers, caught on tape, has shattered the lie behind which law enforcement has hidden for decades. Their officers, some of them, are being called to accountability. In this country where, historically, a police officer never had to prove he or she did anything wrong and who never had to worry about going to jail for participating in state-sanctioned murder, things are changing ...and it is making some white people more and more angry. They want “their country back.” They want to “make America great again.” That greatness included free-flowing racial violence by whites against blacks and rampant discrimination; it included white people being able to have jobs when many black people were denied those same jobs. That America included having trials (and still does) where a black person could and would be tried by an all-white jury for a crime he or she might not have committed, and nobody could do anything about it.

That is changing.

And now, to add insult to injury, there are too many brown people here, brown people who have done the work for white people that neither white not black people would have done themselves because the pay is so low. Brown people in the form of Hispanics, and now, brown and black people in the form of Muslims...are all over the place ...and some white people are not only angry, but they are afraid that they are losing the power they always had
.
These people believe that Trump - who sounds eerily like the Hitler I have read about - will make everything all right. He will build that wall. He will “get the coloreds out.” He will reset the American equilibrium and return things to the way they used to be. And that’s why they do not care what he says or does. They do not care who he berates or puts down. They do not care if he says one thing on one talk show and something entirely different on another show minutes later.

They want America back. Their America.

They began to mumble when Barack Obama was elected president.; their lawmakers vowed, even as Obama was being inaugurated, that they would make him a one-term president. While there were many people who believed his election meant that America was a post-racial country, there were those who vowed that this country would be post-racial over their dead bodies. That’s why we heard the cry, “We want to take our country back!” They were intentional about what they meant. And they are intentional now.

I shudder to think about where America is headed. If Trump wins the nomination and then the White House, it will be bad for a whole lot of people. If Trump is bumped from contending for the presidency by a brokered convention, it will still be bad for a whole lot of people, because, as Trump as alluded, his angry white people will rise up. He said, “I think you’d have riots.” I think he’s right. Trump’s supporters would rise up...

But someone would rise up against them.

It will be America’s Second Civil War.

God, help our nation.

Trump Pretends He's Already The President

http://crooksandliars.com/2016/12/trump-pretends-hes-already-president

5 Reasons Senate Democrats Should Block All Trump Supreme Court Nominees, Forever

After the GOP's disgraceful treatment of Obama, the president-elect deserves nothing less.

 

By Juan Cole

 

We don’t need a Trump-nominated supreme Court justice. We desperately don’t need such a person. And there is no reason to have one. The Democrats in the Senate should just filibuster any nomination for the next four years. Now, you may say that a president deserves to have the nominee of his choice voted on. But those were the old rules before we saw how the Republican Party treated Barack Obama. They just told him no, no, no on everything. Everything. They even threatened the home mortgages of government employees by closing down the government. Twice. They vilified Obama, shouted disrespectfully at him from the floor of Congress, and then they refused even to let his Supreme Court nominee, a centrist, come up for a vote. They declared President Obama a lame duck when he had 11 months left in his presidency.

I declare Donald Trump a lame duck now. Four years out. Here are the reasons the Senate should block his nominee:

1. Republicans did not let Merrick Garland come up for a vote. Why should Democrats allow someone else to?

2. Republicans declared Barack Obama a lame duck beginning in February of 2016, when he had 11 months in office. I declare Donald Trump a lame duck, four years out. 11 months, 48 months– what’s the difference among friends? If presidents aren’t really presidents for 23% of their terms, why not make it an even 100%? After all, the next election isn’t far away. The American people deserve to be heard on this issue, and the results of this election were too confused to allow them to be heard decisively. We can just wait till 2020, the way the GOP wanted us to wait till Obama was out of office to do anything at all.

3. Nearly 3 million more Americans voted for Hillary Clinton than for Trump, even with substantial voter suppression in states like North Carolina. They did so because they cared about women’s reproductive rights, labor rights, the environment, civil liberties, and other issues decided by the Supreme Court. It would be an extreme insult to popular sovereignty to thwart their voices, the majority of the country, and have a minority president appoint some far right patriarchal demagogue to injure their constitutional rights.

