Marshall has been making much the same point: there's something absolutely devastating that Trump feels he needs to keep secret.
I don't know. I think Trump is stupid enough and narcissistic enough to simply resent the very attack on himself. All throughout Comey's memos of what he says and from his own press statements on the matter he seems to care most about the idea that someone say he himself is not under investigation. Like, it almost seems like he cares more that they say it then that it's true.
I think the pure narcissistic explanation makes much more sense to explain his firing Comey and fits the facts there better than him pondering firing Mueller. As we know by now, Trump is glued to cable news, and the week before Comey was fired Comey was in that public hearing where he made comments that the narcissist Trump could easily have taken as personal insult. Stuff like Comey nauseous thinking that his actions may have altered the path of the election.
Mueller hasn't said shit. No public comments, and it is not clear if any of the recent leaks about the targets of the investigation are even coming from his camp. Most of what we've heard is about him hiring extremely highly respected investigators and lawyers. I'd be surprised if Mueller has talked with Trump or maybe even his top lieutenants recently. For all the noise that Comey has been making, Mueller has been deathly quiet.
So if there is something that is tilting Trump on a pure narcissistic level about Mueller, it doesn't seem to me like it is something that has happened in public. Rosenstein made the more obvious public affront to Trump by blindsiding him with the appointment of the special prosecutor, rather than anything Mueller has said or done himself that we've seen. But the rumor mill has been about giving Mueller in particular the axe and bitching about Sessions, rather than going straight towards Rosenstein.
Despite Trump's stupidity and irrationally bound up with his narcissism, this talk about firing Mueller makes me think there is something Trump genuinely wants to hide and is afraid of coming out, whatever that is.
Marshall has been making much the same point: there's something absolutely devastating that Trump feels he needs to keep secret.
I don't know. I think Trump is stupid enough and narcissistic enough to simply resent the very attack on himself. All throughout Comey's memos of what he says and from his own press statements on the matter he seems to care most about the idea that someone say he himself is not under investigation. Like, it almost seems like he cares more that they say it then that it's true.
I think the pure narcissistic explanation makes much more sense to explain his firing Comey and fits the facts there better than him pondering firing Mueller. As we know by now, Trump is glued to cable news, and the week before Comey was fired Comey was in that public hearing where he made comments that the narcissist Trump could easily have taken as personal insult. Stuff like Comey nauseous thinking that his actions may have altered the path of the election.
Mueller hasn't said shit. No public comments, and it is not clear if any of the recent leaks about the targets of the investigation are even coming from his camp. Most of what we've heard is about him hiring extremely highly respected investigators and lawyers. I'd be surprised if Mueller has talked with Trump or maybe even his top lieutenants recently. For all the noise that Comey has been making, Mueller has been deathly quiet.
So if there is something that is tilting Trump on a pure narcissistic level about Mueller, it doesn't seem to me like it is something that has happened in public. Rosenstein made the more obvious public affront to Trump by blindsiding him with the appointment of the special prosecutor, rather than anything Mueller has said or done himself that we've seen. But the rumor mill has been about giving Mueller in particular the axe and bitching about Sessions, rather than going straight towards Rosenstein.
Despite Trump's stupidity and irrationally bound up with his narcissism, this talk about firing Mueller makes me think there is something Trump genuinely wants to hide and is afraid of coming out, whatever that is.
Yeah, I could see this. I think the thing with Mueller is that he's started to really zone in on Flynn and Kushner lately it seems and that I think is pushing Trump over the edge.
Marshall has been making much the same point: there's something absolutely devastating that Trump feels he needs to keep secret.
I don't know. I think Trump is stupid enough and narcissistic enough to simply resent the very attack on himself. All throughout Comey's memos of what he says and from his own press statements on the matter he seems to care most about the idea that someone say he himself is not under investigation. Like, it almost seems like he cares more that they say it then that it's true.
I think the pure narcissistic explanation makes much more sense to explain his firing Comey and fits the facts there better than him pondering firing Mueller. As we know by now, Trump is glued to cable news, and the week before Comey was fired Comey was in that public hearing where he made comments that the narcissist Trump could easily have taken as personal insult. Stuff like Comey nauseous thinking that his actions may have altered the path of the election.
Mueller hasn't said shit. No public comments, and it is not clear if any of the recent leaks about the targets of the investigation are even coming from his camp. Most of what we've heard is about him hiring extremely highly respected investigators and lawyers. I'd be surprised if Mueller has talked with Trump or maybe even his top lieutenants recently. For all the noise that Comey has been making, Mueller has been deathly quiet.
So if there is something that is tilting Trump on a pure narcissistic level about Mueller, it doesn't seem to me like it is something that has happened in public. Rosenstein made the more obvious public affront to Trump by blindsiding him with the appointment of the special prosecutor, rather than anything Mueller has said or done himself that we've seen. But the rumor mill has been about giving Mueller in particular the axe and bitching about Sessions, rather than going straight towards Rosenstein.
