Yeah, it's my opinion that Bernie supporters should've come behind Hillary if they didn't want Trump to win. I get that people had things against her and I don't think you should blindly tow a line either. But I'm just saying - theoretically, leaving out all emotional reactions, they could've beat Trump if they wanted to.

And yeah this election really showed how things are in this country - a lot of disillusionment, a lot of anger, a lot of mistrust in the system.

To be fair, I agree with you that, in this case, Bernie supporters should've swallowed their pride. They supported a guy who worked for a "greater good," and when it came to following in that concept, too many of them failed.

To clarify (just in case), I was noting that it is something that I recognize not everyone would agree with. But they supported Bernie for his advertised values, and if they didn't then support Hillary, they dismissed some of those same values.

I don't see how it's debatable at all. Of course they should have. I believe most did, in fact. I don't know if there were that many (statistically speaking) Bernie-or-busters that affected the outcome of the election, but all those people should be ashamed of themselves regardless, and are partially to blame for Trump being in office.

You had one job, Americans.


Well, I remember Clinton saying that she "heard the voices" of Bernie fans, and Bernie himself endorsed Clinton and told everyone to vote for her and push her to be as progressive as she could be. I'm not sure what more the Bernie-or-busters wanted. There's only so much coddling you should have to do on grown adults, it's their own responsibility to deal with reality and vote intelligently.

But, sadly, most voters, even Dem voters, are just giant babies and/or low-information. They need to be coddled and they buy into stupid charisma bullshit. As a Canadian I didn't vote for the NDP because Thomas Mulcair came to my community and shook hands and smiled at me and wow'ed me with inspiring feel-good speeches, but because I thought he could do a good job as PM and the NDP's values (at the time at least, this may change...) reflected mine closely enough. While I'm still happy Trudeau won over Harper and I think he's been doing a decent job, and the Liberal party has managed to modernize itself somewhat, I find it pathetic and honestly embarrassing that he won in large part because he's charismatic and good-looking.

Same with Obama. His policies are mostly solid, he's intelligent, decent, and thoughtful, but what got him elected isn't those things; it's that he was super charismatic and "inspiring". Clinton also had good policies and was also intelligent and thoughtful and experienced, but she wasn't "inspiring". It's stupid infantilizing bullshit, but it's how things stand.

Agree 100%. You bring up good points that, yes, they did some effort to get those supporters on Hillary's side. At the same time, though, people shouldn't be so fucking stupid or need special coddling. Sadly, in the same way whiny Republicans can't stop bellowing "but, but HILLARY'S EMAILZZZZ", there are people on the left still bitter that Bernie did the mature thing, of stepping aside and supporting Hillary.

I noted my disdain for blindly towing a line, but in the same vein, one should be supportive of the team while that team still works. I.E., Republicans need to start jumping the Trump ship now to save face (indeed, abandoning Trump may now be the wise thing to do for the sake of the Republican party), but Democrats should have come together last year when it was needed instead of going to polls (or staying home) bitterly divided.




This is one of the things I hate about politics. Not even just modern politics since it's been this way for a very, very long time. The old Nixon v Kennedy debate was a big point on this. Those who listened to the debate on the radio walked away feeling that Nixon bested Kennedy. But the majority watched it on TV, and Nixon refused TV make-up "because gays" and in turn, looked atrocious and sweaty on TV, so the perception was that he lost. Obama was a good mix and I warmed up to him over the years. He was good with crowds, but also good at playing President, which was, apparently, an all-too-rare combination. When he was campaigning way back in 2008, though, there was so many times when media ignored his platform and talked about what a great speaker he was.

So aggravating to see people fall for "the good looking person" even when they're contemptible bullshit. Like swooning over Doctor Oz, America's #1 Snake Oil Peddler. I'm remembering the Last Week Tonight where they showed a news clip of him being dressed down in a hearing for selling bullshit magic cures, and then for the reporters to simply turn around and talk about what a "great guy" he is. NO FUCKWADS, HE'S CONNING YOU. This country is so easy to con, an infantile buffoon could do it.

Huh... I think I just realized the only good use of a burka. Any politician running for public office should be covered completely in one for all public appearances while campaigning. Then we might actually listen to the shit they say instead of the way they look. And if they really want to reign in voter fraud, you make people answer randomized questions on the views of politicians before getting to vote.

Yeah and besides, the real thing that's gotta happen is trying to flip congress (or get as close as possible) during midterms. Hope that the Republicans somehow keep disagreeing about their own policies until they can lose seats enough to make even compromised shit hard or impossible to pass. Take away seats and start working on getting Trump out ASAP.

Basically I think there's no way in hell the Dems will be dumb enough to run a totally establishment candidate as their main pick next time, at least not without trying to publicly shift whatever candidate's platform harder to the left before real campaigning starts. There's just no way it will be Hillary though...she's really getting up there age-wise. Bernie's far over the hill, too. New blood is needed.

Warren. It's going to be Elizabeth Warren. Mark my words.

Honestly, even she is seriously getting up there. She'll be 71 in 2020.

