When Brian Kilmeade – BRIAN KILMEADE – is starting to make sense you know the end is near, one way or another. That’s right: dogs and cats, living together.
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Absurd and pathetic. Those are the only two options right? Either I’m for Trump (and a Russian shill), or I’m for continuing disastrous foreign wars.
How about neither, thanks.
That’s how propaganda works: by shunting us into tribal camps while the fucking oligarchs run the board.
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No projector! No projector! You’re the projector!
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Did anyone else notice that dog in the background behind Sanders, up near the White House? It appeared to be looking for Trump’s leg to piss on.
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Trump’s End by Robert Reich https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Reich
This morning I phoned my friend, the former Republican member of Congress.
ME: So, what are you hearing?
HE: Trump is in deep sh*t.
ME: Tell me more.
HE: When it looked like he was backing down on the wall, Rush and the crazies on Fox went ballistic. So he has to do the shutdown to keep the base happy. They’re his insurance policy. They stand between him and impeachment.
ME: Impeachment? No chance. Senate Republicans would never go along.
HE (laughing): Don’t be so sure. Corporate and Wall Street are up in arms. Trade war was bad enough. Now, you’ve got Mattis resigning in protest. Trump pulling out of Syria, giving Putin a huge win. This dumbass shutdown. The stock market in free-fall. The economy heading for recession.
ME: But the base loves him.
HE: Yeah, but the base doesn’t pay the bills.
ME: You mean …
HE: Follow the money, friend.
ME: The GOP’s backers have had enough?
HE: They wanted Pence all along.
ME: So …
HE: So they’ll wait until Mueller’s report, which will skewer Trump. Pelosi will wait, too. Then after the Mueller bombshell, she’ll get 20, 30, maybe even 40 Republicans to join in an impeachment resolution.
ME: And then?
HE: Senate Republicans hope that’ll be enough – that Trump will pull a Nixon.
ME: So you think he’ll resign?
HE (laughing): No chance. He’s fu*king out of his mind. He’ll rile up his base into a fever. Rallies around the country. Tweet storms. Hannity. Oh, it’s gonna be ugly. He’ll convince himself he’ll survive.
ME: And then?
HE: That’s when Senate Republicans pull the trigger.
ME: Really? Two-thirds of the Senate?
HE: Do the math. 47 Dems will be on board, so you need 19 Republicans. I can name almost that many who are already there. Won’t be hard to find the votes.
ME: But it will take months. And the country will be put through a ringer.
HE: I know. That’s the worst part.
ME: I mean, we could have civil war.
HE: Hell, no. That’s what he wants, but no chance. His approvals will be in the cellar. America will be glad to get rid of him.
ME: I hope you’re right.
HE: He’s a dangerous menace. He’ll be gone. And then he’ll be indicted, and Pence will pardon him. But the state investigations may put him in the clinker. Good riddance.
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Edit mine. It’s worth remembering that the good ole U.S.A. isn’t the only target of Putin’s fuckery.
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I have been thinking that for almost two years, and it hasn’t happened. Trump is not running out of anything he really needs. He can bumble on for the next two years, contest the next election and possibly win.
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Definitely possible; I’m just saying things are beginning to feel different to me now. We’ll see!
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Awesome way to edit your post rather than reply to me!
This is insane draconian logic, friend! Are you even hearing yourself? It’s called “tarring with the same brush.”
It’s fucking insane if we can’t express some skepticism about a deep Russian conspiracy without being equated with paid shills.
I believe Russia is wicked and spreads disinformation, but we don’t need to all become neocons as a result!
If you want a war to help the Kurds, why doesn’t congress declare one? I can’t name a single US war in the past 50 years that was conducted for the right reasons!
True, but we may be the only country whose leadership is publicly taking Putin’s denials of said fuckery at face value while simultaneously dismissing its own intelligence agencies’ findings on the matter.
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May we live to see the dawn.
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You can see the veil being lifted from the eyes of that fox news guy and he suddenly sees the truth, that or maybe he hasn’t been taking his compliance drugs. Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated, brian?