Despite Trump's stupidity and irrationally bound up with his narcissism, this talk about firing Mueller makes me think there is something Trump genuinely wants to hide and is afraid of coming out, whatever that is.
Yeah, I could see this. I think the thing with Mueller is that he's started to really zone in on Flynn and Kushner lately it seems and that I think is pushing Trump over the edge.
The lengths that Trump has gone to defend Flynn really doesn't make sense, unless Flynn has serious dirt on Trump. Trump hasn't known Flynn that long, and Trump has a long history of being a total shithead and dropping other people he has known over the years, including some of his family. Like was indicated earlier, Comey's testimony about Trump's reaction towards the Russia investigation made it come across that Trump doesn't care if some of his underlings went down for Russian connections, he cared more than anything else about being publicly absolved of being the target of the investigation.
The way he has cozied up to Flynn, who is knee deep in the investigation, doesn't square with that last detail of pure Trumpian self servedness, unless of course Trump thinks Flynn could bring him down too. Kushner has the excuse of being family (that Trump likes) for Trump to be extra defensive, but that doesn't work for Flynn.
In the "is he crazy or guilty?" dichotomy, the additional details recently seem to there is imply an underlying guilty mind, despite the crazy idiocy of how Trump has reacted to the investigation.
The Trump is stupid explanation doesn't explain things as well as the Trump is guilty explanation. It's just that we already know he's stupid so it's easy to fall back on that. Especially because people want to believe that things are going to end up being OK and the country didn't elect an obviously corrupt madman who may have literally been working with the Russians to delegitimize our electoral process.
Instead people want to believe we just elected an obviously unqualified buffoon with a casual relationship to the truth. We have ways to understand that frame already since one has been president for 16 of the last 36 years.
enlightenedbum on
The idea that your vote is a moral statement about you or who you vote for is some backwards ass libertarian nonsense. Your vote is about society. Vote to protect the vulnerable.
Trump has just never had to deal with consequences before. He has always been able to just ignore or outrun them, but now he's stuck where there's nowhere to go.
Most people get used to being told 'no' while they're still a toddler, but this is what it looks like when it happens at 70.
That does even less to encourage me.
I don't even want to know what the analog for our system of government should be. My worst nightmares include stuff like Nazis.
My pet theory is that Trump just didn't liked being forced to fire Flynn. Is not about loyalty, or even about Flynn, is about Trump not wanting to be told that no, can't have Flynn around since he's compromised.
+4
VariableMouth CongressStroke Me Lady FameRegistered Userregular
people keep saying 'trump thinks the president is above the law'
I think that's wrong, I think he just thinks Trump is untouchable.
this isn't that big a deal except you can show him historically where presidents faced consequences... but none of them were trump.
personally I don't think he's firing mueller and if he did I think there'd be serious fallout for him. but I personally already think he's gonna face some serious fallout (losing a lot of his senior staff at the least) and I know most people don't agree.
I'm sure many people said 'they're never gonna touch nixon' for months or years before he finally got got.
No, Trump absolutely does not understand that the President is not all powerful. He keeps getting pissed off by the fact that he's not a CEO with a staff of loyal cronies. His every complaint, including those against his own subordinates, is rooted in this view. The Russia investigation is the perfect example of this. He's pissed that they can't just make it go away. He's pissed there are limits to his power.
I'm just not sure how you view that as different from how he's behaved his entire life
It's not. That's the point. He doesn't understand that the President is not all powerful in America the way a CEO is all powerful within his company. It's not that he thinks he personally is above the law, it's that he doesn't understand the idea of working for an institution where the people aren't loyal to you personally but rather to the state. That there are rules even within his own administration that are not simply an extension of what he wants them to be.
So you think he believed Obama was totally free to do whatever he wanted?
Idk I realize like I said earlier this doesn't mean much we are splitting hairs but yeah I agree he doesn't get the rules of the presidency, I just also think he believes he's above the law. When you're a star they let you do it and all that... He didn't need the presidency to think he was untouchable and yes, being president he hasn't realized that the office is meant to be touchable.
people keep saying 'trump thinks the president is above the law'
I think that's wrong, I think he just thinks Trump is untouchable.
this isn't that big a deal except you can show him historically where presidents faced consequences... but none of them were trump.
personally I don't think he's firing mueller and if he did I think there'd be serious fallout for him. but I personally already think he's gonna face some serious fallout (losing a lot of his senior staff at the least) and I know most people don't agree.
I'm sure many people said 'they're never gonna touch nixon' for months or years before he finally got got.
No, Trump absolutely does not understand that the President is not all powerful. He keeps getting pissed off by the fact that he's not a CEO with a staff of loyal cronies. His every complaint, including those against his own subordinates, is rooted in this view. The Russia investigation is the perfect example of this. He's pissed that they can't just make it go away. He's pissed there are limits to his power.
