goDel

yeah, one point: you don't need to worry about Trump being elevated. he already is. has been since 2015. and he will be for the coming years. that's a given. and not necessarily a reason why he would win a coming election cycle, btw. and i use elevated in the most broad sense possible btw: getting attention. or a platform to get attention. he's the current president. his platform can't be more elevated than it already is. any fart he drops is important, because he's the president. and the media treats it like it's gold. if the next president is based on the amount of attention a candidate gets, trump has already won. i'd hope the us electorate uses more braincells when voting however. or rather, i'd hope the people growing tired of trump are smart enough to get off their ass and vote wisely the coming election. wrt your other points, i'll repeat what ive prolly said earlier: nothing about the coming election is normal. in a normal election you want someone to make a case. in those circumstances id agree. but the coming election is basically a vote on what you think a democracy should look like. do you want an authoriarian jackass who doesn't give a f*ck about other elected officials, or the democratic process, or government? or do you want someone who vaguely portrays an understanding of how a democracy should function? if people need a better case than this, all is hopeless - imo - and you (=us) probably deserve trump. nothing any dem can say will change this. the dems can talk all day about medicare for all, but at the end of the day you know that even if they win, they have to govern a country which is highly bipartisan and close to 50% disagree with any dem plan to implement such a thing. and the political process to improve the healthcare system will take years and years to materialise. even if it's some middle of the road version which the gop can live with. my guess is, people know this, so this democratic case has little to do with policies. it's more about some gut feeling people have. or rather: how hard do trump voters want to keep trump and vote for him? and how hard do others want get rid of trump. there's a third group of principled people who want to vote for someone they want to 'support' and all that (in some overly rationalised way). that's a minority, imo. and a group of people with plenty ideals (to the point of being irrational) who will never be satisfied in a normally functioning democracy. but that's another discussion.

fair! if you begin by responding to the criticisms towards gabbard there's more nuance to it and then directly go into "i fucking hate lindsey graham", it's immediately into cuckoo territory to the point where i wonder whether i should even continue. but ok, lets continue (and waste time, i'm afraid). you hate him but he had a point with respect to the 'secrecy' of the current house sessions regarding impeachment investigation. perhaps this is the nuance you're looking for (because gabbard was arguing this as well i guess)? feels like you put in that you hate graham to create some kind of opening. otherwise it's just a useless side point. but whatever. his argument being this is about democrats trying to influence polling numbers because it supposedly allows them to selectively leak info. let me begin here that this is a very flawed argument. for a couple of reasons. first it's a baseless accusation. is there proof dems are selectively leaking info? is it even reasonable to believe nothing will leak? and if gop members are also part of this "secret" investigation, why don't - or can't - they leak info which could improve trumps polling numbers? and this is just the start how awful grahams argument is. the real pain comes when you understand why it's preferable to have the sessions outside of the public eye. trey gowdy gave a good explanation back in the day (see how non-partisan my thinking is... hur hur). the reason is because in the public eye these sessions were unproductive and mostly showed partisan bickering. so in order to do a proper investigation without all the partisan BS, it's to be preferred to do these in private. another reason which is currently used is that you want the various testifiers unaware what is already said and therefore give as independent statements as possible. to me these seem like perfectly good reasons. we've witnessed many bullshit partisan bickering in sessions like these in the past. if you can avoid that, please do. so the arguments coming from graham and co are not particularly strong to begin with. and the public part is basically a given anyways, because this isn't a criminal investigation but a political one. everything will end up in public because in the end impeachment is a political 'thing'. imo, graham willingly creates confusion by arguing 'political' should imply that everything and every step along the way needs to be public. which is not the case (by laws put forward in a gop run congress). so there's nothing forcing the investigation itself to be done in public. next up in this mess: in the future? we're already there. long before this impeachment procedure. also, there's nothing wrong with the current process. and, i'd argue, there's a very good reason to start an impeachment procedure. or rather, many good reasons. and many have argued it should have been done earlier btw (criticisms towards pelosi). if you don't think there's a good reason to start an impeachment procedure, you're are in disagreement with career politicians and likely bolton the uber-gop hawk himself as well. you are exacerbating here. sure there are differences. but please take a breath and realise we're in the middle of a primary where politicians need to exaggerate differences in order to appeal to different voters. in reality, the differences aren't nearly as big as they might appear. and there's also the effect of politicians selling stuff they can't deliver. thinking of sanders revolutionary ideas here. i will get shit on for saying this, but the sanders revolution is just a selling point which he will never deliver even if he does get elected. (democracies...how do they work) you are on the verge of contradicting yourself. you hastily move past the question whether trump indeed won those debates. he won the elections even though he lost the popular vote, one might argue. so did trump won the debates? against hillary? my personal view is that both didn't lose or win. the debates were good enough to keep the needle largely where it already was. the anti-hrc crowd was never compelled to support her. and similarly, the anti-trump crowd were never put onto different thoughts. my expectations wrt the coming national debates will be: more of the same. trump and his opposing dem candidate can't win those debates. they can only lose. and the most likely outcome will be that nothing changes the needle. elections are being won by creating turnout. which is created by a mostly grassroots movement. (which happens to be stimulated by social media in significant ways nowadays. the debates are a relatively small part of the puzzle. they just happen to carry a high risk if a candidate fucks up. and given trumps baseline performance in these debates, he can not fuck them up more than he already has done. his supporters don't mind him fucking up) yeah, so about this nuance thing you started with...i guess nuance is only a strategy to defend your own position nowadays? attacking others is still without nuance i see. btw, this is why i initially felt your post didn't warrant an actual response btw. it looked like trolling. not sure where the nuance is wrt gabbard, btw. if she's really going to run as a third candidate, she's really sold her soul to the devil. what is she trying to achieve as a third candidate? if there's nuance here, do tell!

