A thread for Democrats Only
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The Art of the Broken Deal
“L’état, c’est moi,” declared Louis XIV: “I am the state.” Louis was an absolute monarch, whose word was law, and serving France meant being personally loyal to Louis himself.
There were obvious advantages to such a system: no ambiguity about where authority lay, no time wasted in legislative debates, no need to cobble coalitions together to get things done. Yet Louis’s France, Europe’s most powerful state, was fought to a standstill by England and the Netherlands — a constitutional monarchy (after the Glorious Revolution of 1688) and a republic, with a combined population only a fraction as large.
And in the Anglo-French wars that followed, France generally got the worst of it, while sliding ever deeper into fiscal crisis — a crisis that eventually helped precipitate the French Revolution.
Why was an absolute monarchy weaker, in practice, than quarrelsome republics? One reason was that the very absence of limits on the ruler undermined French credibility: Whatever the king might promise, he could always change his mind. Not incidentally, France repeatedly defaulted on its debt, while post-1688 England, its king effectively constrained by Parliament, never did. As a result, England was much more successful at wartime borrowing, and paid much lower interest rates.
Which brings us, as all things do these days, to Donald Trump — a man who has evident contempt for the rule of law and who, like Louis, sees no distinction between loyalty to the nation and loyalty to himself. The main difference is that Louis seems to have at least tried to understand the issues.
On Friday night, something unprecedented happened: The U.S. government shut down temporarily even though the same party controls both Congress and the White House. Why? Because when it comes to Trump, a deal isn’t a deal — it’s just words he feels free to ignore a few days later.
Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, seemed to have at least a short-term agreement with Trump, only to see it pulled back a few hours later. Working with Trump is “like negotiating with Jell-O,” Schumer fumed.
But what did he expect? Trump’s whole business career has been a series of betrayals — failed business ventures from which he personally profited while others, whether they were Trump University students, vendors or creditors, ended up holding the bag. And he hasn’t grown a bit in office, unless you count that mysterious extra inch in height since 2016.
Think, for example, about the international consequences of a U.S. president whose word can’t be trusted. Who can we count on to be a reliable ally, when no country knows whether America will stand by it if it needs help?
During the 2016 campaign Trump openly talked about forcing the nation’s creditors — like creditors of some of his businesses — to accept less than they were owed. Does this government have any reserve of financial credibility if something should go wrong? Probably not.
In other words, Trump’s unreliability is a big problem, over and above the substance of his policies.
The result is that promises from the U.S. government are now as worthless as those from a tinpot dictator. We don’t yet know how high a price we’ll pay for that loss of credibility, but it probably won’t be small.
www.nytimes.com/2018/01/22/opinion/art-deal-trump-shutdown.html
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Absolute Proof Russia Was Behind 2016 Election Hacking
www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/01/new-report-says-dutch-have-abso
lute-proof-russia-was-behind-2016-election-hacking/
The Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant (“The People’s Paper”) has quite the intriguing story today. Apparently AIVD, the Dutch equivalent of the CIA, broke into the computer systems of a nondescript building in Moscow a few years ago. They had no idea what was there, but eventually they figured it out. It was the workplace of Cozy Bear, Russia’s most infamous hacking group:
That’s how the AIVD becomes witness to the Russian hackers harassing and penetrating the leadership of the Democratic Party, transferring thousands of emails and documents. It won’t be the last time they alert their American counterparts. And yet, it will be months before the United States realize what this warning means: that with these hacks the Russians have interfered with the American elections. And the AIVD hackers have seen it happening before their very eyes.
….The Cozy Bear hackers are in a space in a university building near the Red Square. The group’s composition varies, usually about ten people are active. . . .
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Absolute Proof Russia Was Behind 2016 Election Hacking
www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/01/new-report-says-dutch-have-abso
lute-proof-russia-was-behind-2016-election-hacking/
The Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant (“The People’s Paper”) has quite the intriguing story today. Apparently AIVD, the Dutch equivalent of the CIA, broke into the computer systems of a nondescript building in Moscow a few years ago. They had no idea what was there, but eventually they figured it out. It was the workplace of Cozy Bear, Russia’s most infamous hacking group:
That’s how the AIVD becomes witness to the Russian hackers harassing and penetrating the leadership of the Democratic Party, transferring thousands of emails and documents. It won’t be the last time they alert their American counterparts. And yet, it will be months before the United States realize what this warning means: that with these hacks the Russians have interfered with the American elections. And the AIVD hackers have seen it happening before their very eyes.