I'm just not sure how you view that as different from how he's behaved his entire life
It's not. That's the point. He doesn't understand that the President is not all powerful in America the way a CEO is all powerful within his company. It's not that he thinks he personally is above the law, it's that he doesn't understand the idea of working for an institution where the people aren't loyal to you personally but rather to the state. That there are rules even within his own administration that are not simply an extension of what he wants them to be.
So you think he believed Obama was totally free to do whatever he wanted?
Idk I realize like I said earlier this doesn't mean much we are splitting hairs but yeah I agree he doesn't get the rules of the presidency, I just also think he believes he's above the law. When you're a star they let you do it and all that... He didn't need the presidency to think he was untouchable and yes, being president he hasn't realized that the office is meant to be touchable.
I can buy it, he's too stupid to notice how Dem presidents aren't the god-kings in office Republicans are.
+17
VariableMouth CongressStroke Me Lady FameRegistered Userregular
Trump could murder Mueller, personally, physically, on camera, and it would not change the political equation. Nothing will happen until we have a Democratic Congress.
This remains nothing more than doomsaying. We don't know where the line is at all.
Further we have a quote last page saying the senate will put Mueller right back on the case if he was fired and I'm inclined to think that's true so we probably don't need to panic the hardest ever about this. Especially since it hasn't even been set in motion yet and from what I've read it would take a month
Trump could murder Mueller, personally, physically, on camera, and it would not change the political equation. Nothing will happen until we have a Democratic Congress.
This remains nothing more than doomsaying. We don't know where the line is at all.
Further we have a quote last page saying the senate will put Mueller right back on the case if he was fired and I'm inclined to think that's true so we probably don't need to panic the hardest ever about this. Especially since it hasn't even been set in motion yet and from what I've read it would take a month
That quote was from a Dem though.
+6
VariableMouth CongressStroke Me Lady FameRegistered Userregular
I don't think anyone will consider it a good political look to let Mueller be fired and do nothing, but of course that's speculation. As is anything else that involves Mueller being fired.
I appreciate your optimism but thoughts/arguments similar to "this could never happen" or even that certain things are unlikely to happen is how we got Trump in the first place. There have been dozens, if not more than 100, "ha, that'll never member happen" moments in the past 8 months and pretty much all of them have happened so far.
There is a line, I'm sure, but as you said we don't know where it is. I'm taking nothing for granted at this point.
Drez on
Switch: SW-7690-2320-9238Steam/PSN/Xbox: Drezdar
+15
VariableMouth CongressStroke Me Lady FameRegistered Userregular
I appreciate your optimism but thoughts/arguments similar to "this could never happen" or even that certain things are unlikely to happen is how we got Trump in the first place. There have been dozens, if not more than 100, "ha, that'll never member happen" moments in the past 8 months and pretty much all of them have happened so far.
There is a line, I'm sure, but as you said we don't know where it is. I'm taking nothing for granted at this point.
I'm not taking anything for granted either, I'd argue what's being assumed over and over is that literally no matter what Republicans will never touch Trump. Muellers existence alone is something many people would have said would never ever happen. Sessions recusal as well. Trump has been touched but since it's not as fast or as brutal as we want so some people view him as invincible and I just not only don't agree but don't see the point in repeating that opinion over and over every single time a new fact drops.
I don't think anyone will consider it a good political look to let Mueller be fired and do nothing, but of course that's speculation. As is anything else that involves Mueller being fired.
I agree. But it's just that who amongst the GOP would think its a better political look to do anything about it?
As long as the question is just political we lose. The only real chance is folks stopping putting politics above our democracy and I don't see that happening here.
Trump is worse than a typical GOP president for a number of reasons.
But from the day he marched out girls in red white and blue dresses singing about how great he was my biggest fear was we were seeing how a democracy falls. Since his election our institutions have held against him ok, enough that those fears were stymied a bit. But if he fires mueller I think we're back in the worst case scenario territory again
I appreciate your optimism but thoughts/arguments similar to "this could never happen" or even that certain things are unlikely to happen is how we got Trump in the first place. There have been dozens, if not more than 100, "ha, that'll never member happen" moments in the past 8 months and pretty much all of them have happened so far.
There is a line, I'm sure, but as you said we don't know where it is. I'm taking nothing for granted at this point.
I'm not taking anything for granted either, I'd argue what's being assumed over and over is that literally no matter what Republicans will never touch Trump. Muellers existence alone is something many people would have said would never ever happen. Sessions recusal as well. Trump has been touched but since it's not as fast or as brutal as we want so some people view him as invincible and I just not only don't agree but don't see the point in repeating that opinion over and over every single time a new fact drops.
My point isn't that he's invincible, but that there is no topic with regard to Trump where we can just sit back and think, "nah, [they] will never let that happen."
I do see value in constantly reminding people that, no, absolutely anything can happen, not to depress people, but because while admittedly our power to effect change as individual (or even collective) citizens is minimal at best, every bit counts. Don't ever assume Trump has crossed a line that your representatives won't support, continue to call them and complain. Continue to blast what's going on via social media, communicate your displeasure as a citizen.
