What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[FunkMonk]

For FunkMonk. 

I'll say one thing for Donald. He knows a mark when he sees one.

[DGuller]

Never figured the day would come when Republicans would actually support Russians over their own countrymen.  Men over women's rights? Not suprising.  Biblethumping over education and personal freedom? Naturally. Teabagger racists over a negro? Disappointing, but also not shocking. 

But Russia?  The bad guys?  Shameful, shameful.  Hopefully your unvaccinated children will live through their teenage pregnancies to see the error of your decision.

  Remember that time Mitt said the Russians were the biggest threat and you laughed at him?  Do you... do you remember that?

I've said it then, I've been saying it since, I'll say it now:  Mitt had this one nailed and Obama was dead wrong to mock him.

[DGuller]

The Russians are not the biggest threat.  At least they wouldn't be if they hadn't successfully planted their asset directly in the White House.

They may not be as powerful as China, but their willingness to use whatever weapons they have against US and its democratic allies makes them the biggest threat.  Trump or not, they are stoking civil unrest inside our country.  It's not that our own fascist demagogues need any help, but Putin is helping them just the same rather effectively.

[DGuller]

They're not our number #1 geopolitical threat, derslavcocksmoker; China (People's Republic of) is, and will continue to be for what remains of the 21st century.

Russia is just our #1 geopolitical nuisance.  At least, they were until they were given the White House.  Talk about leaping to the head of the class.

Isn't being a threat implies an ability to deal damage in the future?  In which case how could they not have been a threat while installing their agents in the White House?

[CountDeMoney]

They're not our number #1 geopolitical threat, derslavcocksmoker; China (People's Republic of) is, and will continue to be for what remains of the 21st century.

Russia is just our #1 geopolitical nuisance.  At least, they were until they were given the White House.  Talk about leaping to the head of the class.

Isn't being a threat implies an ability to deal damage in the future?  In which case how could they not have been a threat while installing their agents in the White House?

I am banning you and your alt when I get home.

[jimmy olsen]

It is of course a political process.  And what's clear with Trump is that no individual story is ever going to bring him down.  It's the sheer volume of stories over the months and years that will wear down his approval numbers.

This is one of those things that will keep on being stable until it reaches an inflection point and collapses. Just look at Governor Christie, and former President Park of Korea. Both politicians who at one point were much more popular than Trump ever was. They were dinged by scandal, but kept the hard core support of their party for a long time, until it one day suddenly collapsed. It's almost impossible to predict when it will happen. It could be tomorrow, could be years from now.

[jimmy olsen]

Interesting

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article160803619.html

Trump-Russia investigators probe Jared Kushner-run digital operation

By Peter Stone and Greg Gordon
McClatchy Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON  —

Investigators at the House and Senate Intelligence committees and the Justice Department are examining whether the Trump campaign's digital operation – overseen by Jared Kushner – helped guide Russia's sophisticated voter targeting and fake news attacks on Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Congressional and Justice Department investigators are focusing on whether Trump's campaign pointed Russian cyber operatives to certain voting jurisdictions in key states – areas where Trump's digital team and Republican operatives were spotting unexpected weakness in voter support for Hillary Clinton, according to several people familiar with the parallel inquiries.

Also under scrutiny is the question of whether Trump associates or campaign aides had any role in assisting the Russians in publicly releasing thousands of emails, hacked from the accounts of top Democrats, at turning points in the presidential race, mainly through the London-based transparency web site WikiLeaks.
Rep. Adam Schiff of California, ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told McClatchy he wants to know whether Russia's "fake or damaging news stories" were "coordinated in any way in terms of targeting or in terms of timing or in terms of any other measure ... with the (Trump) campaign."

By Election Day, an automated Kremlin cyberattack of unprecedented scale and sophistication had delivered critical and phony news about the Democratic presidential nominee to the Twitter and Facebook accounts of millions of voters. Some investigators suspect the Russians targeted voters in swing states, even in key precincts.

Russia's operation used computer commands knowns as "bots" to collect and dramatically heighten the reach of negative or fabricated news about Clinton, including a story in the final days of the campaign accusing her of running a pedophile ring at a Washington pizzeria.