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Uhm, as if the past two years have NOT been…
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It’s not a “deep Russian conspiracy.” It’s right out in the open. At last summer’s G20 summit, Putin was asked directly, and answered directly:
Reporter: Did you want Donald Trump to be elected President of the United States?
Putin: Yes
Reporter: Did you have your government work to help him get elected?
Putin: Yes
What’s frustrating about (otherwise) intelligent and educated people “expressing skepticism” about whether Trumplestiltskin is a Russian intelligence asset is that it’s not secret. It’s right there in the open. His campaign team coordinated with Russian agents and government officials, and have admitted under oath to doing so. Members of his family, his staff, and his Cabinet have worked openly with Russian officials and agents against the interests of the US. Then lied about it. Then admitted it, after getting caught in the lies. He and his lawyers have lied about his financial ties with Russia, multiple times. And he’s pursued policies that directly favor Russian interests over those of the US and US allies.
There’s no need for dotted lines. All the lines are solid, bold, and blinking neon red.
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No, this is absurd.
Did Russia meddle in the election?
Yes. How big of an impact is practically impossible to determine.
Did Trump’s incompetent cabinet conspire with Russian officials to undermine Obama’s policies?
Yep. Poorly, cuz they got caught lying about it. There’s lots of reasons they wanted to avoid this getting out, but it was really stupid for them to keep lying.
Is our president a “puppet,” doing all of Putin’s bidding?
That’s where I get off the train. We don’t have anything to prove this beyond circumstantial evidence. I’ll wait for the Mueller investigation to say otherwise, until than, I think Russia and Trump are mostly ideologically aligned and they got lucky when they backed his horse.
Should Trump be impeached?
Yep Yep Yep. But not necessaily for the Russian stuff… There’s so much else without reaching for that cudgel.
And of course Putin is happy to take credit for supposedly electing Trump. It only makes Russia look incredibly powerful and roils up the media into a frenzy. It turns progressives into conspiracy-hawks who would otherwise have their head in the game, and NOT carrying water for the neocons.
The whole point was for Russia to sew chaos and undermine our faith in democracy, and to that end they succeeded. Because now we have this conspiracy mindset about everything. I could be totally wrong, but until I see proof otherwise, I don’t think there’s a Manchurian candidate in the White house. Just a big, lying piece of human garbage.
ETA: I should probably bow out after this… I’m not winning any friends today. In all earnestness, thanks for the discussion!
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What’s absurd is that 30 years ago even the slightest hint of all this fuckery wouldn’t have been allowed to just fly like ‘business as usual.’ Our government has always been duplicitous and corrupt, but in the past they were careful to maintain the facade.
Who’s “we?” There is no consensus here.
Some people believe Putin was behind everything, some people believe it was a ‘perfect storm’ of mitigating factors and opportunism, and some people are completely in denial of all the unprecedented crazy.
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Again, it doesn’t even have to be secret. It can be as simple as Putin saying publicly, “I want [something].” and Trump tripping over himself to do it.
Part of the reason our political and legal immune system is having such a hard time eliminating the infection is that it’s not secret, and it’s not complicated. Trumplestilkskin and his campaign were offered assistance ($, personnel, and intel) to win the campaign in exchange for immediate and subsequent favors. Done. You’re looking for covert action and complicated plots, like a Le Carre novel. There aren’t any. Trump and his cronies don’t even see anything wrong with it. It’s a business deal. I scratch your back, you scratch mine. Except in this case, it violates the Constitution and a dozen or so federal laws.
But you’re skipping over the most likely and simple explanation: he’s telling the truth. The reason is the same, except it doesn’t take any deviousness or planning.
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Indeed. The “we” I was referring to is basically cable news. Don’t mean to suggest that’s what everyone is saying. But many of the commentors in this thread and others seem to suggest a puppet scenario.
I wish that were true. It’s likely that Reagan conspired regarding the Iranian hostages. Bush pardoned the Iran Contra conspirators. And that Nixon made back-channel moves with the South Vietnamese government to scuttle the LBJ-backed peace process.
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