From what I'm reading in your post I've got to conclude nuance is dead. And rational thinking.

There are always lawyers for high profile cases. Which this most definitely is. That's not the issue. But a lawyer does need to be able to do his job. ( in the most clinical meaning: defending/advising the client) A client making it impossible for a lawyer to do his/her job, will be an issue. And given Giuliani is less outspoken the last couple days, it would suggest he's making it easier for lawyers to take this job. Also remember the willingness of lawyers to represent Cohen. Didn't his team work for free? Edit: high profile lawyers defending cohen. Not just some sleezebag lawyer.

Haven't read the article, but this could imply his inner circle is getting smaller. As opposed to the "Trump thinks he can do it himself " narrative. The way things are developing, inside the white house the situation must be getting more "each their own" by the day. Like we've seen DOJ responding to Mulvaneys public statements about the Ukraine thing. They're willing to publically contradict eachother. In other words, there is no collective narrative. It's this back drop that basically necessitates Trump being on his own as well. He always was in a way, of course. But he used to be collectively covered by his own people having some collective story regardless of what Trump personally said. The lack of a collective narritive hasn't got much to do with Trump saying he can do it all by himself, imo. It's a sign of things getting unmanageable by his team. If there even is a team, that is.

Giulianis butt might be smarter than his head nowadays...

It means they're fucking desperate

This? freebe extra:

enjoyed this explanation. ridiculously long and the way he tries to read Lynch quotes in character is annoying as f*ck, but great insight makes up! ?

Lol@ Romney secretly following Seth Abramson with a fake account. and bonus Lol for Mulvaney saying at Fox Trump considers himself still being in the hospitality business (context: originally wanted to organize the G7 at some Trump resort). To which Wallace responded "He's the president of the United States". House of Cards is so boring compared to the reality...

Hillary unchained? What made her coming out of the woods?

I bet the general feeling is to get this done as soon as possible. "You want your Brexit? Fine, have at it!" I must admit I was hoping for things to normalise once people got closer to an actual brexit. But there's no indication of this whatsoever. The brexiteers have become even more hell bent, it seems. The ukip-ers want to blow off this deal and prefer a no deal instead. Which basically forces other (softer) brexiteers to take this deal instead, as alternatives shrink by the minute. So yeah, can't wait for this nonsense to be over. The Johnson(May)-deal is the quick fix at this point. Sorry, Brits. This marriage is ending.

