Be Excellent To Each Other

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... e-evidence



Is this really the most important thing they have to talk about, how many people were fucking watching? And arguing with how the media reported the size of the crowds?

If the Queen has to suffer the indignity of a state visit, I'd advise her to count the spoons afterwards.

As anyone who has me as a friend on FB will know, this has been a real tipping point moment for me; the point at which Orwell's vision won.

It's the moment where Trump supporters flipped from being at war with Eurasia to being at war with Eastasia without blinking an eyelid.

What else would they have blinked other than an eyelid?

hi i am mr chris and i am claiming not to understand either idioms or rhetoric

I'm sure I wasn't dreaming when I saw photos of miles and miles of empty bleachers at the inauguration followed by one of the largest mass demonstrations in history the next day. I also wasn't dreaming when three million more people voted for Clinton than Trump.

(Citation: https://twitter.com/AriBerman/status/823001984085164032

Via UConn prof @djpressman, between 3.3 million to 4.2 million people marched today. Largest protests in US history https://t.co/DA6gR2QFs6 pic.twitter.com/O3PZ6O6Dim

— Ari Berman (@AriBerman) January 22, 2017

)

So who thinks Trump will serve a full four year term then?

I'm saying he won't, unless there's a war. Which there might be.

I think it's pretty unlikely a Republican house and Senate is going to impeach a Republican president, although there's more elections in 2018 that may change that. Although their majority is slim, it'd take a pretty strong scandal for some Republicans to cross the aisle on am impeachment vote I think, and given that Trump is getting away with not producing tax returns, not surrendering conflict of interests, openly boasting of sexually harassing women, and various other sundry bullshit already I can't imagine how big a scandal would be required.

I think he'll serve a full term. It'll be four years of stripping away the gains in healthcare, global cooperation, and civil liberties that have come about over the last twenty years. It'll also be embarrassing - a president constantly showing himself up as selfish and ignorant, and that'll likely lead to a reduction in the scope of the executive branch and more devolution to states. And that's bad news if you're a woman, non-white, or lgbtq.
I don't think he'll do anything that he'll get impeached for, but I'm willing to bet that by the end of it we'll all wish he had.

Twenty years? More like everything from FDR onwards.

...unless you're a woman, non-white, or lgbtq in California, or New York, or Washington, or Oregon, or other liberal states. Which is interesting if you think about what might happen if that trend continues.

Well true, but there aren't all that many of them. Just short of 75% of states have republican legislatures.
One other reason that's a frightening number - 75% is the number required to ratify a constitutional amendment, and it's not too ridiculous an idea to think of this president as wanting an amendement updating the first amendment to ban criticism of the presidency.

I'm more thinking it looks like secession, eventually.

I think the Congressional Republicans will keep him in place until such time as he becomes detrimental to their interests by, say, trying to affect policy or doing anything other than 'being President'. I don't think there's much love for him amongst the long-standing Republicans but so long as they keep massaging his ego and he lets them do what they want, they'll keep in place. I think he'd lose a fight with Congress, but most of that will be done behind closed doors.

The more depressing thing is people hardly vote in midterms (and the House is far too gerrymandered to even do much) and whilst state legislatures matter, nobody votes for them either.

For a better reason this time.

It's the Iraqi propaganda guy all over again, but the really bizarre thing is that despite this being trivially easy to disprove from all the live TV coverage, there are Trumpets that are going along with it and arguing the case on social media.

Sometimes it's the minor things that matter most. We could be getting angry about his early actions, but we're getting mad about this because it speaks volumes about the nature of the man and administration we're dealing with. And such an easy thing to avoid:

Yep, DC is a very Democrat leaning place, as are many of the surrounding states so a Republican is less likely to get yuge crowds on a wet January day. It's to be expected that he wouldn't beat Obama's first showing, so acknowledge that and move on. The total inability to accept that he's anything less than the best at absolutely everything is a worrying personality trait.

On this week's 'No Such Thing as a Fish' they reference his appearance on 'Sesame Street':



He's the trashiest!

I hope that https://swingleft.org/ will be successful at changing some of this.

A lot of effort by Trumps team over nothing really. He is President and how many people turned up to see him sworn in won't change that.

Watched a clip of his press secretary and it was a bit like all the outbursts and rubbish before the election, surprised really as I thought that the civil servant types (not sure if they have those in the US) would have ensured Trump had his shit together for the sake of the party and the office.