I think, in aggregate, that does matter and does have some impact. So I think these constant reminders are good. It can always get worse. Not to depress people but to keep people motivated against what's going on.
For all this talk of no-one on the r side carrying about trumps actions, his popularity on the right has been slowly falling, and many off his worst actions have negative approval ratings. And remember, Trump and the GOP need those ratings to go up, not down or flat, to maintain control against changing demographics and generational shifts.
For all this talk of no-one on the r side carrying about trumps actions, his popularity on the right has been slowly falling, and many off his worst actions have negative approval ratings. And remember, Trump and the GOP need those ratings to go up, not down or flat, to maintain control against changing demographics and generational shifts.
Didn't we get Mueller in the first place because a Trump toady was sick of his shit?
+4
GonmunHe keeps kickin' me inthe dickRegistered Userregular
For all this talk of no-one on the r side carrying about trumps actions, his popularity on the right has been slowly falling, and many off his worst actions have negative approval ratings. And remember, Trump and the GOP need those ratings to go up, not down or flat, to maintain control against changing demographics and generational shifts.
Latest Gallup poll had him at 36% approval and 59% disapproval which is right around where the Ipsos/Reuters one had him about a week earlier. A few more bits of drama and I would not be surprised to see him circling 30% or potentially lower.
The Trump is stupid explanation doesn't explain things as well as the Trump is guilty explanation. It's just that we already know he's stupid so it's easy to fall back on that. Especially because people want to believe that things are going to end up being OK and the country didn't elect an obviously corrupt madman who may have literally been working with the Russians to delegitimize our electoral process.
Instead people want to believe we just elected an obviously unqualified buffoon with a casual relationship to the truth. We have ways to understand that frame already since one has been president for 16 of the last 36 years.
Speculating 'what people want to believe' is pretty baseless.
Personally, I kind of want to believe the former, while terrifying, it ties things up in a neat way. Like how conspiracy theories are satisfying because they mean all the bad shit that happens was caused by a single malicious actor.
The 'he's just dumb' explanation is unsettling to me, because its messier and means he is (of some things) innocent. Also dumbness is more frustrating in some ways than malice. Like how it's more comforting to think that someone on the Internet is deliberately 'trolling' than that they are really that stupid and obstinate and believe what they say.
Throwing up our hands and saying "well the Republicans will never do anything about him so we might as well not even bother, eat at Arby's" isn't going to help us any. Even if it was all true, so what? We just roll over and say "welp we had a good run, time to die now"?
Trump's support among has base has been slowly falling. Not enough to swing things yet, but every one of these bad news cycles chips away at it a bit more. There is a line out there, somewhere. We haven't found it yet, but firing Mueller would put us that much closer to it.
Russian Cyber Hacks on U.S. Electoral System Far Wider Than Previously Known
Russia’s cyberattack on the U.S. electoral system before Donald Trump’s election was far more widespread than has been publicly revealed, including incursions into voter databases and software systems in almost twice as many states as previously reported.
In Illinois, investigators found evidence that cyber intruders tried to delete or alter voter data. The hackers accessed software designed to be used by poll workers on Election Day, and in at least one state accessed a campaign finance database. Details of the wave of attacks, in the summer and fall of 2016, were provided by three people with direct knowledge of the U.S. investigation into the matter. In all, the Russian hackers hit systems in a total of 39 states, one of them said.
[...]
One of the mysteries about the 2016 presidential election is why Russian intelligence, after gaining access to state and local systems, didn’t try to disrupt the vote. One possibility is that the American warning was effective. Another former senior U.S. official, who asked for anonymity to discuss the classified U.S. probe into pre-election hacking, said a more likely explanation is that several months of hacking failed to give the attackers the access they needed to master America’s disparate voting systems spread across more than 7,000 local jurisdictions.
Such operations need not change votes to be effective. In fact, the Obama administration believed that the Russians were possibly preparing to delete voter registration information or slow vote tallying in order to undermine confidence in the election. That effort went far beyond the carefully timed release of private communications by individuals and parties.
One former senior U.S. official expressed concern that the Russians now have three years to build on their knowledge of U.S. voting systems before the next presidential election, and there is every reason to believe they will use what they have learned in future attacks.
[...]
America's completely garbage voting systems saves the day?
Russian Cyber Hacks on U.S. Electoral System Far Wider Than Previously Known
Russia’s cyberattack on the U.S. electoral system before Donald Trump’s election was far more widespread than has been publicly revealed, including incursions into voter databases and software systems in almost twice as many states as previously reported.
In Illinois, investigators found evidence that cyber intruders tried to delete or alter voter data. The hackers accessed software designed to be used by poll workers on Election Day, and in at least one state accessed a campaign finance database. Details of the wave of attacks, in the summer and fall of 2016, were provided by three people with direct knowledge of the U.S. investigation into the matter. In all, the Russian hackers hit systems in a total of 39 states, one of them said.
