gulliver
gulliver's JournalSarah Sanders can't just use her government position to attack a citizen.
We're all so worried about whether the Red Hen owner did the right thing by kicking out Sanders that we seem to be overlooking the far greater wrong done by Sarah Sanders. Can Sanders just use her office and platform to attack a private citizen like that?
The Red Hen owner was completely within her rights to kick someone she didn't like (for non-discrimination reasons) out the door. Do we think it's Ok for government officials to then attack citizens for exercising their property and free speech rights?
No way.
What if Sarah Sanders were just Sarah Sanders, manager of a tree service, and not the President's Press Secretary? Sure, she might tweet how pissed off she was about being kicked out of the Red Hen for backing taking children away from their parents and lying all the time. Her five followers might care. So what?
But Sanders, the federal government employee and highly placed political administration official, has 3 million followers. They aren't following her. They are following her position. She just abused it.
Why are we being so nice about this? What Sanders did can't be allowed in America. She needs to resign.
Force Trump to build a border wall?
Trump refused a deal from Schumer that included a "border wall" back in January. I don't think Trump wants a border wall. He would be right not to want one, in my opinion. It's a huge loser for him.
Maybe Dems should force him to build one then. I'm not talking about "enhanced fencing with drones and patrols." I'm talking about a wall. We should force Trump to build a "really huge, beautiful wall," just like he always says he wants.
Bear with me. (And, remember, there are no bad ideas in brainstorming.)
If the Dems put a fully funded, fully Trump-featured border wall on the table, then DACA would become law. Most people (even a lot of Republicans) support a DACA deal. The Dems would get credit for compromising. The dreamers, importantly, would get a path to citizenship.
Trumpies, unlike Trump, really want a wall. Trump would have a hard time refusing a deal that delivers to the Trumpies exactly what Trump sold them. Republicans in Congress, like Trump, probably don't really want a wall, especially border state Republicans. However, as we have seen, Congressional Republicans are petrified of resisting Trump on anything.
Despite being forced into the deal, Trump would declare it a huge victory. Republicans in Congress would be under a lot of pressure not to deny Trump his "victory." Dems would be voting for the deal. Would the Republicans in Congress choose that moment to turn on Trump? It doesn't seem likely. Either we would get enough Republicans to pass the deal or Republicans would need to be near-unanimous in rejecting a deal supported by Trump.
The wall in the deal would have to be "huge and beautiful," just like Trump has always described it. It can't be a compromised, more economical, less environmentally invasive version of the wall or Trump can refuse the deal (which, as I say, he probably wants to do anyway). We could offer Trump $25 billion for a giant, brick-and-mortar, barbed-wire-topped, electronically surveilled wall. Can a Trumpian wall be built for $25B? Who knows? But let's hear Trump try to school the Dems on how dumb they are and raise the cost to $100 billion. I don't think he'll do it, because he doesn't want the true cost of his big, beautiful, stupid wall known.
Regardless of a deal, the wall's not going to be built anyway. In theory, Trump would go down in flames by 2020 whether he makes the deal or refuses it (or Mueller nabs him). If Trump refuses, he refuses to build the wall his Trumpie base wants. If he takes the deal, the project immediately runs into physical and political reality problems that it doesn't have to face while it is merely hot air. Two years is a long time for Republicans in Congress to stand by watching Trump fail at trying to build a monument to Republican folly. It would test their survival instincts.
The Dems don't even have to be disingenuous in the deal. The whole time we are negotiating, we can be completely clear about how idiotic the wall idea is, how Mexico was supposed to have paid for it, etc. The Dems can be up front. It's the Republicans, including Trump, who will have to be disingenuous. (That's ok, because they are really good at it.) They'll have to pretend they love the wall while scrambling to figure out a way not to support it.
If Dems don't do a wall deal, then Trump is going to use his being denied a wall (again, a wall he probably doesn't really want) against us. The Republican Congress will fail to resolve immigration, but they and Trump will blame the Dems. Republicans will try to stampede people (much like they did with Iraq under Bush in the 2002 midterms) into believing there is an imminently dangerous, huge crisis that doesn't really exist. Dems will be cast as "open borders," traitorous, obstructionist...blah...blah...Republican bullshit as usual...blah.