White House staff is, I believe, pretty much all partisan (Spicier definitely is a GOP flack). It's in the agencies where you find the analogues to the UK civil service, but even there there's normally partisan heads. Watch in the upcoming weeks and months for the Department of Justice to conveniently 'forget' about enforcing the Voting Rights Act…

The expression is "batting an eyelid". "Blinking" means by definition closing and opening your eyelid, so "blinking an eyelid " is a tremendous redundancy. Much like your face.

Good points, well argued. You're also "the best kind of correct", too, as regards margins of error and tolerance.

I don't know... I just can't help but feel a twinge of anxiety as regards the actual tolerance always being "plus" rather than "plus-minus"; the error always appear to indicate an underestimation of right wing support, the "shy Tory" syndrome that's been alluded to before. I accept that the data sample of less than a half-dozen elections is pitifully small, but I'm always looking for the beginnings of patterns emerging from stuff like this? No doubt you and many others scoff at the phrase "political correctness" but I personally think it is fair to say there is a stigma attached to, say, being anti immigration, a UKIP supporter or even a fairly hardline Tory, so these days if people are asked (polled), is this reticence to state true intentions/politics for fear of being labelled 'nasty' or whatever, a possible reason for this skew?

I'm not suggesting this is any more than an idle hunch on my part.

Don't take out your frustrations or anger on me, my old wee pal. I was just making a perfectly reasonable point that it's surely wishful thinking, and more than a little naive, to think that Trump is finished on the day of his inauguration. No-one's saying there aren't a whole bunch of people in the US who are dead set against him, or that his won't be a divisive presidency; your point is (obviously) moot. There are, however, equally a whole bunch of other people who are all for him, and they're very excited about it all by all accounts. That's why he got elected President (duh).

I'm as appalled as anyone he's President; I seem to remember someone categorically assuring me he was never going to achieve the popular vote to achieve the Republican nomination, let alone the Presidency. However, wishful thinking isn't the answer (nor indulgent, impotent, petulant anger, for that matter). We are where we are, and we must find ways of working with this situation, minimising the negative impact and maximising the benefit, however scant the latter might well be.

tl;dr Be pragmatic and practical, not uselessly angry or bitter. It is what it is, I'm afraid: deal with it.

He's not finished, obviously. But it is important to remember: there are more of us. He is a President that is so unpopular that he managed to get all seven continents protesting him on his first full day.

And it eats him up inside, because he's addicted to ratings, polls, and displays of dominance.

We don't get a vote, though.

I'm working on getting mine

And they call themselves a democracy! Jeez.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38712182

"Alternative facts".

Agent Starling! Peter St. John!
Awesome, welcome back guys.

I am not really here - I am an "alternative fact".

Man, I'm *so* with you, bro.
UP THE IRONS!

Apart from when they had Blaze, and couldn't set out in Wolverhampton.

Bloody hell, Blaze.... I'd forgotten about him!
Didn't he smash up the Speed Triple that the band bought for him as a hello present (and himself in the process, putting himself out for months?)

As entertaining as that image is, the Obama inauguration had an estimated 1.2m turnout, the Trump inauguration an estimated 250k turnout, and Maiden's biggest ever gig was Rock in Rio '85, which had a 300k attendance - note how much closer in the camera is.

You and your alternative facts.

In local news, I'm curious to see how Paul Nuttall does in Stoke-on-Trent. The local paper did a live Facebook stream thing where he announced he was running so I had a nose through the comments. Seems to be a mix of stuff calling him an anti-racist and him being in favour of privatising the NHS, a few in support of him, but mainly people moaning he's not from Stoke, quickly followed by others pointing out that Tristram Hunt wasn't from Stoke either. Traditionally a Labour seat, but 70% voted for Brexit, so who knows which way it'll go.

I was thinking that it was a brave move, as if he loses then he'll look more stupid than normal.

But then I realised Farage failed 7 times and is still probably the most interviewed politician in the country.

In case you're not watching US politics right now:

1) The US press secretary, Sean Spicer, said "This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period, both in-person and around the globe."
2) On being resoundingly proven to be a lie by videos, photographs, and public transit records, Kellyanne Conway (a senior Trump aide) explained that Spicer was merely offering “alternative facts”.

I can't decide which explanation is scarier: that this is sinister doublespeak or flailing incompetence.

could be worse - they could be covering up a failure of a nuclear weapon to perform correctly.

All that's on day one, though. Failing nuclear weapons could still be to come!

Piers Morgan on Donald Trump -

Or did it? Was the intention to renove South Carolina?

FTFY

Because tests are done for a reason...

True, but it's an existing weapon system and really shouldn't be FLYING THE WRONG WAY.

If it ever came to a scenario where we were using it I'd not give a toss which way the fucking thing went.

But I suppose it needs to at least look like it would work.

Stop talking Trident down!