Things are not going to be fine

[Cyborg Girl]

Trump offers directorship of the National Economic Council the the head of Goldman Sachs:
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/09/trump-of ... -news.html

According to numerous other sources, Trump owes hundreds of millions of dollars to a list of companies including Goldman Sachs. But hey, at least the media is sorta kinda catching on, just a little bit.

Oh, and it looks like the CEO of Exxon-Mobil may become Secretary of State:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/exxons-rex- ... 1481318464

Yaaay draining the swamp!

[Cyborg Girl]

Also, I'm a bit surprised to note that mainstream media have been all over this, though they still try to downplay the shear horror of it:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/na ... story.html

wherein the CIA reveals Putin's regime to have had the deliberate goal of getting Trump into office. There's some other good stuff too. For instance, we now have a reason why the Republicans have been such a bunch of sniveling cowards: Putin's goons also hacked the RNC, but have not released anything from that, so it could be that many Republicans have effectively been blackmailed.

I'm fervently hoping something comes of this, but don't really expect much. The Republican establishment, and many of the Democrats, have shown malfeasance to a degree that I can hardly articulate. I expect them to continue rolling over, sticking their heads in the sand, or otherwise failing to do anything useful and letting Trump and his henchmen run amok.

Roughly half of Congress has essentially gone and engaged in treason. If the well of trust in US democracy wasn't poisoned before, it is definitely poisoned now IMO.

[SciFiFisher]

Trump says the CIA is lying.

[Cyborg Girl]

Yes. Thoroughly poisoned indeed.

[code monkey]

Yaaay draining the swamp!

don't you want the alligators to have nice clean water?

[Cyborg Girl]

He actually did it. He put the president of Goldman Sachs in as the head of the NEC.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... achs-trump

Fuck you too, Donald.

[vendic]

Cohn is a registered Democrat who has donated money to both Barack Obama and Clinton.

If he takes the post, he will be following in the footsteps of Robert Rubin and Stephen Friedman, two other onetime Goldman Sachs executives who served in that role.

Bill Clinton appointed Robert Rubin, just so you know. So Trump appointed a Democrat from the same institution that Bill Clinton did. To a person who is a Democrat and supported the Clinton's.

Had Hillary made the same decision (quite possible in reality) would there be blind outrage or merely disappointment?

[pumpkinpi]

Fuck fuck fuckity fuck fuck. That's what I want to post every time I read something about Trump on facebook, but I would never do it there.
Fuck fucking fuckwit voters who believed this fucktard would make a positive difference in their lives. And fuck them for not realizing yet how his cabinet selections have completely gone against that.

[Thumper]

Don't hold back on our account, tell us how you really feel.

[SciFi Chick]

Don't hold back on our account, tell us how you really feel.

[Swift]

Don't hold back on our account, tell us how you really feel.

[Swift]

I heard Bill Clinton speaking very briefly on the news this morning (he was an elector in NY and was just finished voting) and he was still blaming Russians and the FBI for Hillary's loss.

Here is a USA Today story on it.

Bill Clinton said he was proud of the work his wife did on the campaign trail.

But he said the FBI's handling of an investigation into the Clintons' email servers and Russian hackers who intelligence officials believe targeted Clinton's campaign were too much to overcome.

"I've watched her battle through that bogus email deal and be vindicated at the end," Bill Clinton said.

"She fought through everything, and she prevailed against it all. But, you know, with the end we had the Russians and the FBI deal, which she couldn't prevail against that."

I know he doesn't speak for the DNC and the party as a whole, but I suspect this is a prevailing opinion. And I'm of the opinion that if the Dems keeping blaming the Russians and the FBI, and don't look at themselves, that they will lose the mid-terms and the next Presidential election.

Sure, sure, these things may have flipped a few votes. But there are more fundamental problems. If you can't convince poor whites and blue-collar whites to vote for your candidate over a self-centered, racist billionaire, you have some fundamental problems that you need to address.

[Cyborg Girl]

Trump has a Praetorian Guard now:

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/d ... rce-232797

Come on, this cannot possibly be okay with everyone. Right? Right?

[SciFi Chick]

Trump has a Praetorian Guard now:

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/d ... rce-232797

Come on, this cannot possibly be okay with everyone. Right? Right?

And what would you have us do about it? Contact our Congress critters? Sign a petition? Go in the streets with a sign? There is NOTHING we can do short of revolution at this point, and until he starts actually implementing Hitler type policies, we just have to put up with his bombastic bullshit.

