COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Tuesday, March 28, 2017

Senator McCain, Please step back a step or two, we would like to get a fuller view of the Rotunda balcony...



Democrats Should Be Weary of Anti-Russia Conservative Hucksters

Embracing Republican war hawks McMain and Graham will backfire

Opinion
gettyimages 161811051 Democrats Should Be Weary of Anti Russia Conservative Hucksters
Sen. John McCain and Sen. Lindsey Graham. Alex Wong/Getty Images

Several media outlets reported former Vice President Dick Cheney’s comments at a speech he gave on March 27 that Russia’s alleged election interference could be considered an “act of war,” lending credence the former public official who manipulated the public and Congress into providing consent for the Iraq War. Several members of Congress have made similar charges, including Sen. John McCain. Others have cautioned that such rhetoric could escalate tensions to a military conflict.

McCain is one of the leading Republicans pushing for an investigation of Russia’s role in the election and driving the McCarthyist narrative on the topic. In response to a foreign policy disagreement, he claimed that one of his colleagues, Sen. Rand Paul, was “working for Vladimir Putin.” Though McCain’s rhetoric has been praised by Democratic establishment leaders and Clinton partisans, it has proven to be unreliable. In December 2016, McCain and Sen. Lindsey Graham raised concerns about Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s relationship with Russia, ignoring the conflict of interest inherent in having the former CEO of Exxon Mobil serve as secretary of state. Those concerns apparently disappeared when they both voted to approve his confirmation weeks later, and McCain recently insisted that President Donald Trump provide Tillerson with a team of senior officials at the State Department.

Here lies the problem with the Trump resistance banking on conservative war hawks, such as Cheney and McMain, to help them lead the Russia election interference narrative: Conservatives will participate as long as it furthers their hawkish foreign policy views. The moment it threatens to undermine the Republican Party or their conservative ideology, they will abandon the cause in favor of partisanship.

22 comments:

  1. With McCain, it is always a tug of war between his congenital loathsomeness and his Alzheimers.

    ReplyDelete
  2. .

    NEWSPEAK

    ...oops, sorry, I mean...

    TRUMPSPEAK


    Trump has a distinctive way of talking, small words, repeated often to drum home his message. You recognize it immediately. Impressionists and comics have great fun with it.

    However, I came across the following video put out by Nerdwriter. It is short but goes into a more detailed analysis of Trump's speech patterns. I find it very interesting.

    He analyzes a single 220 word answer to a question by Jimmy Kimmel.

    The Trumpster

    .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Trump has a distinctive way of talking, small words, repeated often to drum home his message.
      Q-Speaker

      You mean words like bigot, racist, nitwit, moron, idiot, turd, shit, asshole repeated to the dreary end of time like.....you use ?

      bwabwabwabwahahahahaha

      Delete
    2. .

      No, dipshit.

      Most of the words you listed have two syllables. That's a heavy lift for Trump.

      But I can see how you would get tired of hearing it so often.

      I'll see if I can talk to you less. Now, all you have to do convince you wife to stop calling you them.

      .

      Delete
    3. Not to mention

      dick dick dick dick dick
      dick
      dick
      dick
      dick dick dick dick dick

      Delete
    4. If it were tick at least you'd sound like a clock.

      Delete
  3. So right now, even if Republicans have consciences that nag at them, they have every incentive to ignore them. Those incentives, however, could change.

    Richard Painter, who served as chief ethics lawyer in George W. Bush’s White House, expects some Republicans to develop spines sometime in 2018, after the threat of being primaried has passed. “They don’t want to fight with a president of their own party and risk a primary challenge,” he says.

    “Behind the scenes they’re expressing fear. You’re not going to see very many do what Nunes did, which is siding with the president”—at least, not so explicitly.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Senate Formally Backs Montenegro’s Bid to Join NATO
    Approval of measure backed by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is likely to increase tensions with Russia’s Vladimir Putin
    By JAY SOLOMON
    March 28, 2017 8:48 p.m. ET

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/senate-formally-backs-montenegros-bid-to-join-nato-1490748490


    Think of it....the Rooskie hacked our election, according to some, and this is what they get in return !