[...]
One of the mysteries about the 2016 presidential election is why Russian intelligence, after gaining access to state and local systems, didn’t try to disrupt the vote. One possibility is that the American warning was effective. Another former senior U.S. official, who asked for anonymity to discuss the classified U.S. probe into pre-election hacking, said a more likely explanation is that several months of hacking failed to give the attackers the access they needed to master America’s disparate voting systems spread across more than 7,000 local jurisdictions.
Such operations need not change votes to be effective. In fact, the Obama administration believed that the Russians were possibly preparing to delete voter registration information or slow vote tallying in order to undermine confidence in the election. That effort went far beyond the carefully timed release of private communications by individuals and parties.
One former senior U.S. official expressed concern that the Russians now have three years to build on their knowledge of U.S. voting systems before the next presidential election, and there is every reason to believe they will use what they have learned in future attacks.
[...]
America's completely garbage voting systems saves the day?
This is exactly the kind of reinforcement we don't need.
It's like how the entire pretext for BSG is based on a shitty Aesop.
Throwing up our hands and saying "well the Republicans will never do anything about him so we might as well not even bother, eat at Arby's" isn't going to help us any. Even if it was all true, so what? We just roll over and say "welp we had a good run, time to die now"?
Trump's support among has base has been slowly falling. Not enough to swing things yet, but every one of these bad news cycles chips away at it a bit more. There is a line out there, somewhere. We haven't found it yet, but firing Mueller would put us that much closer to it.
That's not a line though. That's simply unpopularity. That's the point.
If the only reason the GOP turns on Trump is that he's unpopular, there is no line.
For all this talk of no-one on the r side carrying about trumps actions, his popularity on the right has been slowly falling, and many off his worst actions have negative approval ratings. And remember, Trump and the GOP need those ratings to go up, not down or flat, to maintain control against changing demographics and generational shifts.
1. Trump's popularity and approval with the base are irrelevant, the base's uncompromising will to vote for him is all that matters. The winner is the person with the most votes, not the person with the happiest voters. For all this talk about the base being dissatisfied with Trump's performance, I have yet to see a single statistic or indication or even anecdotal tale of even a single Trump supporter changing their vote. It doesn't matter at all that voters change from "yay I'm so happy to vote Trump because I totally believe in him" to "I dislike Trump and disapprove of his performance but I'm going to vote for him anyway because immigrants/terrorism/emails/tax cuts/Obamacare", the net result is that Trump wins.
2. The GOP doesn't need their votes to go up, they simply need their votes to not go down below the Democrats' votes. Demographics, like approval ratings, do not win elections; only votes do. The GOP has a 100% brainwashed and captive voter base, so they have a hard floor on their vote numbers. For years now their main strategy has not been increasing their votes but decreasing the Democratic vote, with gerrymandering, restricted voting hours and locations, stricter voter ID laws, outright disinformation, voter fraud, and every other dishonest legal trick they can think of (like organizing a fake all-day marathon through the major avenues of minority neighbourhoods on election day to make traffic hell and make it harder for people to go vote). There's a reason Trump won only a single demographic and won the election anyway. While Democrats have been hard at work increasing their rating with every demographic, the GOP has been hard at work insuring that the only demographic that's allowed to vote is their captive voter base.
You should pay attention to special election results if you think nothing has changed on the ground. The GOP is losing vote share from everything we've seen so far.
You should pay attention to special election results if you think nothing has changed on the ground. The GOP is losing vote share from everything we've seen so far.
I will be more optimistic when that translates to a win
You should pay attention to special election results if you think nothing has changed on the ground. The GOP is losing vote share from everything we've seen so far.
I will be more optimistic when that translates to a win
Irrelevant to the point. There's been a huge swing. The fact that we've only had special elections in place that leaned massively Republican doesn't change that.
You should pay attention to special election results if you think nothing has changed on the ground. The GOP is losing vote share from everything we've seen so far.
I will be more optimistic when that translates to a win
Being upset about not winning R+20 seats so far is silly. GA-6 was the closest of the special election seats and it is R+8ish.
All data so far points to a D+9 environment at the moment, which is why GA-6 is a toss-up.
Also makes it easier to attract decent candidates for competitive races in 2018. For example there's a half-decent case that the guy that ran against Tom Price in GA-6 in November didn't actually exist, but Ossoff pulled in like $30M.
You should pay attention to special election results if you think nothing has changed on the ground. The GOP is losing vote share from everything we've seen so far.
I will be more optimistic when that translates to a win
Irrelevant to the point. There's been a huge swing. The fact that we've only had special elections in place that leaned massively Republican doesn't change that.
The point is that being popular doesn't translate to winning elections. The fact you (and a5ehren after you) can positively demonstrate that Ds are soaring in popularity and yet they still lose elections is not irrelevant to the point, it's the entire point.
