Elephants and Jackasses...

With Trump and Russia there's definitely smoke. Please, just start there and admit there is an unhealthy relationship between Trump, his camp, and high-level officials in the Russian government and banking system. His business contacts and financing alone have very unusual relationships to Russian entities and individuals. Of all the fodder for scandals with the Trump camp, it makes no sense to create an additional narrative unless there's at least circumstantial evidence of collusion. Also, I think the President of the United States should be held to a higher standard when it comes to potential influence from foreign entities. I think there's a lack of evidence that's valuable to entities like the FBI or a Congressional inquiry and I think it's unlikely we'll ever have a smoking gun that ties: Trump himself, an illegal or treasonous activity and a Russian state actor, given so much of the supposed influence occurred via the internet and our government isn't exactly tech-savvy.

I also think there are two reasons Trump will never release his tax returns: one, he's not as rich as people think (damages the brand) and two, anyone could then follow the money and at the end of the money trail you will find Russian entities. Illegal? Not likely, but certainly damaging and risky. Imagine the response if we find out that 40% of the money the Secret Service is paying Trump's resort in Mar-A-Lago is going to a Russian investor, for example. The media doesn't have the burdens of evidence the FBI does, because the objectives are different. Will the FBI discover a smoking gun that's admissible in a trial? Unlikely. Can the Washington Post or CNN or whomever further the narrative by providing circumstantial evidence to the public? Abso-fucking-lutely.

Objectively: should they? I would argue that yes, they should. Politics aside, I think that exposure is vital to democracy. I'm loath to bring up this disgusting election, but Hillary's speeches to Goldman Sachs and her Foundation's ties to foreign nationals were not insignificant issues for many people, myself included. If Obama's birth certificate, Bush's accent and Clinton's blowjobs are fair game, politically, then Trump's business relationships absolutely should be.

Another non-biased question: Is Trump a successful businessman? I would argue that compared to his contemporaries, no he's not. While he's certainly rich, has a well-established brand and some valuable assets, he's had spectacular failures and he has no clout with the titans of actual industry or finance in the US. To be fair, if you take his estimated $250M head start from his father in the 1970's and grow it to around $700M (one of the realistic estimations of his net worth) in 40 years, you're doing well financially, but if you did FUCK ALL with the money and left it in conservative investments, that $250M would be much larger than $700m. Given his shaky business history, it makes sense he would find some foreign investors that would believe his brand's value prop and float him mountains of cash. It also fits into his persona as a pseudo-gangster tough guy New Yorker. If you separate the brand from the facts, I think it paints a very different picture.

How you respond to the previous questions determines, I think, a large part of how you feel about Trump. Because, if you think he's not a good businessman, and he's in bed with shady Russian entities (legal or not, it looks bad and it exposes him to undue foreign influence since he didn't put anything in escrow), suddenly he looks like a panicked little boy in too deep with the wrong people struggling to prove he's in charge. He's certainly been using the Presidency to advance his brand, businesses and his family connections, and an abuse of office claim would likely carry weight if/when his family members are proven to use their office to enrich themselves.

 

This right here is the biggest issue.

If you aren't in one of the two parties, the cost of entry to get onto a ballot as a 3rd party is so onerous that only the rich can afford to do it (see Ross Perot). Voters have been pigeonholed into voting on single issues. A woman who wants to a gun but still wants to have an abortion has to decide what issue matters more to her.

That may be the case, but that doesn't mean the DNC can't use superdelegates to stack the deck in their preferred candidate's favor. Bernie Sanders won New Hampshire’s pledged delegates by a landslide 22 percent. He received 60.4 percent of the poll vote, just about 150,000 votes. Clinton received 38 percent of the poll vote, tallying about 95,000 votes. Yet, all six superdelegates gave their support to Clinton, effectively erasing Sanders win, leading both candidates to leave the state with the same 15 delegates.

It's this sort of bullshittery that creates the perception that Clinton was doing way better than she actually was. An undecided Democratic voter that thinks that Clinton is steamrolling Sanders isn't going to vote for him. After all, who is going to want to back a horse that they believe is losing and losing badly?

Regardless, until we disabuse ourselves of the notion of "one person one vote" and do ranked voting, or literally try anything else, things will stay the same.

 

Separate what "the media" says and what the politicians are doing. And also, separate what a Democratic politician and the media define as a smoking gun. The Democrat likely defines it as admissible evidence of collusion that would be admissible in an impeachment proceeding. The media defines it as anything that convinces their readers, or pushes their readers over the edge of believing in collusion, hence the over usage of alarm.

The Democratic politicians are all about "obstruct", as far as I can tell and they are happy to spout off with any scandal that fits the identity politics or economics narrative. I haven't seen (and I'm not saying they're not doing it) any Democrats going as far as calling the Trump presidency illegitimate. There have been calls for impeachment, but as far as I've read, nothing has actually been filed. My sincere question is: are the Democrats obstructing because of the Russian narrative specifically? Or are they obstructing because if they don't their jobs will be forfeit and they must be seen fighting Trump's administration (kind of like a blue Tea Party)? My hunch is it's the latter.

Finally, what is Trump's momentum? I see Democratic obstruction as simply par for the course, given there's no incentive for them to collaborate. By now, what should he have accomplished that's held back by the Russian investigation? Are there powers denied to him based on the investigation? His admission that "he can't do the job" because of the Russia investigation is starting to feel like "I can't release my tax returns, because I'm being audited".

I'm seeing Trump's own inexperience and shortcomings as well as Democratic obstruction as more to blame for his stalled launch than the Russian collusion narrative.