The cards don't look terrible for November without giving Trump his wall, so sitting tight, denying Trump a victory, and trying to win on the sheer nuttiness of the orange clown and the obsequiousness of his Congressional Republicans is promising. It's (I suppose) the safe play. And maybe there are some other things coming. Obama may get in the act for example, and we could get some more high profile traditional Republican defections. We also have some pretty good candidates, while the Republicans are still barring non-nuts from participation on their side.
If the Republicans do end up with a wall project, though, especially a Trumpian wall project, it could be good for Dems for years to come. For the price of, say, $25B (think of it as stimulous for the construction industry), we get a monument to Republican idiocy. Texans already don't like the idea. It has no chance of succeeding. When it finally fails, the Dem majority can fund the demolition project for whatever small parts of it are actually built. However we should leave about a 5-mile section of it, paint it gold, and put a plaque on it. We can have a contest about what to put on the plaque.
/opinion
Is anyone still mad about Trump blackly lying about Dems?
Because I am.
The lying orange clown said that those kids were being separated from their parents because of us, not him. He told the whole world that. I'm going to have a hard time forgetting that, so I'm not going to try to. I'm struggling between thinking Dems should demand an apology for Trump's black lie about us or just tell him he owes us an apology but can keep it where the sun don't shine.
And, I certainly hope we don't rest easy thinking he backed down. He didn't.
Trump uses Twitter for "script injection" into the news media.
In software security, there is an attack known as "script injection." In effect, the attacker gets a website to pass bad JavaScript language code to the user's browser. It's probably why we have only limited markup (bold, italics, link, blockquote, etc.) here on DU. The site will scour out any true JavaScript language code that a member tries to put into the text of a post. That protects the users who view the post.
Trump, whether by luck, instinct, or design, is injecting his "English language scripts" into the news media. Unfortunately, they are playing them.
For example, think about this latest case where he refers to himself in the third person as "Trump." His first sentence is as follows:
"This memo totally vindicates 'Trump' in probe,"
What will happen is that the news media (anchors and so forth) will read the sentence above verbatim in order to quote Trump. They will say something like the following:
"President Trump tweeted today that the Republican memo vindicates him. According to Trump, 'This memo totally vindicates Trump in probe.'"
He has just gotten a news anchor to say "This memo totally vindicates Trump in probe." People who aren't listening closely may think the anchor is the one saying the memo vindicates Trump, not Trump himself. That's good for Trump. It wouldn't work if Trump had referred to himself in the first person.
Obviously, I can't say for sure that is what he is doing or that it actually plays out as a true security exploit at the human media level. But it does look familiar from a software security standpoint. It looks like a hack.
Hillary has the right and almost an obligation to say Trump didn't win.
I'll just say what I assume a lot of people are thinking, hopefully Clinton herself. I am strongly in favor of Hillary Clinton asserting that she won the election.
FACT 1: The election was decided on 39,659 votes spread across three states, barely giving Trump the electoral college votes he needed.
FACT 2: Russian computer hacking and media manipulation attacks were against Hillary Clinton and resulted in steady negative news coverage against her. There is a preponderance of evidence that an intolerable crime was committed by Russia against the United States, and it cost Clinton not just 39,659 votes but probably a lot more.
FACT 3: Trump said, "In addition to winning the electoral college in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally." Mr. Trump has a guilty mind. His lie shows that.
Hillary should not be concerned about airy political "norms" here. There is nothing stopping her from saying she won. There is every reason why she should say she won. She would be protecting real people and real truth in real reality.
Right now, the Republicans are saying that the intelligence report on Russian hacking is politically motivated on the part of the Dems. Right now, the Republicans are saying that Democrats trying to hold Trump's nominees to traditional ethical standards are politically motivated. A pattern is emerging. If we let the Republicans get away with it, they are going to abuse their power and the truth itself without bounds. They are going to hold their heads high when they should be looking at their shoes and glancing over their shoulders for cops, when they should be looking upward to watch for lightning bolts.
Hillary is in a unique position here. Obama can't say she won if she doesn't say it first. Democrats can't say she won if she doesn't. If Hillary Clinton says she won, she puts a harpoon in Trump and his Republicans that they are going to have a hard time getting out. People know truth when they hear it.
Given Trump's debate record with Clinton, I wonder how he would do in a media fight where Clinton has the truth on her side and won't go away. I sure would like to find out how that would go.
Sorry, but Putin won America fair and square.