Yeah, I'm a bit frustrated hearing the 'fine but we need a win' rhetoric coming from a few sources (Crooked Media, I'm looking at you) now and then. I'm not an elite political operator though, so someone stop me if I'm off base.
Are the people who were chosen for roles that required a special election not done at least in part due to being in 'safe seats', where getting them replaced with an ideologically similar person should be a cake walk? Except instead of cruising to an easy win, millions of dollars are being spent to make things happen. Seats are being contested that shouldn't have been remotely in contention. If GOP donors have to spend millions just to help procure ostensibly safe seats, what does that say about broader elections in 2018 and 2020?
Because hard fought victories now (when they really shouldn't be) would make me think long and hard about how resource intensive the fight becomes when it's orders of magnitude larger across dozens of states.
Would I love some wins now? Fuck yeah! If spending a lot to narrowly win a safe seat is bad, spending a lot to lose a safe seat would be even better.
But as I've been saying for months now, this is a marathon, not a sprint, and while the citizens need to fight hard, they also need to recognize that right now isn't where the big wins are, this is the delaying action where the GOP has to fight for every inch of ground they have to hold, and it takes time for all the swirling bullshit of this administration to really sink in.
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
Russian Cyber Hacks on U.S. Electoral System Far Wider Than Previously Known
Russia’s cyberattack on the U.S. electoral system before Donald Trump’s election was far more widespread than has been publicly revealed, including incursions into voter databases and software systems in almost twice as many states as previously reported.
In Illinois, investigators found evidence that cyber intruders tried to delete or alter voter data. The hackers accessed software designed to be used by poll workers on Election Day, and in at least one state accessed a campaign finance database. Details of the wave of attacks, in the summer and fall of 2016, were provided by three people with direct knowledge of the U.S. investigation into the matter. In all, the Russian hackers hit systems in a total of 39 states, one of them said.
[...]
One of the mysteries about the 2016 presidential election is why Russian intelligence, after gaining access to state and local systems, didn’t try to disrupt the vote. One possibility is that the American warning was effective. Another former senior U.S. official, who asked for anonymity to discuss the classified U.S. probe into pre-election hacking, said a more likely explanation is that several months of hacking failed to give the attackers the access they needed to master America’s disparate voting systems spread across more than 7,000 local jurisdictions.
Such operations need not change votes to be effective. In fact, the Obama administration believed that the Russians were possibly preparing to delete voter registration information or slow vote tallying in order to undermine confidence in the election. That effort went far beyond the carefully timed release of private communications by individuals and parties.
One former senior U.S. official expressed concern that the Russians now have three years to build on their knowledge of U.S. voting systems before the next presidential election, and there is every reason to believe they will use what they have learned in future attacks.
[...]
America's completely garbage voting systems saves the day?
Russians of all people saying our system is to broken to work with is, ah, well that's a hell of a thing. Imagine what the GOP would be doing if Hillary won with Russians hacking our system.
You should pay attention to special election results if you think nothing has changed on the ground. The GOP is losing vote share from everything we've seen so far.
I will be more optimistic when that translates to a win
Irrelevant to the point. There's been a huge swing. The fact that we've only had special elections in place that leaned massively Republican doesn't change that.
The point is that being popular doesn't translate to winning elections. The fact you (and a5ehren after you) can positively demonstrate that Ds are soaring in popularity and yet they still lose elections is not irrelevant to the point, it's the entire point.
Uh, no, that's not the point. The point is it doesn't translate to winning every election ever, but no one has ever claimed that as a goal, so this is just silly doomsaying on your part. "Oh no, we can't win a +20R district" is not terribly compelling as a reason to be pessimistic.
Trump and GOP support is trending down hard, which is at this point the only thing that's gonna lead to real consequences with this Russia thing for Trump.
You should pay attention to special election results if you think nothing has changed on the ground. The GOP is losing vote share from everything we've seen so far.
I will be more optimistic when that translates to a win
Irrelevant to the point. There's been a huge swing. The fact that we've only had special elections in place that leaned massively Republican doesn't change that.
The point is that being popular doesn't translate to winning elections. The fact you (and a5ehren after you) can positively demonstrate that Ds are soaring in popularity and yet they still lose elections is not irrelevant to the point, it's the entire point.
Uh, no, that's not the point. The point is it doesn't translate to winning every election ever, but no one has ever claimed that as a goal, so this is just silly doomsaying on your part. "Oh no, we can't win a +20R district" is not terribly compelling as a reason to be pessimistic.
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I think the pure narcissistic explanation makes much more sense to explain his firing Comey and fits the facts there better than him pondering firing Mueller. As we know by now, Trump is glued to cable news, and the week before Comey was fired Comey was in that public hearing where he made comments that the narcissist Trump could easily have taken as personal insult. Stuff like Comey nauseous thinking that his actions may have altered the path of the election.
Mueller hasn't said shit. No public comments, and it is not clear if any of the recent leaks about the targets of the investigation are even coming from his camp. Most of what we've heard is about him hiring extremely highly respected investigators and lawyers. I'd be surprised if Mueller has talked with Trump or maybe even his top lieutenants recently. For all the noise that Comey has been making, Mueller has been deathly quiet.
