Absolutely correct. Awful things like the Khashoggi killing happen every day in bass-ackward Saudi Arabia. Technically, this also happened in Saudi Arabia because an embassy is that nation’s territory. Their barbarism has never stopped any administration from doing business with them; or even doing much more than a severe finger-wagging.

Trump’s lips may be a little further up the arse of the House of Saud, but I’d say his response to this is not a significant departure from the kid-glove treatment given to that country by every President in the last 40 years.

Yep, check out this little "joy": https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2018/ ... -bus-yemen

Don't get me wrong, I strongly doubt Obama or Hillary would've done much better. But it's simply galling that Trump, who rails against m00slims night and day, even building his entire campaign on how evil they are, is happily selling arms to the biggest purveyors of Sharia Law in the world. Just... how?

Yemen is so sad. Among all the countries that were affected by the Arab Spring, Yemen seemed the best positioned to actually reform in a positive way. Libya - no credible opposition. Syria - dictator that won’t bugger off. Egypt - military regime that, while much more decent and respectable than other authoritarians in the region, is also very strongly entrenched. But Yemen. Abdellah Ali Saleh had voluntarily stepped down and promised fully inclusive elections! Yes he made a poor choice of interim successor, who reneged and went full tyrant mode, but that’s not entirely his fault. Our friendly Saudis (and Iran) are much more to blame for ruining what hope Yemen had.

When did we start pretending a country's leader should care deeply about civilians in another country but not at all for the ones s/he is oath-bound to protect, and when can we stop? Things like this don't happen every day to American residents by the hands of Saudi Arabian government employees.



I don't think we should have ever supported what they are doing in Yemen but the Saudis wouldn't have even bothered if Iran hadn't tried to turn Yemen into Lebanon on the gulf. When an enemy state with nuclear latency deploys paramilitary forces armed with cruise missiles and ballistic missiles on your border, you are going to bomb them, especially if your chief military protector (the US) is unwilling to interdict shipments of said missiles because they don't want to risk getting fired at in the middle of negotiations over a nuclear deal. Which, for our part, was triply stupid, since they ended up shooting them at us anyway.



Of course not. Trump's Yemen strategy is a continuation of Obama's Yemen strategy. Obama wanted Arab buy-in on JCPOA, and letting the Saudis do what they wanted in Yemen was the price he decided to pay.

Well, c'mon, let's not pretend it's not sad as shit that this guy is getting so much attention BECAUSE of his American residency. Though, I do think the bizarre nature of the killing is definitely noteworthy; sure, there's tons of blood on Saudi hands but none of it is as weird as this.

Just all around bizarre shit, if you ask me. Saudis finally drawing real international scrutiny for their bullshit (yeah yeah, it's fucked up and sad that it's this and not Yemen, but at least it's actually happening now), but it seems in large part in the hands of the Turks, who also aren't exactly the most trustworthy of people lately. Strange as it is, though, I'd still probably take the word of Turkish police searching for a body in the woods and whatever footage they might have (especially if they release it publicly) over any "oh he died in a fight is what we're saying now" claims the Saudis might make.

If this is what it takes, no matter how petty it is on a grander scale, I won't be upset if this is what causes western support for the Saudi regime to take one or several steps back.

"Our diplomats got in a fistfight and used their standard issue concealed carry bone saws in self-defense" is...not what I was expecting them to say. I actually laughed when the Saudis came out with that explanation. Imagine a bunch of Western-educated princes coming together and deciding that that explanation seems plausible.

And the thing you are all missing out on (or ignoring, or downplaying) is that this is about considerably more than Saudi Arabia's abhorrent behavior. It's about a nation's leader coming close to publicly saying "it's open season on my people as long as the hunters give me things." It's on a similar level to when Trump discussed the handover of US diplomats to Russia when he had his powwow with Putin last summer.


Imagine if Iran did something similar to a US resident during the JCPOA negotiations and Obama publicly said "well, I don't want to endanger my nuclear deal, so whatever."

lol. I'm sure Fox News and the US electorate in general would be totally happy with this explanation, right? Those double standards, man.

Even when you disregard Trump's gazillion gross things he said and did, it still amazes me how literally nothing, including things his base/supporters should really loathe, ever ever sticks to him.

It's a cult. His base will never abandon him, and for that reason most GOP legislators won't either even when they want to, because they're terrified of getting primaried by a true believer. Almost everyone on the hill hates him but feels stuck with him, which is partly why there's like 50 GOP members retiring this year.



In other news, Trump decided to take the US out of the INF treaty, because he's an idiot who doesn't realize Putin will just tell Europe it's America's fault once Russia starts really cranking out new INF ballistic missiles.

So how about that gubernatorial race in Georgia?

Where the guy (a Republican, of course) in charge of overseeing elections.... is running for the office? And of course he's suppressing black votes

This is astonishingly corrupt and I can't believe it'd be legal. I'd say "get the Supreme Court on this shit" but welp

Indiana as well. Half a million voters were purged in the state since 2014, the overwhelming majority being black. What's most depressing is that Democrats don't really seem to care about this. When will they learn that going high is only gonna leave you dry?

Yes, they should be raising hell for this, but especially the Georgia one since the guy responsible for voter suppression is running for the office itself.

Like.... this is just... mind-boggling. Worthy of the most pathetically corrupt Banana Republics.

I just checked and it appears the ACLU is raising a fuss and throwing lawsuits as of two days ago... finally. They need to make a bigger stink to be honest because this is just blatantly anti-democratic.

The problem is the people who could legally hold them accountable are Republicans too, at least down there. Up here in Pennsylvania, the state supreme court recently threw out the gerrymandered voting districts in favor of a much more fair district map (made with help from impartial outside consultants) and luckily when the GOP here tried to take it to the supreme court, they couldn't because it's a state constitutional issue over which the supreme court actually has no jurisdiction. But here it's much more mixed - the state legislature is majority GOP, but the governor and the state supreme court are Democratic, so there's something of a balance.