I think it's obvious there are mainstream media elements that are openly hostile to Trump, however the same was true of any other president. And to Trump's credit, he masterfully manipulated the press for free coverage worth billions during the campaign. So, what's changed with his media strategy? It smells like smoke: there's enough circumstantial evidence to keep it in the headlines and he can't bullshit or bully his way out of it. Also, the media elements that carried him in the election now have no target for their venom, as they themselves have been mired in scandal, so there's effectively no voice to shout over the claims of Russian collusion.

 

I don't think its obstructionist to sit back, as the minority group, and watch the other side shit the bed. Politically, its smart. Its a great talking point in future elections and debates to point out how many times the GOP voted to repeal the ACA because they knew any effort would get vetoed, but when shit got real, they had nothing. What incentive is there for the Dems to work with a group openly hostile to them, a group without a plan aside from undoing anything the black guy did? The same group that wouldn't even give a fair hearing to a legally appointed Supreme Court justice, a stolen seat on the bench.(hows that for obstruction?) The democrats aren't obstructing because they don't have the power to do so.

I think it would benefit the dems to work to try to repair the aspects of the ACA that aren't good. Don't ask me for details because I'm pretty ignorant on insurance policy. But politically, it would be suicide for the dems to get onboard a repeal effort instead of a repair effort. Unfortunately, the GOP base is so dead-set on destroying it, that it makes total sense for the dems to sit back and watch the effort die. It's all about the marketing of the deal. If the GOP would stop with the "repeal" talk use more positive language, I think a lot more people on both sides of the aisle would get on board.

Also, the Russia thing is a big deal and now we know that Trump Jr. actually met with a Russian in Trump tower with the expressed purpose of getting oppo research on Clinton. Read recent tweet threads by attorney, Seth Abramson. Politically, you won't see too many congresspeople calling for impeachment right now because it makes sense for dems to bleed this through the 2018 election. Or as close as they can. And the GOP typically support their own no matter what. If Pence is president early on, he will actually behave like an adult and make 2018 highly competitive. The longer this goes, and the more silence you get from the GOP, the more they can be seen as accepting of this behavior. That works for dems. If the senate and house could get on board together and realize the nightmare Trump is, the quicker this could get behind us.

 

I completely agree with the Democratic obstruction, and to be honest, the Republicans did the same thing with Obama (and subsequently were labelled racists, which seems to be the left's de facto defense against criticism of identity politics). There's just no reason to collaborate or even compromise, when to do so will invite retribution in the next election. The longer they let this go and the closer we get to the mid-term elections, the more rope Trump has to hang himself with.

I don't see the Russian collusion narrative as some "gotcha" headline grab. I could EASILY swallow an overblown narrative around any number of Trump's liabilities as a president: sexism, racism, dishonest, you fucking name it. The WaPo ran a headline to the effect of "Trump's not healthy enough to be president" a week or so ago. The ammunition is there for fluff outrage pieces.

Russia feels different, like it's out of place in the whaargarbl vortex surrounding Trump. Maybe, it's a justification of his win and for a lot of hearts and minds that would be comforting. I fully accept this as a possibility. HOWEVER, there are facts and evidence that suggest Trump, his family and his businesses have a very unusual relationship with Russian businesses and high-level Kremlin officials. Seriously, no other politician I can think of would even THINK of working with Russian businesses or financial backing the way Trump has. Again the reality is this situation is an outlier at a minimum. Is it illegal? Probably not based on relationship alone. Can the FBI find credible evidence of collusion? Possible, but not likely. Can the press run all the evidence the FBI finds that wouldn't pass in court, but is definitely indicative of their narrative? All the live-long day.

 

I think this speaks to one of the fundamental problems with American politics today. The bases on both sides (the ones that actually vote) aren't all that interested in compromise. There's no political incentive to work together anymore. Even if one side did want to work with the other, it would be only be to the extent that one base could lord it over the other. "Look at how benevolent we are for working with the losers over there."

I don't know how to fix something like that. Maybe start by nuking MSNBC, CNN, Fox News and Breitbart from orbit.

 

I'm saying it's unlikely because I think it will be very difficult for the inquiry to prove INTENT, and Trump knows it. It's easy to prove the Trump camp has relationships with Russian individuals through a variety of go-betweens. It's difficult to prove that correspondence had the explicit purpose of colluding to illegally influence Trump's election.

If we find evidence (and seriously, R/The_Donald and Twitter have enough anomalies regarding bots to arouse suspicion), then Russia can simply say: we didn't collude, we wanted Trump to win and set our data and social media machines to work. We would do the exact same thing to Russia.

I think that yes, Russia wanted Trump to win. Yes, Russia and foreign entities "interfered" in the form of social media posts, fake news and targeted manipulation using powerful data collection tools. Yes, that technically constitutes foreign meddling. Generally, all of those things have some form of evidence or another.

Can we prove why Trump took a meeting with someone or what was discussed? That's a lot more difficult to establish, and to do so with the quality and clarity required of a high-level inquiry.

 

Literally the entirety of Hillary and Bernie's healthcare plans were "The ACA isn't perfect, we want to improve it in these ways..."

 

I agree but those super conservative holdouts would be completely irrelevant if they got even 15 dems on board. If some sort of moderate agreement were formed, it would make the tea party outcasts exactly that.

Right now, the GOP no-votes are either because it's too conservative and would fuck over a large chunk of their electorate or its too much like Obamacare and doesn't fuck over enough people.

 

https://twitter.com/sportsfunhouse/status/884493741737873408

It's always been a dream of mine to call a sitting governor a "fatass" on local sports radio.