So the president of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan came to meet with President Hobgoblin, and during said meeting Erdogan's guards stormed a group of protesters in DC and started assaulting them, all while Erdogan fucking watched and possible ordered them to do so.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/pol ... 80dc3ceb96

Trump's America: Where a foreign dictator sends his goons to beat up American citizens on American soil exercising their First Amendment rights.

Basically Trump watched Lethal Weapon 2 and realized he could just make foreign cronies do his dirty work for him. God Bless America.

That's fucked up. Incontrovertible visual evidence of a foreign power being allowed to subvert Americans' constitutional rights. If that ain't grounds for removal, what the hell else can Trump get away with?

Jason Chaffetz is resigning from Congress after just getting elected back in.

New reports on the Russia probe indicate someone currently staffed in the White House is under investigation.

Also, Trump basically told some foreigners that "this investigation is over because I fired Comey."


Cripes. It would take Nixon 4 terms to fill out this much bullshit, scandal, and evil.

Man, this is fucking crazy. And Trump of course says/does nothing?

Where are all the free-speech first-amendment-loving Republicans? Are they up in arms with outrage about this? I mean any decent person should be, but those who are always going "mah free speech" seem to only ever worry about it when it comes to calling people racial slurs (and not suffering consequences like, being called a racist, for example), and not about things like this.

Well, like you said, they're almost literally burying their heads in the sand to avoid hearing about what a colossal failure this administration has been so as to not destroy their narrative of everything being fine and dandy. They're choosing to ignore this.

As to your second point, one thing I've come to notice is that racists only dislike being called racists. They have no problem with actually racist language and behavior - sometimes they even sensationally flaunt their racism in public - but the moment you call them a racist, they're quick to defend themselves that they aren't actually racist because of whatever bullshit, broken logic they attempt to justify themselves with.

Comey to testify. Jesus Christ's balls, this is truly a time to be alive.

So what's the over/under on how long it takes for Trump to resign? I was gonna say six months, but it honestly could be within the next couple at this rate, especially if something beyond damning comes out of Comey's testimony or Mueller's investigation.

Jared Kushner apparently...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/jared-kushner-russia-investigation-trump-song-in-law-probe-person-interest-a7745916.html

3:1 odds he ends up mysteriously dead or missing before his date. Any takers?

If that happened, the country would explode.

If Comey dies or vanishes before testifying, I honestly think it'd finally spark some sort of revolution attempt here.

This latest tidbit pretty much guarantees beyond any doubt imo that there was some conspiracy/collusion with Russia so I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't make it through the summer. These past few weeks have been nothing but a disaster for the Donald, and I can't even begin to imagine what all else will be uncovered in the coming weeks.

Past few weeks? From day one this administration has been a bust. It's only been in the last month or so that the majority of Americans have become extremely vocally frustrated and fed up with what's going on. Even a decent chunk of people that voted for him are fed up with him, minus those that are just actively tuning out and ignoring the news.

Oh for sure, I just mean with the Comey firing and all the shit that's come out since. It was really bad before, but we're at full on dumpster blaze now.

What do you think will be Trump's "smoking gun" scenario that finally turns Congress fully against him and leads to him resigning? I'm thinking it'll be if that "Putin pays Trump" comment turns out to be real, with evidence, and, worst of all, on tape for all the world to hear.

Don't know what the "smoking gun" will be, if there's any single one, but now apparently Jared Kushner is named a person of interest in the investigation.

I am shocked, shocked! that a close family member of Trump is involved. No way guys

A few days ago, I put a small bet in at +3300 odds that McFeely ends up walking away with the FBI director job. Congress won't let Trump get away with the Lieberman pick. McFeely has a working past with Rosenstein, who effectively gave Trump carte blanche to terminate Comey*. My speculation is that the talk about Lieberman is simply a diversion, a hyped up decoy, to keep people from digging too deep on McFeely prior to the selection. At surface glance, congress will think he's perfect for the job based on his resume and get by with near unanimous consent.

If McFeely gets the job, and I think he will, I'm fairly confident Trump is seriously attempting to gain covert sway over the FBI. That would confirm my suspicion that Rosenstein is loyal to Trump as well.


*: ...mostly, until Trump went out on TV and said he fired Comey because "Russia." Major fuckup that deservedly got the press spun up.

The entire administration is a self collapsing vortex of hypocrisy, these last few weeks have got to be the most vindicating thing on the planet for half the country.

That's not surprising to me even in the slightest. Can't wait to watch all of those scumfucks go down.

Man that Turkish brawl thing is just totally insane. That's right in the heart of Washington on Embassy Row (spent a lot of time right on that circle going to the Korean Consulate that's right on that circle in the footage). Boggles the mind that that piece of shit Erdogan would have the balls to pull his shitty dictator thuggery in the middle of another nation's capital city like that. I do not envy the D.C. cops who were there in the slightest - fuck if I'd wanna be involved in something that could blow up into an international incident. But goddamn, the balls. Oughtta be banned from the country for pulling that shit.

A smoking gun? Cripes, it's hard to say. This is a surreal amount of scummy bullshit going on.