One source familiar with Justice's criminal probe said investigators doubt Russian operatives controlling the so-called robotic cyber commands that fetched and distributed fake news stories could have independently "known where to specifically target ... to which high-impact states and districts in those states."

All of the sources spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation, led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, is confidential.

Top Democrats on the committees investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election have signaled the same.

Schiff said he wants the House panel to determine whether Trump aides helped Russia time its cyberattacks or target certain voters and whether there was "any exchange of information, any financial support funneled to organizations that were doing this kind of work."



Trump son-in-law Kushner, now a senior adviser to the president and the only current White House aide known to be deemed a "person of interest" in the Justice Department investigation, appears to be under the microscope in several respects. His real estate finances and December meetings with Russia's ambassador and the head of a sanctioned, state-controlled bank are also being examined.

Kushner's "role as a possible cut-out or conduit for Moscow's influence operations in the elections," including his niche overseeing the digital operations, will be closely looked at, said the source knowledgeable about the Justice Department inquiry.

Kushner joined Donald Trump Jr. and Trump campaign Chairman Paul Manafort at a newly disclosed June 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer at Trump Tower in New York.. The meeting, revealed by The New York Times, followed emails in which Trump Jr. was told the lawyer for the Russian government would provide him with incriminating information on Clinton and he replied "If it's what you say I love it."

That disclosure could only serve to heighten interest in whether there was digital collaboration.

Mike Carpenter, who in January left a senior Pentagon post where he worked on Russia matters, also has suspicions about collaboration between the campaign and Russia's cyber operatives.



"There appears to have been significant cooperation between Russia's online propaganda machine and individuals in the United States who were knowledgeable about where to target the disinformation," he said, without naming any American suspects.

Trump has repeatedly repudiated or equivocated about the finding of four key intelligence agencies – the FBI, CIA, National Security Agency and the Directorate of National Intelligence – that Russian cyber operatives meddled with the U.S. election.

Last Friday, during their first face-to-face meeting, Trump questioned Putin about Russia's role in the election meddling and Putin denied culpability, said Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who was present. Trump then said the two countries should find ways to move forward in their relationship, Tillerson said.

A Russian official who was at the meeting said the two sides agreed to form a working group to address cybersecurity, including interference in other countries' internal affairs. However, Trump backtracked Sunday night, saying in a tweet that he doesn't believe such an effort can happen.

As more has been learned about the breadth of the Russian cyber onslaught, congressional Democrats have shown growing resolve to demand that the Republican-controlled intelligence committees fully investigate ways in which Trump associates may have conspired with the Russians.

Among other things, congressional investigators are looking into whether Russian operatives, who successfully penetrated voting registration systems in Illinois, Arizona and possibly other states, shared any of that data with the Trump campaign, according to a report in Time.

"I get the fact that the Russian intel services could figure out how to manipulate and use the bots," Virginia Sen. Mark Warner told Pod Save America recently. "Whether they could know how to target states and levels of voters that the Democrats weren't even aware (of) really raises some questions ... How did they know to go to that level of detail in those kinds of jurisdictions?"

The Russians appear to have targeted women and African-Americans in two of the three decisive states, Wisconsin and Michigan, "where the Democrats were too brain dead to realize those states were even in play," Warner said.

Twitter's and Facebook's search engines in those states were overwhelmed, he said, meaning they couldn't discern fake news from real news.

"On your news feed, you suddenly got ... 'Hillary Clinton's sick' or 'Hillary Clinton's stealing money from the State Department,'" said Warner.

It started even before Trump locked up the nomination. Throughout the Republican primary elections in early 2016, Russia sent armies of bots carrying pro-Trump messages and deployed human "trolls" to comment in his favor on Internet stories and in social media, former FBI special agent Clint Watts told Congress weeks ago.

Watts, now a cybersecurity specialist with the Foreign Policy Research Institute, said the targets included former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham.

As Donald Trump was locking up the Republican presidential nomination in May 2016, a U.S. intelligence intercept picked up Russians discussing ways to spread news damaging to Clinton, two people familiar with the matter said.

No one has proved that Russia's attack influenced the vote count in the Nov. 8 general election., but it wouldn't have taken much to tip the results and change the course of history.