As far as gerrymandering goes, look at the before and after here, especially in heavily Democratic areas around Pittsburgh and Philadelphia:

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/econo ... stal-rates

say good bye to underground metal physical media in the USA.

thanks Trump and you dumb fuck voters.

That's like the first honest thing Trump has said in the last two weeks.

Uh-oh. I'm unfortunately usually unsurprised by Trump's actions and statements given his lengthy history, but every once in a while he says or proposes something that is simply horrifying.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/21/us/p ... ition.html

It's really a shame that the words "gender" and "sex" (as in biological sex) are so historically and culturally intertwined. You have cultures which for hundreds or thousands of years have understood there to be, like, a dozen or more psychological genders separate from biological gender and it doesn't really seem to be a big deal. Here gender dysphoria (or whatever you call it now) is like some sort of scandalous alien concept.

You know, with this whole thing about Trump openly calling himself a nationalist and all that, I'm left wondering...

This is just a thought experiment (I hope), but what would his followers say to the idea of him simply... ignoring democracy somehow? With how much blind praise and love and approval they shower upon him, no matter what he does or says, would they actually oppose him and his party just declaring themselves de facto leaders? Half the country is already firmly in his grasp, and this is the crazier, hateful, and more violent half of the country we're talking about.

This is not an attempt at fear-mongering, despite how melodramatic it might sound. I'm honestly curious about your thoughts, people.

I don't think it's melodramatic. The GOP people in Congress now are mostly not-Trumpers playing follow the leader out of fear of getting primaried by their constituents. If they stay on the current path though, you'll eventually get more true believers, not just people going with the flow.

If he doesn't lose in 2020 then I think he dies in office, whenever that is. In fact, if I was his personal attorney, I would actually advise him to push for an amendment to remove presidential term limits. He's almost certainly committed numerous state-level crimes; he couldn't get pardoned for them when he leaves. If he doesn't want to risk spending his remaining years in prison he pretty much has to stay in the White House.

(I'm taking for granted that attorneys general in a few states will try to indict him as soon as he leaves, which is a simplification, but still).

Here's the most powerful person in the world sundowning for an interview with The Wall Street Journal. Sweet Jesus.


Later:



Seriously, how fucking confused must his brain be to change his story like three times in one interview. Including in the same sentence. Dementia? Drug use? The advanced stages of neurosyphilis?

there's also this bit of brilliance from a few days ago


just. fucking christ. jesus fucking christ.

Jeeeeeeeesus. Like I wonder what conversations are like where people ask him what he wants for lunch.

So Trump is encouraging people from Venezuela to leave their country, but threatens to use the army to stop people from Honduras to leave for the US due to the US-supported right-wing coup in 2009 resulted in the country essentially being ruled by a mafia.

How about today?

we still have international mail, for today

lol, Trump denying the tariffs that he previously bragged about. Because of fucking course.


And it continues: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-lab ... -is-lawful

That's OK though, SCOTUS is on the cas... oh

So, everyone heard about those pipebombs being sent to the Obamas and the Clintons and such, right? But I haven't seen the word "terrorism" being thrown around, for some reason.

he called it "political violence" which i guess is close enough.

If law enforcement hadn't stopped each of them left of boom I don't think there would be much hesitancy to call them terrorist attacks, but in any case I've already seen McConnell call them terrorism outright.

I do think calling the perpetrator the magabomber is appropriate. Clinton, Obama, Soros, Schultz, Holder, Brennan, CNN. Yikes.

I definitely laughed out loud at that.



I'm actually a little amazed that someone would address a pipe bomb to a former CIA director. You have to wonder if whoever did this is just some MAGA idiot who saw Fox News videos of Brennan ragging on Trump and thought "oh he's some fake news CNN pundit," without realizing the guy droned people to death for 5 years.

This is particularly horrifying:



Are you fucking kidding me? How do people not deserve civil rights?

If America is about freedom and pursuit of happiness and all that shit, then this is the exact opposite of all of that. Just like all the rest of Trump's fucking anti-freedom policies.

I find it mindblowing that anyone would purposely go out of their way to deny rights to a group of people. It's not just refusing to take a step forward, it's intentionally taking one backward.

I find it more mindblowing that anyone would be supportive of this--particularly in a country that so strongly champions these very freedoms as part of it's core.

Conservatives constantly talk about rights in this country--how important rights are (yes, usually according to gun ownership), but they are the first to start taking them away.

And additionally, some people supposedly feel threatened by the simple matter of other peoples' identities.

I only see this ending with bloodshed. All of it. Both ends of the spectrum.

I'm certain that won't happen. If impeachment fails, Democrats will be simply voted in by 2020. I hope we don't have to wait so long, though. However, Trump's approval rating is currently at a lowly 42.8% according to FiveThirtyEight.

That's actually quite a high approval rating, especially for such a... ahem... "controversial" president. I personally think the chance of Trump getting re-elected is incredibly likely, and the chance for him getting impeached is almost zero. The only way dems could win the presidency is if they can run someone who's immune to Trump's rhetorical traps. Someone like Michael Avenatti could pulverize Trump because he knows the only way you can beat a bullshitter is with even more bullshit. On the other hand, if they run Warren or a Warren-esque, someone who think Facts and Logic and Respectability can beat a candidate who operates exclusively through lies and personal attacks, there's no way Dems will get a shot at the presidency until 2024 at the earliest.

Maybe. I think the only reason we lost in 2016 was because Democrats nominated someone like Hillary who was already so well-known and easy to bring down. Bernie would have easily destroyed Trump.