The Glade 4.0

"Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?"

Is not the issue here. There is nothing wrong with the concept of the leader articulating a vision, and the subordinates developing a plan to carry it out.

I am, however, pleased to see that you think it's problematic that Obama would tacitly indicate Trump ought to be wiretapped.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

The Trump/Russia thing is going to be the Democrats Obama/Birth certificate. Or maybe his tax returns will be. It seems like a distraction that will go no where and they sort appear desparate to find something to impeach him on. Trump is so dumb he'll probably do something mundanely stupid and get fired. Though I think the state of the world right now is an incredible opportuniy for Putin. Trump obviously cannot real-politik and has no clue whats going on. The NATO countries are extranged from the US to some degree, and with each other to varying degrees, the EU is shaky, the migrant crisis, and Turkey being a real **** *******. It's a great time to get away with **** while everyone is busy putting out fires at home.

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

I suspect it will be a bipartisan effort.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Good point, Trump is only useful to them as long as he does as they want. Pence is a regular party-man after all.

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Trump's goal was to declared war on the status quo, the status quo is fighting back with everything it's got. Who didn't expect this outcome?

Personally, I'm a bit torn, not sure what's worse - supranational influences of the presidential election or intranational influences. My knee-jerk reaction is to feel that outside influence is worse but intellectually, what difference does it make?

I do love CNN though. They have an agent that admits influencing the election and ... crickets. What's their story? RUSSIA!

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In time, this too shall pass.

The Democrats became concerned about Russia at the exact moment that they thought they could use a connection to Russia against Trump. Before that, they're sole annoyance with Russia was that the "reset" didn't work, and the stubborn refusal of the Russians to do along with the "other countries just react to the inputs we give them; if we just act positive towards other countries they'll eventually go along with us." school of thought.

Meanwhile, Dianne Feinstein is writing articles for the Washington Post that include such ridiculous proposals as "working with the Russians to ban nuclear cruise missiles". This is at the exact same time that the Democrats are imagining that Russia is interfering in our elections, and at the same time they are failing to make any progress towards previous arms control treaties and deploying missiles in Kaliningrad in violation of INF.

It can't be both ways. IF Russia is an untrustworthy, hostile country (which it is) then it can't be trusted, period, except to act in what it perceives in its own interests. That is not the same as "what Americans think Russia ought to do in its own interests." One of the biggest mistakes in understanding in foreign actors is to allow yourself to believe that they make their assessments and decisions based on the same information and assumptions we use. It doesn't matter if you have a 100% ironclad argument that Russia should make certain decisions in their own interest; if Russia does not assess its own interests in the same way, it won't, and there's nothing anyone can do to force them to do so.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Putin seems like a smooth operator. While I'm not into most of how US foreign policy works, I'm also not into letting Putin go unopposed over there. Work together to combat ISIS? Sure. Ignore retaking ex-Soviet states? Maybe not.

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Putin is, indeed, a skilled and ruthless man, with a background that gives him far better skills than either Trump or any of his 3 most recent predecessors at manipulating any given situation to his advantage.

Putin will push any time he senses weakness, and will probably try to engage in some brinksmanship any time he feels pushback. He has no desire to push NATO or the U.S. over any brink and thereby suffer the consequences himself, but he certainly is willing to pretend that he is, up to a point. Fortunately for us, Putin is also smart enough to understand that he's facing an inexperienced opponent who may not follow the "rules" as normally understood - because, much like the "rules" of politics that were supposed to keep Trump out of office they are not, in fact, rules. They're just the status quo.

Had he been dealing with Hillary Clinton, Putin would have understood well that he was facing someone who deeply personally resented him for outmaneuvering her on the Russia Reset, but who also fancies the status quo highly and who really cares about nothing other than appearing to be astute to a sympathetic domestic press.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

necro-evidence!

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In time, this too shall pass.

Soooo...

This is awkward...

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

With all the blatant lies coming out of the White House, it has become hard to believe anything they say.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

Fake news!

What is awkward?

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Holy shitsnacks!

I'm guessing Clinton's "oppo research" partnership with actual Russians.

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The Dude abides.

It's like the Clinton campaign lost, then said "Let's accuse the Trump campaign of everything we did."

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Or the Trump machine is now accusing the Clinton campaign of doing everything they did.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

Or they're all **** atrocious **** but you only sniff particular assholes for odor.

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Or maybe both of them got played by Russian intelligence services who don't care about fitting into our domestic political narrative on either side.

I find it amusing that it's never asked just how the "Russian interference" was so easily discovered. Perhaps Putin did not tip his hand as easily as we've been led to believe? Or maybe we were supposed to "find out" about this all along, and would have found out something else had Hillary Clinton been elected. Russia wants to weaken American influence and ability to interfere with its plans; to the degree that domestic political strife accomplishes that, they've certainly done a good job.

Everything is maskirova where Russia is concerned.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

You read Rules for Radicals right?

You always attack and you always accuse others of doing what you do so any attacks back on you seem less valid. It is offense and defense at the same time.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Isn't this essentially the same argument people on the right leveled at Kagan in the supreme court?

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The Dude abides.

I like how people think the ABA is a nonpartisan reviewer of judicial qualifications.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

it's like the "ACLU", what's not to like?

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In time, this too shall pass.

They are non-partisan, but that doesn't mean they're ideologically neutral.