    ReplyDelete
  5. US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will attend a meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump April 6–7. Tillerson will skip an April 5–6 meeting of NATO foreign ministers.

    ...

    Figuring out when and where Trump and Xi would meet likely involved difficult negotiations. These meetings usually do, especially when they are tense and stakes are high.

    ...

    NATO meetings used to be of vital importance during the Cold War. Now, those discussions rarely intersect the main issue.

    The United States, wisely or not, has been fighting a war for 16 years in the Middle East. That war is now entering another phase in Syria with US forces being deployed there.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      Drip. Drip. Drip.

      Another year, another president, another escalation.

      .

      Delete
    2. .

      And the MIC yells, "$Cha-ching$".

      - -
      $ $
      0
      ---

      .

      Delete
    3. The world is never going to live up to your hopes and expectations for it so at least you should try not to drive yourself nuts about it.

      Just lookin' out for you....

      Delete
    4. Cheer yourself up -

      Here:

      Human Conditions Improving at a Remarkable Speed
      Over the last decade, GDP per person and life expectancy are up around the world while infant mortality and undernourished rates are down.
      Marian Tupy | March 28, 2017

      On a number of previous occasions, I have written about the extent of human progress around the world, but the remarkable speed of improvements in the state of humanity should not go unnoticed. To that end, I have looked at some of the most important indicators of human wellbeing, especially in the poor countries, over the last decade (or, when the latest data is not available, ten years prior to the last data point). The results are encouraging and ought to give us reason for optimism....

      http://reason.com/archives/2017/03/28/human-conditions-improving-at-a-remarkab

      Delete
  6. The biggest cut of all, 31 percent, was reserved for the Environmental Protection Agency. Its regulations safeguard our air and water and reduce pollutants and carbon dioxide in the face of a warming planet whose threat to the lives and livelihoods of this and future generations are being dismissed by the Trump administration.

    ...

    The first draft of the budget will be followed later in the spring by a more inclusive document that is expected to contain proposals on taxes and the biggest proportion of government spending that goes to what are called entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare.

    If the late American Health Care Act is any guide, we're in for another wrenching debacle.

    ReplyDelete
  7. .

    I'm watching a Canadian program at the moment.

    It's titled, "Give me Your Best, Your Brightest" - The Trump Bump

    It's a panel discussion by university executives talking about the Trump effect. They are all saying that as soon as Trump won they saw a jump in applications from international students including those from the US. If I heard them right (it was the subject they were discussing when I turned on the TV) it sounded like the international applications were up about 37% in Ontario.

    According to articles I've seen here over the past few weeks, the opposite is happening in the US. International students are thinking twice before applying to come to the US. This is not surprising given the uncertainty generated by Trump's travel ban and the perceived unwelcoming attitude.

    No doubt, some hicks in Idaho will applaud this but my view is that it sucks. Not only does it represent a significant financial loss, $ billions of dollars lost (international students usually pay full boat for their education unlike the domestic students), but the brain drain to the country is also significant. Many of these students decide to stay in the US adding to a highly educated domestic workforce. This is one of the reasons Silicon Valley was upset with Trump's plans.

    .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Did the 'university executives' talking about 'the Trump effect' say how many of the 'about 37%' were muzzies ?

      Delete
    2. Slick Urban Dick, did the 'university executives' talking about 'the Trump effect' say how many of the 'about 37%' were muzzies ?

      Delete
  8. Don't think about this, S.U.D. -

    Wonkblog Analysis
    Spiders could theoretically eat every human on Earth in one year
    By Christopher Ingraham March 28 at 7:00 AM

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/03/28/spiders-could-theoretically-eat-every-human-on-earth-in-one-year/?utm_term=.92ac32fa6363

    ReplyDelete
  9. David Daleiden, activist from secret Planned Parenthood videos, charged with 15 felonies
    Read more here:

    http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article141373303.html#storylink=cpy

    ReplyDelete