So if there is something that is tilting Trump on a pure narcissistic level about Mueller, it doesn't seem to me like it is something that has happened in public. Rosenstein made the more obvious public affront to Trump by blindsiding him with the appointment of the special prosecutor, rather than anything Mueller has said or done himself that we've seen. But the rumor mill has been about giving Mueller in particular the axe and bitching about Sessions, rather than going straight towards Rosenstein.
Despite Trump's stupidity and irrationally bound up with his narcissism, this talk about firing Mueller makes me think there is something Trump genuinely wants to hide and is afraid of coming out, whatever that is.
Yeah, I could see this. I think the thing with Mueller is that he's started to really zone in on Flynn and Kushner lately it seems and that I think is pushing Trump over the edge.
The lengths that Trump has gone to defend Flynn really doesn't make sense, unless Flynn has serious dirt on Trump. Trump hasn't known Flynn that long, and Trump has a long history of being a total shithead and dropping other people he has known over the years, including some of his family. Like was indicated earlier, Comey's testimony about Trump's reaction towards the Russia investigation made it come across that Trump doesn't care if some of his underlings went down for Russian connections, he cared more than anything else about being publicly absolved of being the target of the investigation.
The way he has cozied up to Flynn, who is knee deep in the investigation, doesn't square with that last detail of pure Trumpian self servedness, unless of course Trump thinks Flynn could bring him down too. Kushner has the excuse of being family (that Trump likes) for Trump to be extra defensive, but that doesn't work for Flynn.
In the "is he crazy or guilty?" dichotomy, the additional details recently seem to there is imply an underlying guilty mind, despite the crazy idiocy of how Trump has reacted to the investigation.
Instead people want to believe we just elected an obviously unqualified buffoon with a casual relationship to the truth. We have ways to understand that frame already since one has been president for 16 of the last 36 years.
Most people get used to being told 'no' while they're still a toddler, but this is what it looks like when it happens at 70.
Well yeah, they're some of Trump's biggest fans.
So you think he believed Obama was totally free to do whatever he wanted?
Idk I realize like I said earlier this doesn't mean much we are splitting hairs but yeah I agree he doesn't get the rules of the presidency, I just also think he believes he's above the law. When you're a star they let you do it and all that... He didn't need the presidency to think he was untouchable and yes, being president he hasn't realized that the office is meant to be touchable.
I can buy it, he's too stupid to notice how Dem presidents aren't the god-kings in office Republicans are.
This remains nothing more than doomsaying. We don't know where the line is at all.
Further we have a quote last page saying the senate will put Mueller right back on the case if he was fired and I'm inclined to think that's true so we probably don't need to panic the hardest ever about this. Especially since it hasn't even been set in motion yet and from what I've read it would take a month
That quote was from a Dem though.
There is a line, I'm sure, but as you said we don't know where it is. I'm taking nothing for granted at this point.
I'm not taking anything for granted either, I'd argue what's being assumed over and over is that literally no matter what Republicans will never touch Trump. Muellers existence alone is something many people would have said would never ever happen. Sessions recusal as well. Trump has been touched but since it's not as fast or as brutal as we want so some people view him as invincible and I just not only don't agree but don't see the point in repeating that opinion over and over every single time a new fact drops.
I agree. But it's just that who amongst the GOP would think its a better political look to do anything about it?
As long as the question is just political we lose. The only real chance is folks stopping putting politics above our democracy and I don't see that happening here.
Trump is worse than a typical GOP president for a number of reasons.
But from the day he marched out girls in red white and blue dresses singing about how great he was my biggest fear was we were seeing how a democracy falls. Since his election our institutions have held against him ok, enough that those fears were stymied a bit. But if he fires mueller I think we're back in the worst case scenario territory again
My point isn't that he's invincible, but that there is no topic with regard to Trump where we can just sit back and think, "nah, [they] will never let that happen."
I do see value in constantly reminding people that, no, absolutely anything can happen, not to depress people, but because while admittedly our power to effect change as individual (or even collective) citizens is minimal at best, every bit counts. Don't ever assume Trump has crossed a line that your representatives won't support, continue to call them and complain. Continue to blast what's going on via social media, communicate your displeasure as a citizen.
I think, in aggregate, that does matter and does have some impact. So I think these constant reminders are good. It can always get worse. Not to depress people but to keep people motivated against what's going on.
To be fair, we've been going on this road for a while.
This line would have a 0.99 correlation with whether you have an R or a D next to your name.
Didn't we get Mueller in the first place because a Trump toady was sick of his shit?
Latest Gallup poll had him at 36% approval and 59% disapproval which is right around where the Ipsos/Reuters one had him about a week earlier. A few more bits of drama and I would not be surprised to see him circling 30% or potentially lower.
Speculating 'what people want to believe' is pretty baseless.