Nixon was largely brought down merely from obstructing justice. That's literally about the only thing they got him on. The Watergate break-in, the conspiracy, the secret white house tapes, all that shit going on. But no, Nixon was essentially caught tampering with evidence and trying to hide things.

At this point, it seems fair to say that whatever does sink Trump, he'll have tweeted about it at some point making it easy to find. Judges even cited his prior tweets about "keepin' out them Muslims" to shoot down his Muslim ban bullshit. We are living in a fucking weird era.

Great post.


This irritated me, because the Bernie fans apparently felt he was "selling out" when he said he supported Hillary. What else could he do? He told his supporters to vote for her because she was better than the alternative, but some were still so butthurt over it that they wouldn't vote for her.

I mean, I wasn't in love with Hillary, either. I had a "Feel the Bern" tshirt. But when it came right down to it, I think it should have been "anyone but Trump."

Trump's fans seem to think he's cool because he doesn't use big words and isn't a politician. Diplomacy exists for a reason. He doesn't even act like an adult. That's what worries me.

I was lurking around some places on the internet where trump is still admired, and their rationale basically goes like this:

Liberals are enraged as hell about how Trump is behaving, so he is doing everything right.

The level of self deception is actually higher than 3 Billion, the highest number.

And Trump will be 71 in three weeks, and Hillary will be 70 in October, what's your point?

Well, he did sell out. For a number of Bernie fans, he embodied a revolutionary, leftist political force that, for once, emphasized a support for the working classes. The keyword here is "revolutionary". By endorsing Hillary, who represents literally every single aspect of the "establishment" (the fact that she's intelligent, more experienced, etc. bears no relevance, really), you're no longer potentially revolutionary anymore. That said, Trump also ended up representing the "establishment", despite the populist rhetoric on his campaign. If I was an American citizen who wanted a revolution, I'd rather do it under a system run by a neoliberal, than in one run by a racist, childish and destructive neoliberal.

People were already talking about Hillary being too old even last year, not to mention how many people had the same worries about Bernie. Trump supporters weren't worried about his age being a factor because his own personal doctor (the best there is, believe me) said that he is literally the healthiest human being alive (or who has ever been alive) and could lift a Vespa clear over his head with his throbbing member, and they all went, "oh, yes, that is a true fact" and that was the end of it.

Apparently Erdoğan pulled this stunt in other places before, including Rotterdam, Netherlands. Dutch police sent in riot police and the equivalent of their SWAT team to handle them and they weren't so tough then. Then Erdoğan had the nerve to call the Dutch "fascists" and "nazis", fucking scumbag.

http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2 ... o-germany/


In that case, those extreme Bernie fans are delusional children. Bernie isn't a revolutionary at all. He's still a politician. He's an independent, not part of a party "establishment", but he still effects change (and wants to effect change) the politician way, by drafting bills, working with Congress, raising taxes to get the money for his universal health care and free tuition programs, etc.
Hell his ideas were only even "revolutionary" sounding for America itself, everything he said was just typical Canadian or western/northern European social democrat stuff. But, well, America ain't ready for universal health care I guess. Even at the state level, when a referendum about that was posted on the Colorado ballot, it failed overwhelmingly.


Yeah, that really says it all.

Well, yeah, I didn't say he was actually revolutionary; rather, he just motivated a revolutionary feeling across the country. It never really mattered how actually revolutionary he was during his campaign, what mattered was how revolutionary he seemed among the American people. For the first time American history since, perhaps, forever, he motivated a very large "push" to the left in the country.



I didn't say she was more intelligent and experienced than Bernie by the way. And it would never have mattered in the first place, you can have the highest IQ in the world, you're still working to maintain neoliberalism and I wouldn't have voted for you in a million years unless I was desperate.

This tweet summarizes pretty much every day in the White House for the last three weeks.

https://mobile.twitter.com/evilsharkey/ ... 7660317696

Not me. That would be the equivalent of us assassinating the KGB director in the 80's or the FSB director now. I wouldn't put anything past Vladimir "I order my goons to poison diplomats' dogs, just because" Putin but there isn't any precedent for that in US-Russia relations, and it would put Putin himself at risk.

Other witnesses though, that's another story. Again, this is Putin we're talking about.

This kind of shit about Bernie selling out is why the left risks never really improving or getting anything they want. The "I'm going to take my ball and go home" logic is just ridiculous and childish. Big part of why Trump won. You either want all the progress immediately or apparently none at all based on what's happening now.

All this stuff going on is so wild. It's a new thing every fucking day. My head is spinning. It's like a drinking game - guess what's going to happen next and take a drink if you're close enough.

He also thinks exercise doesn't actually help you live longer, but rather that it actually shortens your lifespan! And that is something we should never correct him on.

I agree, it shows a lack of responsibility. There wasn't any kind of revolution from German leftists when Hitler got into power (not saying Trump = Hitler btw I'm not that stupid, just trying to make a clearer point). When Slavoj Žižek (who I am a big fan of) supported this type of accelerationism back last year, it was the only time I strongly disagreed with him. Even he changed his mind about it at one point.