Clinton lost the decisive states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania by a combined 77,744 votes out of 13.9 million ballots cast. She could have won Michigan if 5,353 Trump voters had gone for her instead, Wisconsin if 11,375 votes had flipped to her and Pennsylvania if 22,147 Trump voters had instead picked her.

Kushner's pivotal role in the Trump cyber effort was underscored by his hiring in 2015 of Brad Parscale, a Texas-based digital guru who previously had done work for the Trump Organization, said two GOP operatives familiar with the campaign.

Parscale's company raked in about $90 million for work targeting many states with paid advertisements, social media messages and other cyber tools.

As the Trump campaign's top digital director, Parscale ran much of the operation from his San Antonio offices. He is expected to appear before at least one of several congressional committees investigating aspects of Russia's interference in the election.

Parscale could not be reached for comment.

CNN quoted him last month as dismissing suggestions that Russian-directed online bots would have been effective in swinging votes to Trump. He said the campaign did not find Twitter -- where those bots mainly functioned – to be an effective tool.

Washington attorney Abbe Lowell, who was recently hired to be Kushner's chief defense counsel and has "a reputation as a guy you hire if you're going to do battle with the government," according to one former federal prosecutor, declined to comment on the Russia inquiries facing Kushner.

Shortly after his name arose in the inquiry, Kushner publicly volunteered to tell Congress about his Russia contacts and to answer questions about all issues for which he's being scrutinized. Another of Kushner's lawyers, Jamie Gorelick, says he will cooperate with both congressional and Justice Department investigations.

However, no interview date has been set, and Kushner's attorneys decline to say whether he has produced records sought by the Senate Intelligence Committee.

[jimmy olsen]

Creepy as fuck
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mail-ashes-trumpcare_us_590b9bc3e4b0d5d9049ad475

This Website Will Mail Your Ashes To The GOP If Trumpcare Kills You. Really.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, to House Republicans.


Washington, D.C., college student Zoey Salsbury has insurance today, thanks to a provision in the Affordable Care Act that allows children to stay on their parents' health care plan up to age 26.


She said she watched in horror Thursday as House Republicans passed an Obamacare repeal bill called the American Health Care Act, either unaware their legislation would kill people, or simply unsympathetic enough to care.


So, Salsbury set out to make GOP politicians face the consequences of their vote, launching mailmetothegop.com, a website that pledges to send the ashes of your cremated body to a member of Congress, should you die because of the Republican health plan.


The National Funeral Directors Association says it's illegal to ship cremated remains via any carrier other than the U.S. Postal Service, which put together a helpful guide, including a photo of what your remains might look like:


United States Postal Service


"Yes, it is real," Salsbury, a junior at American University, told HuffPost Thursday, shortly after her new website was overwhelmed by traffic and crashed.


"Many of my friends will die" if this becomes law, she said. "People will literally die, and they don't see that that's going to happen."


The GOP bill, which has no chance of passing the Senate, would cast millions off insurance, undermining Obamacare protections for the sick and poor, including those with pre-existing medical conditions. It would keep the popular provision that allows children to remain on parents' policies until age 26.


Salsbury explained she made MailMeToTheGOP.com on a whim after chatting with some of her friends who would be affected.


"It's really morbid and not fun to talk about," she added. "But that's the reality of passing a health care bill like this."

[Ed Anger]

As president, I would collect all those ashes and piss on them on YouTube.

[viper37]

We may have KKK tinged justice now, but we're not that far gone yet.

yet.

[viper37]

As president, I would collect all those ashes and piss on them on YouTube.

lame.

a true presidential candidate would hire prostitutes to piss on them.

[DGuller]

As president, I would collect all those ashes and piss on them on YouTube.

lame.

a true presidential candidate would hire prostitutes to piss on them.

All of the ashes?  I don't think anyone has that kind of money.

[jimmy olsen]

Kid Rock running for Senate? 

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/is-kid-rocks-campaign-website-the-real-deal/

[derspiess]

Bravetrump

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCAD-yNB74k

Love the Alex Jones bit

[Razgovory]

So, now the now the wall is going to be transparent so you don't get hit in the head by bags of drugs.  I'm really questioning my doctor's decision to take me off anti-psychotics. The world just gets weirder and weirder.