Personally, I kind of want to believe the former, while terrifying, it ties things up in a neat way. Like how conspiracy theories are satisfying because they mean all the bad shit that happens was caused by a single malicious actor.
The 'he's just dumb' explanation is unsettling to me, because its messier and means he is (of some things) innocent. Also dumbness is more frustrating in some ways than malice. Like how it's more comforting to think that someone on the Internet is deliberately 'trolling' than that they are really that stupid and obstinate and believe what they say.
Trump's support among has base has been slowly falling. Not enough to swing things yet, but every one of these bad news cycles chips away at it a bit more. There is a line out there, somewhere. We haven't found it yet, but firing Mueller would put us that much closer to it.
You can't give someone a pirate ship in one game, and then take it back in the next game. It's rude.
https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-06-13/russian-breach-of-39-states-threatens-future-u-s-elections America's completely garbage voting systems saves the day?
This is exactly the kind of reinforcement we don't need.
It's like how the entire pretext for BSG is based on a shitty Aesop.
That's not a line though. That's simply unpopularity. That's the point.
If the only reason the GOP turns on Trump is that he's unpopular, there is no line.
1. Trump's popularity and approval with the base are irrelevant, the base's uncompromising will to vote for him is all that matters. The winner is the person with the most votes, not the person with the happiest voters. For all this talk about the base being dissatisfied with Trump's performance, I have yet to see a single statistic or indication or even anecdotal tale of even a single Trump supporter changing their vote. It doesn't matter at all that voters change from "yay I'm so happy to vote Trump because I totally believe in him" to "I dislike Trump and disapprove of his performance but I'm going to vote for him anyway because immigrants/terrorism/emails/tax cuts/Obamacare", the net result is that Trump wins.
2. The GOP doesn't need their votes to go up, they simply need their votes to not go down below the Democrats' votes. Demographics, like approval ratings, do not win elections; only votes do. The GOP has a 100% brainwashed and captive voter base, so they have a hard floor on their vote numbers. For years now their main strategy has not been increasing their votes but decreasing the Democratic vote, with gerrymandering, restricted voting hours and locations, stricter voter ID laws, outright disinformation, voter fraud, and every other dishonest legal trick they can think of (like organizing a fake all-day marathon through the major avenues of minority neighbourhoods on election day to make traffic hell and make it harder for people to go vote). There's a reason Trump won only a single demographic and won the election anyway. While Democrats have been hard at work increasing their rating with every demographic, the GOP has been hard at work insuring that the only demographic that's allowed to vote is their captive voter base.
I will be more optimistic when that translates to a win
Irrelevant to the point. There's been a huge swing. The fact that we've only had special elections in place that leaned massively Republican doesn't change that.
Being upset about not winning R+20 seats so far is silly. GA-6 was the closest of the special election seats and it is R+8ish.
All data so far points to a D+9 environment at the moment, which is why GA-6 is a toss-up.
Also makes it easier to attract decent candidates for competitive races in 2018. For example there's a half-decent case that the guy that ran against Tom Price in GA-6 in November didn't actually exist, but Ossoff pulled in like $30M.
Also please tone down the doomsaying overall, bit too much of that going on the last couple pages.
The point is that being popular doesn't translate to winning elections. The fact you (and a5ehren after you) can positively demonstrate that Ds are soaring in popularity and yet they still lose elections is not irrelevant to the point, it's the entire point.
Are the people who were chosen for roles that required a special election not done at least in part due to being in 'safe seats', where getting them replaced with an ideologically similar person should be a cake walk? Except instead of cruising to an easy win, millions of dollars are being spent to make things happen. Seats are being contested that shouldn't have been remotely in contention. If GOP donors have to spend millions just to help procure ostensibly safe seats, what does that say about broader elections in 2018 and 2020?
Because hard fought victories now (when they really shouldn't be) would make me think long and hard about how resource intensive the fight becomes when it's orders of magnitude larger across dozens of states.
Would I love some wins now? Fuck yeah! If spending a lot to narrowly win a safe seat is bad, spending a lot to lose a safe seat would be even better.
But as I've been saying for months now, this is a marathon, not a sprint, and while the citizens need to fight hard, they also need to recognize that right now isn't where the big wins are, this is the delaying action where the GOP has to fight for every inch of ground they have to hold, and it takes time for all the swirling bullshit of this administration to really sink in.
Russians of all people saying our system is to broken to work with is, ah, well that's a hell of a thing. Imagine what the GOP would be doing if Hillary won with Russians hacking our system.
Uh, no, that's not the point. The point is it doesn't translate to winning every election ever, but no one has ever claimed that as a goal, so this is just silly doomsaying on your part. "Oh no, we can't win a +20R district" is not terribly compelling as a reason to be pessimistic.
Trump and GOP support is trending down hard, which is at this point the only thing that's gonna lead to real consequences with this Russia thing for Trump.
EDIT: Sorry SiG.
Hello this is not on topic. Cease and desist.