45th President of the United States, Donald Trump. (Vol 6)

[Byker28i]

And here we go

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
Greatest Witch Hunt in the History of our Country! NO COLLUSION! Border Coyotes, Drug Dealers and Human Traffickers are treated better. Who alerted CNN to be there?

Meanwhile a judge has released stone on a $250,000 bond

[Byker28i]

Nobody alerted CNN to be there. They say Jerome Corsi’s stepson testify to Mueller’s Grand Jury yesterday and figured an indictment would drop. So a reporter went to Florida to stake out Roger Stone’s house.

Those FBI agents probably weren't getting paid

[Byker28i]

Roger Stone will be released on a $250,000 personal assurance bond after his arrest; he will have travel restrictions that'll only allow him to travel to court appearances in Florida, D.C. or New York

Nancy Pelosi is rubbing trumps nose in it...
"It is very interesting to see the kinds of people that the president of the United States has surrounded himself with."

[Blackpuddin]

Byker28i said:

Those FBI agents probably weren't getting paid

Indeed, they're not:
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/federal-agents-pai...
And Trump almost certainly won't have made that connection. What an idiot.

[andy_s]

Byker28i said:

Nancy Pelosi is rubbing trumps nose in it...
"It is very interesting to see the kinds of people that the president of the United States has surrounded himself with."

"Only the best people"...

[Byker28i]

Stone stepped outside the court to speak to the press and was met with chants of "lock him up"

[Byker28i]

Adam Schiff: "Most significant is the allegation that a senior campaign official was 'directed' in July 2016 to contact Mr. Stone about additional Wikileaks releases. Our Committee will be eager to learn just who directed a senior campaign official to contact Stone."

Adam Schiff: "At the very time that then-candidate Trump was publicly encouraging Russia's help in acquiring Clinton-related emails, his campaign was privately receiving information about the planned release of stolen Clinton emails."

[Tartan Pixie]

fblm said:

Tartan Pixie said:

... What I was not expecting was the most switched on rant about immigration I've ever heard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDtiTNHPfyo
...

Oh my god, his delivery is so manic he's got my nerves on edge! WTF!

Yeah sorry about that, I find him funny but clearly not to everyone's taste.

His observation that the left and right do not represent their constituents very well and the parties have become a media pastiche of what they are supposed to represent isn't new however it's certainly got my mind working. In particular I wonder if some of the commonly held assumptions about the education of voters and their resistance to propaganda are correct?

The common assumption seems to be that the western world has become more polarized with more extreme parties gaining votes at the expense of the moderate center ground, therefore voters must be unintelligent and getting duped by the propaganda of these more extreme politicians. Trump is a prime example of this where because there are genuinely dumb people who vote for him the charge gets leveled that all Trump voters must be dumb, however what if the reverse is true?

What if people are better educated and more resistant to propaganda than they used to be, would we see a difference in voting patterns?

If people have become sufficiently educated that they are no longer with happy the level of competence and professionalism offered by main stream politicians, and god knows there's little enough of either attribute currently on show in America or Britain, then what democratic options do they have other than more extreme parties to vote for? None as far as I can see, therefore people changing their vote because they have become more educated due to the internet will look the same in election results as people who have changed their vote because they are susceptible to internet propaganda.

I think the test of this hypothesis will be in the consistency of voting patterns. If people really are getting sucked in by the propaganda then we would expect to see a long term shift towards the propaganda, so more MAGA hats and Russian bots. If on the other hand it is as I suspect that the population in general is more educated since the advent of the internet then we're more likely to see a swaying from one side to the other where, eg, a person votes for Obama, decides that didn't work so tries the other direction and votes for Trump, then when that doesn't work either they sway the other way and vote left again, until that doesn't work... etc, etc, repeat until someone in the centre ground gets their act together.

Just a random musing, time will tell I guess.

fblm said:

Tartan Pixie said:

...living on the scabby crust of a nuclear reactor...

Learn something new every day!

To be fair the earth is not a nuclear reactor in the way a nuclear power plant is, there is no chain reaction of unstable uranium atoms, however a large part of the heat needed to keep the core molten comes from radioactive decay, article here. Technically this is more of a nuclear reaction rather than a nuclear reactor but the end result is the same, lots of heat that drives the convection currents which drive plate tectonics. Doesn't sound as pithy put that way though

[EvoDelta]

If you haven't seen it the documentary 'Get Me Roger Stone' on Netflix is quite enlightening.

