caulfield12

Paul Wellstone, for example.

Murkowski and Collins on DeVos

http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/02/opinions/yem...rgen/index.html Why are Bannon and Kushner giving advice on SEAL raids? This would be like Axelrod and Michelle Obama's brother calling the shots.

QUOTE (JenksIsMyHero @ Feb 2, 2017 -> 09:19 AM) From the NYT front page. Not sure how Trump (or Obama) are to blame for this. At some point some general had to tell either or both of them, "this is the plan, it's going to work." Easy rebuttal. JCS and CIA told Kennedy the same before Bay of Pigs. Who does history blame? A famous Truman line comes to mind.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/...illed-al-awlaki I'm sure how much sympathy this will elicit because of who her father was... Col. John Thomas, a spokesman for central command, told the paper that the U.S. military was unaware that the girl was at the location. Thomas said Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula “has a horrifying history of hiding women and children within militant operating areas and terrorist camps and continuously shows a callous disregard for innocent lives. The girl’s grandfather told the paper that he did not believe the girl was targeted. “I don’t think this incident was intentional,” the former government minister said. He told the paper that the location of the strike was confusing because it was not a hotbed for Al Qaeda, rather tribal sheikhs fighting the government, which is supported by Iran-backed Houthis.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trumps-not-orwel...-100035222.html Trump's not Orwell. He's the Distractor-In-Chief. In Huxley’s vision, Postman wrote, “no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.” It’s worth hearing a bit more of Postman’s comparison: “What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. … Orwell feared that truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared that truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.” As it happens, in 1949, just after the publication of “1984,” Huxley drew much the same contrast in a letter to his countryman Orwell. Much as he liked Orwell’s book, he suggested that tyrannical governments would soon abandon “boot-on-the-face” tactics in favor of “animal magnetism and hypnotism.” Cable TV had yet to be invented. ... And yet there’s something bracing, given today’s political debate, about the way Mustapha Mond, the state controller, warns his charge: “Every discovery in pure science is potentially subversive; even science must sometimes be treated as a possible enemy.” Or about the way he defends inequality: “The optimum population is modeled on the iceberg — eight-ninths below the water line, one-ninth above.”

QUOTE (brett05 @ Feb 2, 2017 -> 06:25 AM) Your former VP Joe Biden disagrees with you. Sept 8th, 2016 On Thursday, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. will be on Capitol Hill to join congressional Democrats at a news conference where they will push for a vote on Judge Garland, who was put forward by Mr. Obama in March and is now the longest pending Supreme Court nominee in American history.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/01/opinion/...col-left-region How Populism Stumbles (Ross Douthat) https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archiv...tocracy/513872/ Trump 2020, how to build an autocracy (Frum)

QUOTE (Jerksticks @ Feb 1, 2017 -> 11:53 PM) ? A seal is dead. The line needs to be drawn somewhere. Pissing all over the ideals of free speech & tolerance by beating people up and setting s*** on fire is one thing- that's just hypocrisy 101...but using a dead seal as a pawn??? That's too far to me. Fwiw, this is Reuters' general response about covering the Trump White House. Pawns are nothing new...look at the politicization of the Pat Tillman case or Kzir Khan/Gold Star Father. Especially with the overhang of the immigration ban.

QUOTE (Jerksticks @ Feb 1, 2017 -> 11:32 PM) I understand bashing Trump for things but reporting like this makes me sick. One of our best just died trying to gather intelligence to help the free world. Running a story purely to insinuate incompetence is a disgrace to the dead operator, his family & all the special operators risking their lives. Everyone knows that US special operations are probably the most thoroughly planned missions in the history of all things being planned. They don't go unless they think it will work, bottom line. To write an article making it sound like Trump is just recklessly sending in SEAL teams & using the death of a special operator to further a political beef is beyond dishonorable. Sorry but f***. that. s***. How can you realistically expect the country (and the media, that Trump and Spicer declared war on) to hit the reset button after the last 16 years, and particularly the tenor of discourse since the Mexicans are rapists and criminals campaign kickoff? It's a verbal version of the Civil War. Everyone has been forced to choose sides.

QUOTE (Big Hurtin @ Feb 1, 2017 -> 10:23 PM) http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trum...o-idUSKBN15G5RX "U.S. military officials told Reuters that Trump approved his first covert counterterrorism operation without sufficient intelligence, ground support or adequate backup preparations. As a result, three officials said, the attacking SEAL team found itself dropping onto a reinforced al Qaeda base defended by landmines, snipers, and a larger than expected contingent of heavily armed Islamist extremists." http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/01/politics/us-...emen/index.html Seems they were also surprised by a number of female fighters...new tactics?