Funny how you need politicians to post evidence on twitter. Makes it a bit more credible, given all the nonsense thats out there.

Don't think HRC making these comments was a smart move, but as long as I can remember Tulsi had some shady aspects to her. And from the looks of it, there seems to be plenty foreign money in US politics nowadays. Almost to the point of people appearing naive to take money of just about anyone. The case against those Giuliani associates is another example. Going to be interesting where that leads.

A youtube for the capitalist end of the world types: Schiff - known for predicting the 2008 crash - predicts an even bigger crash in the coming years. Enjoy. ?

Interesting. Given Sondlands break from Trump, it looks like the net is tightening around Trump and Giuliani. As his position is basically: I did what I was ordered to do without knowing the bigger picture. Guessing others will do the same. If they can get away with it, that is (looks at Mulvaney and Pompeo). Giuliani is still on my "works with SDNY"-list, btw. And interestingly, Bolton was indeed close to the whistleblower...wasn't too far off on that, I guess ? https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/oct/17/gordon-sondland-testimony-trump-giuliani-ukraine

Oliver Stone was a Putin cheerleader nowadays, right?

Here's a silly idea: Giuliani is still working with SDNY as some sort of undercover agent Let this possibility sink in for a moment ;D

If youve got some time to spare, this is an interesting interview

Good points. The thing which seems to be muddled, to me at least, is the distinction between anti-establishment and anti-government. When things move to anti-government, it becomes even harder for the (any) government to do what it is supposed to do. I think for a lot of people anti-establishment and anti-government are more or less interchangeable. Which seems liek the ideal feeding ground for populism.

"Drain the swamp" seems to be code for "I hate Washington". And I'm guessing that for the people who hate Washington politics, Trumps warfare on its political norms can be a good thing. Regardless of what the constitution says. Or whether it increases the corruption even. In order to support a position where Trump sitting in the White House is not a problem, you have to think the alternative is an even bigger problem. That alternative is often referred to as the "status quo". Or the "establishment". And the 2020 campaigns will largely be based on this notion of having a fight against some status quo, or establishment. On both sides of the political spectrum, btw. It's not just Trump. The irony is staggering. As Trump in the White House confirms peoples ideas on politics. It corrupts Washington and in doing so justifies peoples anger. It's a feedback loop which looks difficult to break. ( a leftist anti-establishment candidate would lead to similar results, btw) This is basically what populism is about. Interestingly, it redefines the political spectrum where the extremes on the left and right are closer to each other than to their usual moderate "allies". And the moderates on the left and right are similarly closer to each other as well. Left/right seems to be replaced with populism/anti-populism. Although I'm sure the populists wouldn't consider themselves populists. Somehow they seem to tell themselves a story that their anti-establishment position is different to populism. I mean, I don't see many people identifying themselves as populists. Seems to me a strange phenomenon where real anger and fake politics feed of each other. As far as I'm concerned this anger is a vital part of this positive feedback loop. And following the media, the anger only seems to grow. You can guess where the politics is going. Or rather, the fake politics.

for the record: it was a response to the bernie update nebraska posted. not the interview. the bernie update was made after his visit to the hospital. ?

Don't think that is the case. Criminal process (or rather, an investigation) is different to an indictment of a sitting president. Just like Mueller already did an investigation into the presidents behaviour, but couldn't indict him (or rather, couldn't come to a "guilty" verdict because indictment wasn't an option). The investigation itself was not the issue.

He looks pretty good for someone who had a heart attack. I've seen worse. Don't think he's back on his old energy levels yet, though. But who knows. Things can improve. Although I must say, I've seen plenty people who never returned to their old self.

guessing it's about the politics and the money. saudis are in a position such that the us depends on them one way or the other. and perhaps it could be that they have stuff on trump himself. which is why national security is such an important issue in the coming impeachment procedure. it would explain why the saudis could get away with this. whether or not they have something on trump though, it's good to remember that the eu also allows the saudis to (largely) get away with their behaviour. so there's going to be more to it than just trump. in the end their oil production is key obviously. *remembers the putin msb high 5-ing at one of those international summits*