Mueller is now looking into ties between Russia and Trump's business transactions

boing
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No.

The best Mueller can do is to present a report to Congress, which will then dismiss it as a leftist conspiracy. Fox and Brietbart will ensure that the Trumpeters never hear any other view, not that they’d care anyway. Proof of Russian collusion will have no impact on the GOP base, because they recognise the Russian regime as fellow white Christian fascists.

Waiting for legal or democratic solutions to the TrumpGOP is not going to work, because America is no longer a rule of law or democratic country.

If you want to save yourselves, or spare the world from the slaughter that the US military is preparing to unleash, you need to take to the streets. Now.

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There’s a long history of this in Russia. He also has to triangulate the Orthodox Church and the wing of the old KGB that wants all the oligarchs sent to the gulags. He looks quite well on the pressures he’s undoubtedly under.

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From a Public Policy Polling poll mentioned in another thread:

72% of Trump voters consider the Russia story overall to be ‘fake news,’ only 14% disagree.

Only 24% of Trump voters even want an investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia, 64% are opposed to an investigation.

Even if there was an investigation, and it found that the Trump campaign did collude with Russia to aid his campaign, 77% of his supporters think he should still stay in office to just 16% who believe he should resign.

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Anecdotally, yes. He’s constantly shedding supporters, as people who were iffy on him in the first place, or only voted him because the alternative was Hillary, realize they’ve been had.

However, this is a continuous trickle of individual Republicans, and mostly of the older & saner sorts, who are genuinely bothered by his entanglement with Russia, or the all-encompassing incompetence he and his administration have been showing. To make a serious dent in his numbers, you need a mass movement of GOP voters away from Trump, and that’s not happening yet.

Anyway, apart from a small number of people who have abandoned reality for good, everyone has the breaking point, the moment where the cognitive dissonance becomes too much to bear, where the talking points and slogans start diverging too far from the lived experience of reality. For a lot of Trump voters, that point seems to be far enough that I’d call it delusional… but then again, they’re being actively lied to by the news media they consume, so a lot of them don’t actually have any idea of the real situation.

Optimistically, I think that once the GOP media bubble is finally breached by something serious enough, Trump’s support will fall like a rock. But that may take a long time to happen.

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He’s not all-powerful, but he doesn’t have to be. He’s an extraordinary survivor and hustler who’s lasted and thrived through three decades and three regimes, which means he knows when to use the carrot and when to use the stick. He now has the apparatus of the state behind him and knows how to dole out lessons pour encourager les autres in addition to handing out rewards and playing divide and conquer. Dropping a second-hand “suggestion” into Il Douche’s ear about which Russia-friendly advisor to hire is an easy way for one of his creditor bankers to remain in Putin’s good graces.

Lots of common touch points between the core supporters of both autocrats: a preference for violent solutions, ultra-nationalism, alliances with fundie churches, anti-Muslim bigotry, unrealistic power and wealth fantasies, anti-intellectualism, strongman worship. It’s just a matter of casting them in the local vernacular before showing how much “we all” have in common.

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At the moment, we’re at: is there a Trump-connected business near you? Why aren’t the roads to it blocked by protesters 24/7?

Give it another six months, and it’ll be: is there a US government installation near you? Why isn’t it on fire?

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Unless he starts a land war in Asia (which he might if Mueller is allowed to continue probing how deep in hock he is to Russia) and also re-institutes conscription (esp. without a college exemption) to maintain the war, it’s doubtful you’ll see those kinds of mass protests.

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http://edition.cnn.com/2017/05/21/politics/trump-saudi-speech-transcript/index.html

But no discussion of stamping out this threat would be complete without mentioning the government that gives terrorists all three—safe harbor, financial backing, and the social standing needed for recruitment. It is a regime that is responsible for so much instability in the region. I am speaking of course of Iran.

From Lebanon to Iraq to Yemen, Iran funds, arms, and trains terrorists, militias, and other extremist groups that spread destruction and chaos across the region. For decades, Iran has fueled the fires of sectarian conflict and terror.

It is a government that speaks openly of mass murder, vowing the destruction of Israel, death to America, and ruin for many leaders and nations in this room.

Among Iran’s most tragic and destabilizing interventions have been in Syria. Bolstered by Iran, Assad has committed unspeakable crimes, and the United States has taken firm action in response to the use of banned chemical weapons by the Assad Regime – launching 59 tomahawk missiles at the Syrian air base from where that murderous attack originated.

Responsible nations must work together to end the humanitarian crisis in Syria, eradicate ISIS, and restore stability to the region. The Iranian regime’s longest-suffering victims are its own people. Iran has a rich history and culture, but the people of Iran have endured hardship and despair under their leaders’ reckless pursuit of conflict and terror.

Until the Iranian regime is willing to be a partner for peace, all nations of conscience must work together to isolate Iran, deny it funding for terrorism, and pray for the day when the Iranian people have the just and righteous government they deserve.

…from a speech delivered to the key backers of Daesh, giving them a green light to attack Iran, and implying no hostile US intervention if they do so.

Key sentence: What he has done is cede warmaking authority to Secretary of Defense James Mattis, who now reportedly has plenary power to set objectives, allocate resources, and move troops

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/12/james-mattis-iran-secretary-of-defense-214500

Key sentence: “It’s in his blood,” one senior Marine officer told me. “It’s almost like he wants to get even with them.”

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I think North Korea is more likely, as Iran is still useful to Russia. But Iran is definitely at the top of the list for Il Douche’s neocon appointees.

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Moving on NK is likely to bring China into play. Trump/Putin probably won’t do that until they’ve secured the Middle East.

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He’ll just sell out his supporters with some trade and currency concessions while pretending he’s doing the opposite. N Korea is a headache for China and they’ll be glad to see the end of it. If their electronics industry benefits in the short-term due to South Korea being distracted they’ll be cool with it, too.

All speculation, of course. But if he’s going to start a war to distract from the results of Mueller’s investigation, those two countries are at the top of the list.

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The survival of NK is not a trivial issue to China; it’s the only thing keeping the huge American army in SK away from their border.

They remember MacArthur.

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Man, I don’t know how this article has flown so low under the radar in the last week. I’ve not seen anything about it until it was linked here.

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Trump is not going to sit on his hands to see how this plays out. He’s already laid the groundwork for firing Sessions in the NYT interview. He will replace him with somebody who is in his pocket, and the firing of Mueller will come soon after.

If the GOP does not impeach him at that point my suggestion is pitchforks.

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And don’t forget, he’s shedding supporters another way, since many old, poorly educated men are dying off.

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Uh, MacArthur screwed up in NK so badly that he was fired. Sure, he was something of a genius, but North Korea was his bane.

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He was fired because he was planning to nuke China. The PLA was kicking his arse on the ground.

MacArthur was a bloodthirsty idiot.

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Remember that time Kenneth Starr was tasked with investigating some real estate deals the Clintons had been involved with back in the 1970s & 1980s and ended up writing a report about a cigar and a semen-streaked dress?

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