QUOTE (steveno89 @ Feb 1, 2017 -> 06:57 PM) Luken Baker is an excellent 2018 draft prospect as well Rise of the Lukens?

http://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/Pr...UC-10901829.php Frontline report from Berkeley demonstration/riot

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2...-for-our-values Article from the point of view of Australian press criticizing Turnbull for not standing up to Trump...gives a pretty good feel for the current mood outside the US.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 1, 2017 -> 05:51 PM) If that is your approach, voting laws are for all eligible voters... ??? INA or VRA?

http://www.defenseone.com/threats/2017/02/...135048/?ref=yfp Not sure what to make out of this Russian election hack story, if anything.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 1, 2017 -> 02:27 PM) My hometown holds a pretty cool historical distinction. Because of a massive middle eastern migration we had a huge population push come to us primarily for work in the Haskel Barker and then Pullman Standard train car factory starting in the 1880s, but really up until the Great Depression. We had a big push especially from Syria. At one point we had the largest middle eastern population of anywhere in the WORLD outside of the actual middle east. Our first mosque was built in 1924 primarily from donations from Syrian and Lebanese workers. It was literally one of the very first Shia mosques built anywhere in the US. The first Islamic society in my hometown was established in 1914. I quite literally have 100+ years of history of Islam in my home town. Assimilation? Uh yeah. Absolutely. All of the multi-generational families I grew up with you barely knew they were Muslims. Because of this we still draw new immigrants to the area because they know there is a support system already in place, so they know they have some institutions that will help them adapt to the culture. In that time frame, you know how many terror attacks I have seen? Guess. I worked in Indonesia in 2013 as a consultant helping to place top students from there into the US and they really had a strong network of homestay families in Pittsburgh, fwiw. Indonesia is the largest Muslim country in the world, suffered the Bali nightclub attack about a decade ago...not a peep about them in these conversations. Of course, Trump has an international hotel there, as well.

QUOTE (brett05 @ Feb 1, 2017 -> 09:50 AM) can't decide if this is serious So the last 18 months for both parties from now on? 21 months?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act How about 61 years of denying Chinese immigration? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exc...cph.3b48680.jpg

That categorical stance is new in the nation’s history, the professors, Robin Bradley Kar and Jason Mazzone, wrote in a study published online by The New York University Law Review. The Senate has never before transferred a president’s appointment power in comparable circumstances to an unknown successor, they said — an argument that many Democratic lawmakers have also made. In every one of the 103 earlier Supreme Court vacancies, the professors wrote, the president was able to both nominate and appoint a replacement with the Senate’s advice and consent. This did not always happen on the first try, they wrote, but it always happened. “There really is something unique about the position Republican senators are taking with respect to the Scalia vacancy,” said Professor Mazzone, who teaches at the University of Illinois. “You really cannot find any single comparable case,” he said. “We really did not find any precedent for the idea, notwithstanding the Senate’s very broad powers in this area, that a sitting president could be denied outright the authority to offer up a nominee who would receive evaluation through normal Senate processes.” https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/14/us/polit...rland.html?_r=0

http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/31/politics/ste...tion/index.html Stephen Miller might be even scarier... Defending the policy Monday, Miller told CBS the move would "make sure that people entering our country truly love and support the United States of America." If only they wore American Flag lapel pins that played a medley of Lee Greenwwood favorites.

QUOTE (GoSox05 @ Feb 1, 2017 -> 08:25 AM) I know, it's just weird to hear. I also don't think he considers himself a Leninist. I saw the other day someone call him a Leninist Communist. No. He just liked how Lenin used a Vanguard party to tear an old system down. I'm sure outside of that he thinks Lenin was the devil. Why let 'em in? Bannon explained his worldview well before it became official US policy https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ban...m=.2ea890a6deba

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix...m=.e18905b3484e The Democrats are in real danger of overplaying their hand right now

QUOTE (Con te Giolito @ Jan 31, 2017 -> 11:48 PM) And...? Are you really just programmed to react to anything that even slightly challenges your worldview with "beep boop white male beep bopp"? And if you dont like white males why in god's name are you in Seattle, WA? It really does not get any white male-ier than Seattle. What changes would you suggest? http://www.christianpost.com/news/refugee-...3905/print.html Note the source. Donald Trump and Steve Bannon's coup in the making http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/01/opinions/ban...hiat/index.html

Battling Gorsuch is probably a no-go. https://mobile.twitter.com/mcuban/status/826600139158609921 Mark Cuban wants the Dems to negotiate with Trump for quick confirmation where he would then give up the immigration ban, get rid of a Cabinet choice or border wall, etc. Molly Knight the idea of a trade is interesting. Tho how do you measure the impact of short term racist AG vs. long-term anti-woman SCOTUS nom?