….The Cozy Bear hackers are in a space in a university building near the Red Square. The group’s composition varies, usually about ten people are active. . . .
Try telling this to rappy and some others here. He still thinks there is no proof russia interfered in our elections. How is it possible after all this time, and all the intel reports, along with all the media coverage regarding this, for someone to not believe it? Not to believe they are still at it when everything points to they are?
It's not, so trolls they must be.
T
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Absolute Proof Russia Was Behind 2016 Election Hacking
by
www.motherjones.com
lol
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Quote:Today’s Dilbert comic was written especially for 6ixStringJack http://dilbert.com/strip/2018-01-26
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Absolute Proof Russia Was Behind 2016 Election Hacking
by
www.motherjones.com
lol
Do Right, Be Right. :)
6ixStringJack: “Dilbert is a total narcissist. He refuses to admit when he’s wrong.”
Asok: “How would this situation look any different to you if he’s actually right most of the time and you’re too dumb to know it?”
6ixStringJack: “I don’t understand your point.”
Asok: “According to you, that makes me a narcissist.”
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Trump’s disengaged from the details of big questions like NAFTA — “I may terminate NAFTA, I may not,” he says profoundly. He can’t even describe his own negotiating positions in the immigration standoff accurately.
Listening to Trump talk is interesting from an entertainment perspective (he did once host a popular television show), but it conveys no information about the world, the American government, or the Trump administration’s policies. If interviewer wanted to help his viewers understand what’s going on, he’d have been better off interviewing someone else.
Trump keeps getting facts wrong. He’s holding the office but not doing the job.
In a fairly typically Trumpian gesture, one of the president’s first remarks explains that most people don’t appreciate the significance of Apple’s commitment to invest $350 billion in US manufacturing facilities. Most people probably don’t appreciate this because it isn’t true.
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Quote:lol.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Absolute Proof Russia Was Behind 2016 Election Hacking
by
www.motherjones.com
lol
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:Today’s Dilbert comic was written especially for 6ixStringJack http://dilbert.com/strip/2018-01-26
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Absolute Proof Russia Was Behind 2016 Election Hacking
by
www.motherjones.com
lol
Do Right, Be Right. :)
6ixStringJack: “Dilbert is a total narcissist. He refuses to admit when he’s wrong.”
Asok: “How would this situation look any different to you if he’s actually right most of the time and you’re too dumb to know it?”
6ixStringJack: “I don’t understand your point.”
Asok: “According to you, that makes me a narcissist.”
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
The fact that the irony of your post is completely lost on you amuses me.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Quote:Funny guy! So articulate! Even your very first comment from 2006 shows you are intelligent, far smarter than me. You deserve to be happy with your life, contented with all you have accomplished. http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=2&tid=21787&mid=326575
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
The fact that the irony of your post is completely lost on you amuses me.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
#326575
But all those additional comments you made over the years after that first one shows you are not happy. And it is not really Washington DC’s fault. Your sense of direction might not be that accurate. Your GPS system programmed by the GOP has been sending you along too many of the wrong right-hand forks in the road and you find yourself facing a dead end. Or maybe it is lake. I saw a picture in today’s newspaper about a guy who drove into a lake because the GPS (or is it the GOP?) told him to. Funny guy thinks he can sue the GPS for misleading him when, instead, he should have been using his head and his eyes.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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A cunning adviser to Trump has for some time kept the world from war:
“According to the law, I have to give you the nuclear codes, but it doesn't say anywhere that they can't be hidden in the answer to a Sudoku ...”
www.gocomics.com/wumo/2018/01/27
“There are responsible, competent, powerful people guided by a sense of duty who can save us. These people just have to act with the utmost stability and sobriety, which is a better tactic than trying to prove that Trump is guided by insanity.” - Stop Asking What’s Wrong With Trump
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/01/asking-about-trumps-mental
-fitness-is-the-wrong-question.html
Working Overtime Because Trump Tried To Fire Mueller
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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