Yes, its economy is about 1/2 of California. The thing is, good Russian leadership could have improved education, strengthened the rule of law, actually passed good laws, attracted tons of foreign investment, etc.

Instead, Putin decided he needed to personally manage the economy and all the political subdivisions (including the power to appoint formerly elected governors), and all the foreign investors got burned and scammed with no recourse, often by the state itself.

The guy behind the Magnitsky act was once the largest foreign investor in Russia and they took his company and killed his top lawyer. That basically kills an economy. Put the guy who made Singapore in charge of Russia 20 years ago and it's GDP would be double what it is now.

What bothers me is why it isn't possible to hold Fox accountable for participating in the administration's cover-up. Get a cease and desist going, get the FCC involved, check broadcasting laws. Determine what violations they have committed in not issuing corrections and retractions when necessary. IDK, just seems like there are lots of ways to hit them between irresponsibility and complicity...especially since investigators have been scrutinizing Breitbart and Alex Jones over their participation in the last election.

I recommend you not let that bother you.

Ah the ultimate kill shot against Trump. A cease and desist letter to Fox.

I thought he'd only got 3 total people confirmed so far (Session, Rosenstein, and then one other). Doesn't give him tons of internal options.

Can someone explain to me why Rosenstein appointed Mueller in the first place? If Trump appointed him, then I think it's reasonable to assume he was a Trumpkin. Why would a Trumpkin pick someone who was going to go HAM on Trump?

In all seriously Our House, in this very thread and elsewhere recently, we've had this very discussion about media regulations and market orthodoxy taking over the American zeitgeist. As I wrote then and will repeat now, many liberals, perhaps many on the left champion some of the basis tenants of the free market of information, of news, of media, of the internet -- that basically it's caveat emptor and there's no righteous way to regulate media.

If you embrace that mentality than everyone from Alex Jones to Fox to Russian propaganda trolls are part of the deal. We can criticize them but there's not much you can do short of use market forces (e.g., compete, boycott) to try to change the shape of the market. No one was promised media deregulation and laissez fair treatment of the internet would only give us the good things. It's hypocritical to now be like, welp, this sucks, we believe all the stuff about freedoms but what happened here, are we truly helpless, surely we can check the broadcast laws and get the FCC involved?

No, we can't, we consciously rolled back all those laws and made the FCC toothless.

Sean Spicer resigned

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/21/u...tics&smtyp=cur

spicy's out

Lawyer who met with Trump Jr. had Russian intelligence connections

Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Moscow lawyer who has powerful government contacts, represented a military unit founded by the spy agency in court cases in 2011 and 2012, court rulings seen by The Washington Post show.

In those cases, Veselnitskaya represented Military Unit 55002in a property dispute over a five-story office building in northwest Moscow where a number of electronics companies were based.

Scaramucci is a huge piece of ****, but still hard to see how this was the final straw for the Spice Man.

Lol, this is not hard mode. It's not even easy mode. It's a training mission.

Rosenstein isn't a hardcore Trumpkin. Check out that NYT interview yesterday where Trump refers to him as some dubious guy from Baltimore.

There's probably not many Republican people to choose from for Rosenstein's role, and many would be more dedicated to their work than partisanship. Someone close to Trump probably recommended him thinking Trump didn't actually have a lot to hide.

C'mon, no one thinks that.

Some Republican Trumpkin might

Spicer has "quit"

Need a Melissa McCarthy 'I will remember you' montage, couldn't he have waited until the fall to resign?

Noooooooooooooooooo

Rosenstein's position had to be confirmed by the Senate and he was on the slightly less horribad Republican's list of guys who could sail through easily and provide a veneer of credibility to the Justice Department. Trump probably had little idea who he was or the importance role he was being appointed to and said sure go ahead, I've got my boy Sessions as AG and that is all I need to know.

So anyway, "Made in America Week" sure was a smashing success.

There's no line to cross? A bomb kills 300 in a mall and Fox can decide to hide the real killer (a Trump supporter) and blast the airwaves with "Dvaut did it" until Hannity's face explodes?

Two words: book deal.

I had seen six months in the administration mentioned as "good enough". He probably hung on to a **** job an extra three months to maximize value.

Russia Russia Russia.

Made in America died as soon as everyone kept harping on the Trump manufacturing process.

Trump calls Scaramucci a killer. He probably likes him because his name sounds like the Bond villain in The Man with the Golden Gun.