That is a good tweet.

McCain to Trump: Retract wiretapping claim or prove it
By Kelsey Snell March 12 at 10:46 AM

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.b557ca0bef70

“The president has one of two choices, either retract or provide the information that the American people deserve,” McCain said in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “I have no reason to believe that the charge is true, but I also believe that the president of the United States could clear this up in a minute.”

The issue here, and what DVaut pointed out was fair, is that Dems are basically kicking and fussing about a lot of smoke, but they can't find the gun in the middle of it to tie it all together - and they aren't making leaps in conjecture to do so. The problem is, until there's a Select committee or we get more public info from the Intel Committees, we're not going to get that. The Republicans blocking this from being better-investigated is a travesty, and that's what the kicking and fussing should be about. Simply put: There's a ton of smoke here, the Russian ties if true would be unacceptable, and our friends across the aisle had ~36 Benghazi hearings, but they can't have two or three on this? UNACCEPTABLE!

But, they should tie more in... All of the airtime they're getting on this should start and end with, "Look, [anchor name], I want to be clear here. The most important thing is making sure there's a level playing field in America for the average folks - the hard workers out there who are struggling to get by. President Trump ran a campaign that claimed he'd help them, but he's just another rich, connected guy who's looking out for his own. Whether he and the Republicans are in bed with the healthcare industry, cutting taxes for the super-rich, or possibly in cahoots with Russians who are plundering the working people of their own country, we need to get to the bottom of it before that happens here. That's why finding the truth is so important."

Tie it all into a story even if you don't have the full Russian scandal tied up with a bow. The story is: Hey poor/working class, Trump is not your friend. He's trying to cut taxes for his super rich buddies who fly around on private jets to places like Mar-a-Lago, but he's not cutting your taxes. He's trying to jack up the cost of healthcare for the poor to give it cheaper to the rich, while millions of poor Americans will lose health insurance. Plus, it sure looks like he's in tight with all of Putin's cronies who are stealing money from their people...

I disagree with the patriotism part a little bit. I think it's fair to consider the message Obama orated so well a patriotic one. A love of a country and its ideals, which is where it becomes a message that moves the left. Think about his red state/blue state lines in the 2004 keynote, but shift it more toward today... Something like:

Our opponents tell us that we've got to put America first; they tell us that means shutting out the Muslims and throwing out the Mexicans. They tell us that means building a wall, jacking up tariffs, and doling out tax breaks and deregulation for huge corporations. They tell us that everything will be great when we take healthcare away from millions of Americans, because people need choices and the rich need tax breaks. Let me tell you what we believe in. It may surprise you to hear that Republican President Ronald Reagan's Shining City on a Hill is one of the best examples of what we believe. President Reagan said,

"I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city, built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds, living in harmony and peace. A city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity, and if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here."

We believe in strengthening that shining city and ALL it's ideals, but our opponents want to tear some of them down. They're fired up about that wall, but they're not so excited about the doors.

We believe this great country is at its best when everyone has a fair shot to move up the ladder. We believe America is a beautiful place with wonderful people from all over the world. We believe it IS that shining city upon a hill, where those who love freedom dream of living. So we believe in welcoming our Muslim friends into our schools and businesses, because hard-working people of ALL walks of life, religions, and skin colors can be part of our economic growth. We believe in tearing down walls in society, and speeding up the immigration process so that all of the good, hard-working people who want to come here can do so. We believe in a path to citizenship for those who came here simply looking for a better life. We believe everyone deserves to have healthcare, because being taken care of when you're sick should be a human right, not a privilege. That's what America is all about: people who came here looking for the freedom to work hard for a better life, to pursue happiness without persecution... To keep on pushing for a better life, and to do so on a level playing field. That's the country we love so much! America is more than its land or its resources. America is an idea that we've been pushing toward as a people for nearly 250 years, and we're closer than ever before... But we must keep moving forward!

Coordinated actions with Russia might be the offense most likely to merit impeachment, but getting to impeachment is going to require a different approach imo. Dems need to eat into Trump's support with voters and make congress scared to be seen as supporting him. Youre never gonna sway the pro Trump people but you do have a chance to sway the anti Hillary Trump voters. And screaming about every semi plausible Russia story isnt going to do that. It comes off as whining about how the election wasnt fair and makes Trump voters dig in and support the right.

I know most rational people saw Trump for exactly who he was and knew he would be a disaster as president. And with every new scandal or ****up we want to just shout I TOLD YOU SO to every Trump voter we know. But this isnt the way to do it if we want positive change. We need to give Trump voters an out. Theyre never gonna admit they made a mistake on election day(given the information at hand at the time). But by spotlighting everything Trump does that is pro rich people and anti working class, we can maybe get them thinking that Trump isnt living up to what he promised. And that he isnt the brilliant business mind and leader that he claimed to be.

You have the IC gunning for Trump and running down all leads. You have journalists digging. At some point a coherent and arguable narrative will emerge and that can be presented to the American public. I think that will have a lot better chance of swaying the public than just throwing every possible Russia story against the wall and seeing what sticks. Especially if in the meantime we can further erode Trump's support.