4. The issue transcends ideology. Many of Trump’s appointees have been loony as the day is long. His national security adviser, Mike Flynn, thinks that Hillary Clinton secretly practices voodoo and he just met with the head of a far right party founded by ex-Nazis in Austria. The Supreme Court interprets the constitution for our country and we can’t afford Trump’s affirmative action for the Tinfoil Hat Brigade to extend into that august body.

5. The 8-person Supreme Court we now have is just fine. They don’t need another colleague. Without Antonin Scalia, they have been making reasonable decisions. Let them go on doing so. You might argue that they need to have an odd number of members so that ties can be broken. But, why? If they can’t decide a case because they’re deadlocked, it can just be returned to the district court it came from. Besides, maybe Clarence Thomas will retire and we can suffice with 7 justices.

You might say that if the Dems act in this way, the Republicans will just change the Senate rules so that things are done by a simple majority. Let them. Sooner or later the Democrats will get a simple majority in the senate along with a Democratic president, and no one ever again will be able to constrain them the way the GOP put President Obama into a straight jacket.

We’re watching you, Senate Democrats. Remember: No Trump appointee should be seated. Ever.

Merry Christmas From President Obama and First Lady Michelle

We have been blessed more than we know for the last eight years of your great leadership. Thank you, President and Mrs. Obama.

We look forward to a great future for you and your family.

Bill O’Reilly sparks Twitter outrage over 'white privilege' comments

By Chris Sommerfeldt

Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly infuriated thousands of Americans when he went on national television Tuesday night and said that liberals want to abolish the Electoral College because they want “power taken away from the white establishment.”

The conservative “O’Reilly Factor” host claimed that mounting pressure to do away with the antiquated voting system is “all about race,” and only intends to favor diverse urban areas over primarily white rural ones.

“The left sees white privilege in America as an oppressive force that must be done away with,” O’Reilly said during his namesake primetime show, just one day after the Electoral College officially elected Donald Trump as the next President. “Therefore, white working class voters must be marginalized and what better way to do that than center the voting power in the cities.”

O’Reilly went on to claim that Hillary Clinton’s massive popular vote win is but a reminder of the College’s necessity.

Billionaire Backed Plan To Use Shipping Containers To House The Homeless

By Patrick Clark

© Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images Displaced homeless people watch as a bulldozer removes their encampment known as The Jungle on Dec. 4, 2014, in San Jose, Calif. 

 Tiny houses have emerged in the past decade as a promising way to house more homeless people for less money. Now the idea has gained a powerful proponent in the billionaire California real estate developer John Sobrato, who unveiled a proposal this month to build 200 micro-apartments for homeless and low-income renters in Santa Clara.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/realestate/a-billionaire-backed-plan-to-use-shipping-containers-to-house-the-homeless/ar-BBxn8N9?li=BBnb4R7

We are completely & utterly screwed. But Happy Holidays

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/12/19/1611924/-Cartoon-Post-truth-world

This Horrible Belief About the Election and What to Do With It

Posted By Rude One

If a Republican were president right now and an incoming Democrat had won in an election where there was even a whiff of Russian interference, the nation would be shut down right now. Lawyers would be filing every lawsuit imaginable in every court everywhere. Marches would be ready to blockade the path of the electors from even getting to their meeting place. Impeachment documents would have been drawn up and, if they were in the minority in Congress, Republicans would be nonstop shaming Democrats, asking if they're loyal to the United States or Russia, until they agreed not to certify the election.

It would be a 50-alarm fire and no one would be able to stop the momentum until the president-elect agreed to postpone inauguration until either a definite determination was made about the Russian influence or until a new election could be held. And that's what they'd do if the Democratic president-elect was an entirely competent, qualified person. If it was an egomaniacal hedonist who craps all over the traditions and decorum of the government? We'd be at Def-Con Monica.

And who could blame them, really? If Democratic elected officials truly believe that Russia hacked the Republican and Democratic National Committees' email servers in an effort to push the needle even slightly towards Donald Trump, then that's exactly how they should be acting.