[Cyborg Girl]

@SFC

At this point, I have no bloody idea, other than "don't convince yourself that everything is normal and okay".

This is hard. Most people in my family keep losing sight of it. Many people on this forum have repeatedly lost sight of it. I have probably repeatedly lost sight of it, too. The only people I know who haven't, are friends in marginalized groups that maybe *specifically* targeted.

But yeah, basically I feel like my "job" now is to keep myself and people I know from slipping into denial mode; so that when the shit does hit the fan, we're still psychologically capable of disobeying.

[geonuc]

I'd like to see President Obama skip the inauguration.

[vendic]

This is hard. Most people in my family keep losing sight of it. Many people on this forum have repeatedly lost sight of it. I have probably repeatedly lost sight of it, too. The only people I know who haven't, are friends in marginalized groups that maybe *specifically* targeted.

That's a pretty arrogant position to take GJ. You can speak for your own position, but, don't start telling other people they have lost it.

[vendic]

I know he doesn't speak for the DNC and the party as a whole, but I suspect this is a prevailing opinion. And I'm of the opinion that if the Dems keeping blaming the Russians and the FBI, and don't look at themselves, that they will lose the mid-terms and the next Presidential election.

Sure, sure, these things may have flipped a few votes. But there are more fundamental problems. If you can't convince poor whites and blue-collar whites to vote for your candidate over a self-centered, racist billionaire, you have some fundamental problems that you need to address.

Yep.
Typical upper echelon behaviour. Fuck things up and then blame something/someone else either deliberately as a part of spin or as complete and utter loss in understanding the dynamics of the populace. Never admit you are wrong even when the decisions made by them were the ones that caused the problems. The dog ate my home work. It wasn't my fault. Really.

I wonder how much truth is in this: oops

[Cyborg Girl]

@vendic: guessing less truth than you think. People working directly with Julian Assange are immediately suspect IMO; considering that Assange is directly targeting leaders like Angela Merkel now, to the vast global advantage of actual no-shit Fascists. Leaks vs. hacks, and direct Russian involvement or lack thereof, are completely beside the point. In a conflict between Fascists and and not-Fascists, these guys support the Fascists. Yes, a lot of the not-Fascists suck - Do you think I'm a fan of Merkel's warmed-over racism and austerity bullshit? - but they are not Fascists and present a non-Fascist mainstream, and that's important.

At risk of being dismissed, again, I will repeat myself, again: neoliberalism is not the only form of evil on this planet.

Edit: also just to be clear, I won't absolve the Democrats of guilt; IMO their embrace of neoliberal crap, and failure to be consistently progressive, helped bring this on. (See especially Bill Clinton's presidency; I think Hillary is much less to blame.) But seriously, almost anything would be better and more amenable to reform than the US under totalitarian Fascism. "First him, then us" didn't work with Hitler and it won't work with Trump.

[vendic]

...Leaks vs. hacks, and direct Russian involvement or lack thereof, are completely beside the point...

We totally disagree here. If they were leaked then what you have is a coordinated cover up and attack on a superpower for no reason other than covering their asses. As it involves the CIA and FBI, if they were leaked then the implications are far reaching.

Since a person who was involved in releasing the information is stating in no uncertain terms that it was not a hack and that he personally got the data from an informer, I wonder why this isn't even making the news. It isn't even making wikipedia. Typically this stuff is thrown in as an alternative but in this case, it's completely missing. He also made the claim that his version was put up in the mainstream media for a few hours and was then taken down and replaced with the "official" version.

There seems to be something going on here and I don't like it. It's only now starting to surface, for example in the Washington times.

[Rommie]

This is hard. Most people in my family keep losing sight of it. Many people on this forum have repeatedly lost sight of it. I have probably repeatedly lost sight of it, too. The only people I know who haven't, are friends in marginalized groups that maybe *specifically* targeted.

That's a pretty arrogant position to take GJ. You can speak for your own position, but, don't start telling other people they have lost it.

I agree. Particularly as I don't see anyone here having lost it. Talking about it here less than we did in early November, but that doesn't mean it's not on my mind just because I'm not wringing hands 24/7. I've got shit to do, plus don't think it's productive.

[geonuc]

Many people on this forum have repeatedly lost sight of it. I have probably repeatedly lost sight of it, too. The only people I know who haven't, are friends in marginalized groups that maybe *specifically* targeted.

Bullshit. All of it.

[SciFi Chick]

What they said.

[vendic]

I know. It's such a sexist statement!

[squ1d]

Lol

This thread is longer and more pointless than Rogue One