Meanwhile Barack Obama, who was in a position to do something that may have prevented all this happening, backed down when Assad ignored his ultimatum to not use chemical weapons on his own people.

But hell no, we can't criticize Obama for that capitulation. Let's have a dig at Trump instead.

I think it's not a theory but accepted fact? I read an article way back about someone who got a job designing porn ads. At first she was like spell-checking and ****, until her boss explained to her that the "amateurish" layouts and spelling errors need to be just so, because stupid people feel those are more "real" and thus trustworthy.

So yeah, "Can you put in two more punctuation errors and have the text be a bit more off-center?" is a thing people are actually doing for good reason and profit, not necessarily laziness / stupidity.

Who's this Obama guy, is he relevant? That was really ****ty of him. Luckily he's gone, now the President can surely do the right thing instead and help those Syrians.

Oops.

Like don even needs their permission

Trump is just the best at making deals though, I'm sure it will be cleared up before long. He'll probably threaten to invade, it's his signature move.

You know I think this actually might be why Trump dresses like ****--he's appealing to the Wal-Mart crowd.

Remember she's only a national hero to ~half the country. Some of the other half might pay lip service to the King legacy but ldo they don't mean it.

This stuff will always appear shocking and outside the bounds until this is internalized, that tons of "MLK is a national hero" type national narratives are something like fictions. Don't get me wrong, MLK is an absolute American hero and these people are a ****ing disgrace, but the idea that these narratives are commonly held, consensus and part of our shared national heritage is so clearly not true.

I've made this point about King because it's important, but remember the right (writ large) had to be brought kicking-and-screaming to recognize King did anything good in his life or for the country after they spent a decade accusing him of being a race hustling philandering fake Christian, and then they have carefully (along with some people ultimately allied with civil rights, unfortunately) and purposefully moderated his message. Go into an elementary or high school even and see how King is presented: the story of civil rights and King is usually bereft of enemies, displaced from time and circumstance and opposition, and then King turned into some functionally New Age mystic who preached some sort of vague brotherhood and gave speeches about tolerance and respecting one another. Mostly gone and absent is the struggle, the white supremacists and even moderate factions who opposed him, anything that might appear radical (Vietnam opposition, his rhetoric about holistic social justice, commentary about white supremacy). He's functionally been white-washed into a Sesame Street character that just preached friendliness, nothing controversial. In one respect this is understandable, it's how real people ascend into national heros and myth-making works is to scrub the stuff that doesn't flatter common ideals. But that's the point: King's legacy had to be reduced to something like "be nice to people, and peaceful" because America couldn't build a black national hero who had anything more than that to say.

Had this sort of debate in another thread (or probably earlier in this one) that the Trump Admin list of 75 terror targets was, like bad FB memes, intentionally sloppy. I'm fairly convinced it's an affectation, along with Trump leaking/crowing about his fast food diet. I guess this is what we're reduced to in the Trump America, speculation and conspiracy theories that Trump purports to ease greasy garbage and releases lazily assembled press-releases to appeal to voters' sense of grievance against elites.

Separation of powers? What's that?

Also, I love the random "Politics!" thrown in at the end. He could've written "Lasagna!" there and it wouldn't be any less coherent.

The whole idea that Republicans love them some legal immigration but it's just those illegals making it all bad just fell flat on it's face as they look to cut immigration in half. Legal immigration.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/07/politi...igration-bill/

Sorry if wrong thread.

No, that "Politics!" is obviously intentional -- and powerful too. For his audience. This is important. For normal people, politics is how power gets used to resolve social conflicts, and it's a process that is mediated and compromised.

In the Fascist Mystique, the classic operation of politics -- compromise, mediation, pluralism -- that is what obstructs common sense solutions. What is necessary is not compromise but the will to fight things out to a finish.

That's what Trump is saying there. It's one word but it's powerful to his audience. He's signaling: I'm right, the politic process is failing to save you and keep you safe. You can see where this is headed.

Yeah basically:

"You don't need to wait for these eggheads to decide things when I can make us safer right now!"

There's been widespread coverage (and criticism) leveled at Obama regarding his handling of al-Assad/Syria. Years worth of it. It's only been one of the biggest international stories and handcuffed to others, Arab Spring, Russian relations, fight against ISIS and so on. Feel free to criticize Obama on it now if you want, you're just kind of late to the party as he's off kite-surfing and no longer President.

Trump however is President and his handling of Syrian refugees is immediately relevant. Considering the EO to ban people from this particular county doesn't appear to be based on anything legitimate, yes you're probably going to see a dig on him here or there.

And we haven't even gotten to the part where he has to enact a policy on what he's actually going to do re: Syria. If you're sensitive to Trump criticism, I'd start toughening up because there aren't any popular approaches to that mess.

"Politics!" is one of the funniest things I've ever seen

get out more imo

Really my only hope for the Republic is that Trump & co. are too inept, cowardly and maybe just maybe surrounded by like enough people with what you might marginally describe as a soul to not carry out a false flag terror attack, and maybe some combination of ISIS/AQ/random angry idiots take pity on us for the next 4 years or whatever and leave us alone, something along these lines.

Otherwise ****'s gonna be bad.

The official reaction from the Syrian government to the mass hanging story was essentially "Fake news! Dishonest media! Politics!", though they used better words.

Law!

Still a lie but Locke was the third try as Obama's first Commerce Secretary. The first two withdrew.

Stock up on bottled water and canned goods, folks. If true, this is horrifying.

If I believed that the GOP was competent I would conclude that they are actively promoting Warren as their preferred 2020 Democratic Presidential candidate. The 'rebuke' is a gift.

I'm guessing that this will be interesting to follow?

[tweet]pony.jpg[tweet]

Doesn't sound too confident about the 9th Circuit.

Shame there is not a reliable source - not that it sounds unbelievable. It's pretty vile if true.