Patriotism is a hard topic for Democrats. There are certainly lots of mainstream Democrats who are patriotic in every sense just as much as Republicans. Democrats who line the streets during patriotic parades, want kids saying the pledge of allegiance every day, and turn a blind eye to American military and economic abuses in less developed countries.

But, criticism of those things is definitely more at home in the Democratic Party than the Republican and while the American ideal is about liberty, opportunity, and compassion, those aren't really uniquely American and certainly aren't all of patriotism. Patriotism is like the love of your family as opposed to the love your fellow human in general. To some degree it must be unconditional and there must be an outside group who are excluded from this special love.

Yeah because thre thoughtful measured and rarional apptoach was so effective

Uh oh. GG America.

It can a mistake to be too cerebral and measured in tactic and messaging, and then a separate mistake to be too scattershot and disjointed as an adjustment.

In this case the Democrats are just repeating the exact same mistake from the campaign: focus on Trump's personal failings and violations of civic norms many persuadable, convertible voters don't seem to care about.

https://twitter.com/PreetBharara/sta...00145630175232


en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moreland_Commission_to_Investigate_Public_Corrupti on

https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/sta...14593669468160

Moreland tweet by Bharara confirms this,

Yea this.

While I get that many in the forum would disregard my opinion re: Russia; Since the release of the TrumpCare bill, I've resisted the urge to ALL CAPS 'who effin' cares every time someone wants to re-litigate GoldenShowerGate.

We have bill that will be simply catastrophic for huge swaths of the populace. And if we take second order effects into account, it's almost certainly a net negative for basically everyone.

How is this not the only thing journalists are talking about? (obv not meant literally)

Confirmed Bharara was the GPOAT

You are continually conflating everything Trump does. If there was a quid pro quo with Russia of any kind this is not personal failings or violations of civic norms. Right now nobody knows if there was, including you.

Reagan froze the federal minimum wage, deregulated savings and loans costing people billions, cut the budget for federal rent subsidies in half, caused a massive increase in homelessness. He cut medicaid, medicare, welfare, social services block grants, education aid, food stamps, low-income energy assistance, job training, social security, veteran's disability compensation, civil service retirement and guaranteed student loans.

And he became God Emperor of the Republican Party.

Don't count on winning votes just because low income people lost their health care.

Hopefully it's part of a reason why people will vote the bums out of office, but just as easy to reach the conclusion that WAAF if the Dems are counting on an appeal to empathy as it is if they are counting on Russiagate.

Aside from losing insurance being "other people's problems" for the large majority who don't lose their insurance, there's the information bubble where it's still Obama's fault and there's also people just obviously voting against their own interest.



\

It really is astounding how incompetent these people are. They can't even fire someone properly. There appear to have been bungles and crossed-wires with the termination of the NY US attorney.

Can these people accomplish a single thing without ****ing it up?

What is it though 98%? I mean we have all our intelligence agencies coming out and explicitly saying that their investigations led them to the conclusion that Russians illegally hacked into emails. Saying otherwise is the same that as saying all of intelligence agencies are liars which puts you into wild conspiracy mode anyway. Obama just making up stories again, and his expelling ambassadors was just a way to pretend he was serious.

Specific Trump-Russia collaboration (not just ties) is another matter, but we're certainly not getting anywhere on that issue if even liberals are still denying that Russia meddled.

If the Russian stuff was on the back burner would sanctions have been dropped? I think if it was never a big story the WH would of dropped them. Which would be one good form the focus if you think sanctions are good. Its also helps with keeping the WH (if it has intentions) form lessening our role in NATO and further appeasement to Russia.

Rekt

Greenwald will be on pod save the world this week

This is actually easier than you think. One of the things I've pointed out itf is how quickly W Bush went from a widely supported Republican who won the presidential election twice to a persona non grata within a decade. You talk to Republicans today about W and they'll tell you he wasn't what he claimed to be or he was the lesser of two evils or some other bit of apologetics. It's easy to see the Trump cult disappear in much the same way: oh I guess we were nuts for him at the time but he sort of fooled all of us and wasn't the guy he seemed like --who could have known at the time?

The hard part is getting anyone to learn from their mistakes. W posed as a kind of cowboy outside-the-Beltway businessman who talked like a moron. Trump is posing as a racist-ass outside-the-Beltway businessman who talks like a moron. You can get people to see that Trump is a corrupt scam artist, but they'll still latch on to the next outsider businessdude who speaks their language. W's target audience was more evangelicals instead of neo-Nazis, but the basic recipe is the same. Basically Trump and W are symptoms of the larger structural problem: that this country is full of gullible angry morons who are fed on a constant stream of Fox News talking points.

This is part of the point I think Dvaut is making: yes, you can maybe prove that Trump was in cahoots with the FSB and impeach him or whatever, but he'll immediately be replaced with another far-right blowhard dingbat unless the real underlying problems get addressed.

People thinking Trump sucks would be great, but why have Democrats ever won?

Do you remember how much McCain, Romney, Dole and Bush Sr. sucked or do you remember Obama and Bill C. kicking ass?

The party of progressives needs someone inspirational. That's 90% of beating Trump in 2020.

Trump's report card after 50 days.

B average. Not too bad, all things considered.

http://nypost.com/2017/03/12/heres-p...ays-in-office/

Great political cartoon!