[Tartan Pixie]

Halb said:

Tartan Pixie said:

Immigration isn't a subject that raises my pulse, I find it interesting from an anthropological point of view and how migration fits in to the bigger picture of economics, geopolitics and memetics but at the end of the day we're all meatbags living on the scabby crust of a nuclear reactor that tends to wipe out its inhabitants every so often and are participating in a fragile experiment that as far as we know is unique in the universe to see what happens when you combine enough amino acids with a carbon and oxygen rich atmosphere to produce intelligent life. Perhaps that's why I've never met a racist cosmologist, however I digress.

you a fan of reading sci-fi?

Yes, does it show?

Halb said:

Tartan Pixie said:

...Russia is generally white, christian and homophobic...
Russia trying to pick up useful idiots in the west is nothing new but what is new is that today's useful idiots are all on the right wing.

It's funny. Even on these pages people still think of Russia as communist/USSR, but Russia is more like USA on steroids, with 800 families who run things reduced to 8. You just know that there are yanks (brits too) who would love to return to such extreme oligarchy, and are natural allies with the Russian rulers.

Yeah and I think for that reason the Mueller inquiry needs to raise the charge of treason before it will have any significant impact. Collusion, witness tempering, etc will have little impact on people whose opinion of regular politicians is so low that Trump has only really lowered the bar in terms of decorum rather than honesty and effectiveness. Perhaps that's what happens when you spend many millions each election cycle on convincing people that xxx party is evil and out to get you.

Edit, data failure on my part. I falsely assumed that America would be similar to here in the UK where trust in politicians is under 20%. Apparently over 50% of people trust politicians in America. I suspect there may be more to the numbers than first appears as I've met some very cynical Americans over the years but the results are surprising to me none the less.

Edited by Tartan Pixie on Friday 25th January 18:09

[p1stonhead]

‘Just go speak to the guy running the supermarket and he will probably give you free food’

https://twitter.com/sparksjls/status/1088591544230...

[Byker28i]

p1stonhead said:

‘Just go speak to the guy running the supermarket and he will probably give you free food’

https://twitter.com/sparksjls/status/1088591544230...

I was trying t work out what all this "work along" that trump was on about. Does this man everyone should go into his properties for a free meal and just ask to work along?

Then Wilbur Ross didn't understand why people needed food banks, as we leant he walks the White House in $500 slipper with his departmental logo on them.

[_dobbo_]

p1stonhead said:

‘Just go speak to the guy running the supermarket and he will probably give you free food’

https://twitter.com/sparksjls/status/1088591544230...

This is the guy that a significant percentage of the American people think is looking out for them. Man of the people indeed.

[Blackpuddin]

p1stonhead said:

‘Just go speak to the guy running the supermarket and he will probably give you free food’

https://twitter.com/sparksjls/status/1088591544230...

Christ almighty, how detached from reality is he?

[Byker28i]

"I am person number one," in the Stone indictment, Corsi said. "The statements in the indictment about me are accurate."
"They're consistent with the testimony I gave to the special counselor," Corsi said.
"What is contained in the indictment confirms I did nothing wrong

[anonymous-user]

Blackpuddin said:

p1stonhead said:

‘Just go speak to the guy running the supermarket and he will probably give you free food’

https://twitter.com/sparksjls/status/1088591544230...

Christ almighty, how detached from reality is he?

Completely, given Donald was given vast amounts of free money from daddy.

[Byker28i]

So now trumps campaign is completely linked to the Russian hackers, that senior team trump were kept frequently updated, that someone (trump) directed bannon to keep updated...


What's the betting trump declares a state of emergency to build his wall as a distraction?

[Byker28i]

Looks like trump is backing down

Congressional leaders and President Trump have reached a tentative deal to temporarily reopen the government and continue talks on Trump’s demand for border wall money, Capitol Hill officials said Friday.

With Trump’s approval, the pact would reopen shuttered government departments for three weeks while leaving the issue of $5.7 billion for the U.S.-Mexico border wall to further talks.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/senate-lea...

[unrepentant]

captain_cynic said:

If Trump had any brains, he'd resign and let Pence take over, that way whatever Mueller has on him doesn't matter as Pence can simply pardon him al a Ford and Nixon.

No pardon will save him from the SDNY and I would imagine they will be issuing plenty of indictments as soon as Trump leaves office.

[LarryUSA]

He's caved!