The Constitution doesn't say anything about foreign governments being allowed to pick our President. It's not like Putin sent troops over to America, conquered us, and installed the President he wants us to have. He just tricked a whole bunch of Americans into doing it for him. So it's ok.
Putin won America. Legally, he gets to keep us. Sorry, Americans, but fair is fair.
A New Spirit of Compromise
(BNN, Washington)
In what many are calling a "New Spirit of Compromise," President Donald Trump reached an agreement with Republicans in the Senate and House on the Trump Wall.
"The era of gridlock has ended," announced Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. "The United States Congress and the President of the United States have created a new spirit of compromise. We now have a president who understands what compromise means."
Details of the revised legislation emerged over the past three days as Congressional Republicans worked long hours to craft the agreement with President Trump's team. Trump officials confirmed that the wall height in the legislation will be fixed at 12 feet for the entire 40-mile length of the wall.
"The new wall will be beautiful," announced a jubilant Trump via Twitter. "It's bigger and longer than the Great Wall of China. And Mexico is paying for it." BNN has not been able to confirm that the planned wall will in fact be bigger and longer than the Great Wall of China, although the claim raised some skepticism among Democrats. Reached for comment, Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi alleged that the wall in China was actually "a lot bigger than that, you idiots."
In a statement to the press, a spokesman for Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto confirmed that Mexico has agreed to pay for the wall. "What can we say, Trump voters? You win. Mexico will pay for the wall with new bonds. Your President Trump truly drives a hard bargain. Your American Social Security Administration is getting a great deal on the bonds."
Man-on-the-street interviews with Trump supporters found them supportive of the compromise. "With Obama in power, this never would have happened," said Arnold "Arnie" Arnold. "Never. We finally have a government in Washington that knows how to work together to give the American people what they deserve."
Scarborough Fair (update for the American voter)
Are you goin' to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme
Remember me to one who lives there
They once were a leader of mine
Tell him to lead us to better healthcare
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
With everyone happy on the way there
Then he'll be a leader of mine
Tell her to manage the Wall Street crowd
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
And never say "capitalism" out loud
Then she'll be a leader of mine
Tell her to fight like a female Conan
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
But funny, authentic, and not like a man
Then she'll be a leader of mine
Tell him to bring all Earth's people together
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
With us right behind him (barring bad weather)
Then he'll be a leader of mine
Are you goin' to Scarborough Fair
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
Remember me to one who lives there
They once were a leader of mine
Resiliency
You can't be resilient if every little thing tailspins you into emotional oblivion. What Donald Trump has shown (and what George W. Bush showed before Trump) is resiliency. Nothing destroys a person or position that has it. No matter how many times George W. Bush made himself look like a complete idiot on live TV, he simply bounced back and acted like it didn't matter. By doing that, he made it not matter. Trump did and does the same thing constantly.
People on the left are going to make mistakes, even mistakes that make them look "dishonest" or "two-faced" or "traitors to the cause" or "stupid" to one person or another. We need to just accept the fact that everybody is a little dishonest, a little two-faced, a little judgmental, a little selfish, a little sneaky, a little dumb, a little stuck up. None of those things should surprise us. None of them should shake loyalty or self-acceptance at all. We need to stop being so damned emotionally lightweight and easy to turn.
Part of the double standard treatment Hillary and all Democrats get is our own double standard. We need to be the good guys, not the saints. It's easy to be the good guy, nearly impossible to be a saint. We need to wear our dirt proudly. Then when someone tosses more dirt at us, it won't be noticeable.
Dem "political power systems" need to adopt a less hackable architecture.
Our political architecture is vulnerable to dedicated adversaries. If you think of Dem political power as a system, we have numerous system vulnerabilities. These have been demonstrated in the most convincing way possible, by exploitation. Someone needs to hit the whiteboard. We need a security upgrade.
Since the Dems tend to be the brains of the outfit when it comes to American politics, our vulnerabilities translate into American vulnerabilities. We owe it to the country to not be so incompetent when it comes to security, not just computer security but the overall robustness of our entire system. That includes institutions like the DNC, processes like the primary system, and computer systems. We have more fence holes in all of those than fence.
The Republican system is much more robust than ours. It isn't vulnerable to rationality, empathy, or ethics at anything near the level we are, for example. They don't play by the same rules we do. Even a cataclysm like the George W. Bush presidency wasn't enough to destroy the Republican Party. They learned from it. We didn't.
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