In a twist right out of Shakespeare, President Obama's fatal flaw is the very thing that launched him into the presidency in the first place: his belief in the basic decency of people. It has failed him time and again, yet so often when dealing with his political opposition, he has treated them with respect and dignity that they did not deserve and that they refused him. It failed him when he tried to get Mitch McConnell to release a joint statement on the hack before the election. McConnell said he wouldn't do it and, if the Democrats did, he would just call it political games and discredit it. So, being decent, Obama backed down. Everyone in that situation should be ashamed.

Now, in the last weekend before the Electoral College votes on Monday, in the last month before Donald Trump takes over and attempts to completely destroy his legacy, it is time for President Obama to at long last forgo his instinct to trust that right will somehow always win and to actually reach out to bend the arc of history towards progress. In simpler terms, he needs to fuck some shit up.

This is where we are right now: Obama has such confidence that Russia did hack the servers that he is promising that the United States will retaliate. Now, yes, real evidence needs to be presented to the nation (which will automatically be dismissed as false in many quarters, notably the ones that inform Trump's opinions). But, at this point, I'm gonna trust Obama over Russia or the guy who told an audience in Chicago a blatant lie last night: that the murder rate is "the largest it’s been in 45 years."

In the course of two tweets, Trump pretended no one had ever talked about the hacking until now and then admitted that people had talked about the hacking before the election. It's no wonder that White House Spokesman Josh Earnest could directly say, "Mr. Trump obviously knew that Russia was engaged in malicious cyber activity that was helping him and hurting Secretary Clinton's campaign."

As Trump continues to deny and deflect on Russia's involvement, it would be good to remember the rule that whatever Trump says about others generally applies to himself. During the election, for instance, Trump kept insisting that Hillary Clinton's email server something or other "disqualified" her from even running for president. The truth is that Trump's financial entanglements that will likely put him in violation of the Constitution from the moment he's sworn in actually should have disqualified him from running. And he knew that (and, as many others have said, I'm still not convinced that this election is not a publicity stunt that got out of hand).

So we have to consider both Trump's just weird refusal to take the intelligence agencies he's going to need at their word on Russia and that, in the latter part of the election cycle, he claimed that the whole thing was "rigged" against him. Again, it's just a damned odd thing to say. What we originally thought was simply a shot across the bow of the legitimacy of a Clinton victory is seeming more and more like a deflection from the election actually being, if not rigged, then manipulated. Ultimately, if there was coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia, then do we call that "treason"? And if we do, then we have to follow through with all that that requires.

At the very least, President Obama should ask that Congress delay the Electoral College vote until, as Trump might say, we can figure out what the hell is going on. Barring that, he should ask Congress to delay the January 6 count of electoral votes. Barring that, Democrats should file objections to the vote that will force Congress to have to go on record in support of Trump.

And rank and file Democrats better be calling their members of Congress and the White House to voice their concern. And they better be ready to take to the streets to shut this down before the Trump cancer metastasizes so that its diseased tendrils grow deep into the American body. Act like our goddamned lives depend on it. Obama should be leading the charge on this, asking all concerned Americans to get involved. Just don't expect decency from a good many of them.

Barring all of that and Trump becoming president (as is most likely), well, then we need a new plan. And I've got an idea or two.

One last thing for President Obama: Fire the fuck out of James Comey. Shit, arrest that motherfucker.

"Sit down, Donald...there is something we need to tell you..."

By kentuck

You did not win in a landslide. You won the electoral vote by one of the lowest margins in our history. Also, you lost the popular vote by the largest margin of anyone...ever. So you need to stop acting like you had some great victory. You didn't.

Thanks in large part part to your disgusting words and actions during the campaign, the country is more divided than it has been in a very long time.

You need to stop pounding your chest and acting as if everybody in America loves you. They don't. They find you disgusting and unfit to hold any public office, let alone the Presidency.

Your job is not to brag and further divide our country. You need to realize that you won nothing. You willl be appointed on a technicality.

 If you do not have it within you to even try to unite our country, then you are not ready or qualified to hold the office you so desire.

You're fired!

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