WOWâŚ
Sychophant Extraordinaire - a brownnoser. someone who will seek to please a person of authority in order to obtain some grace, usually the grace is something as simple as a pat on the bottom, but can vary greatly.
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Pod Save America has my favorite critique of this week and itâs only Monday. They cover the Comey interview, Michael Cohen, and Syria. Their assement of the Comey interview was very close my own. Dude is pretty self righteous but I do believe heâs credible.
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YesâŚagree. Heâs almost telflon coated, but has intermittent bouts of truth bursts. Their take on his high moral stance - trying to seem ethical, but really his action sending the letter was unethical.
YupâŚscrewed us bigly by paving the wave for The Donald.
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From the New York Times editorial board.
And now, on Mr. Trumpâs watch, feminists could reach a goal nearly a century in the making, and that many assumed would never come to pass â ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution. It states: âEquality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.â
Keep this on the down-low but Illinois is next. Only two states left⌠
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Opinion piece written by GPS Fusion group (they commissioned Christopher Steeleâs Dossier) on where Mueller could be finding the most incriminating evidence to âanswer a question raised by the presidentâs critics: Have certain real estate investors used Trump-branded properties to launder the proceeds of criminal activity around the world?â
Because the Trump Organization had their files supoenaed and Michael Cohenâs papers were taken, they believe that a lot of dirty money laundering will be shown in Tâs orbit. âfrom New York to Florida, Panama to Azerbaijan, we found that Trump projects have relied heavily on foreign cashâ
âwe found strong indications that companies affiliated with Mr. Trump, then a presidential candidate, might have been entangled in foreign corruption.â
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Good piece in The Yorker on McMaster the scary part was Trump asking for plans to extract 100,000 Americans from South Korea in January and Mattis stopped it . WTF Trump had no idea the chaos this would cause?
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@SEPTGUY Whoops, you posted the wrong link, I knew which story you meant. Good choice! And itâs this one 
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Thanks for whatever reason link copying seems to have some problems on an ipad.
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Op-Ed in full by Ruth Marcus- deputy editor/Washington Post - She poses that the constant chipping away of what decency should remain between opposing sides, institutions, and human relations is fast eroding our social norms starting from the top. What T promotes, what Sarah Sanders echoes presents what Ruth calls a âtrickle down decencyâ deficit.
And I quote what Lawrence Tribe said about this (via Twitter)
@tribelaw (Lawrence Tribe-Harvard Law Prof)
After Trump is gone â and assuredly he will be, sooner or later â what each of us says, does, or fails to do in this dark time will live on and define who we are until our dying days. The truth will either haunt us or set us free. We must all choose.
Editorial
"Washington today suffers from multiple deficits: The budget deficit, a failure to match resources to appetite, measured in hard dollars and red ink. The institutional deficit, the misalignment of national needs and political capacity to respond, displayed in legislative gridlock and partisan bickering. But also, and maybe most worrying, the decency deficit, etched in acid sound bites and accusatory tweets that forsake stating facts for impugning motive.
This deficit of decency, of course, is trickle-down, with President Trump as its most masterful practitioner. And so, because presidential indecency no longer surprises, we scarcely pause to note the latest iteration. And, in turn, we become numbed to its presence when practiced by others, who may be in less exalted positions but who ought to know better. We shrug and move on.
Not this column. It is both a lament about the latest manifestation of the decency deficit and a celebration of a recent pinpoint of decency. And it is a reminder to courtiers brought low by Trump: Some reputational damage is beyond repair. Someday he will be gone, but people will remember what you were willing to say and do on his behalf."
The immediate target of this advice is White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who took to âFox & Friendsâ Monday to urge the confirmation of Mike Pompeo to be secretary of state. âLook, at some point, Democrats have to decide whether they love this country more than they hate this president,â Sanders said, thus equating support for the presidentâs nominee with patriotism.
This was, as The Postâs Aaron Blake noted, no accidental rhetorical overstep but a calculated administration talking point. Sanders used a similar formulation in January to talk about Democrats and immigration. She did it again after Democratsâ refusal to applaud during Trumpâs State of the Union address, observing, âDemocrats are going to have to make a decision at some point really soon: Do they hate this president more than they love this country? And I hope the answer to that is no.â
"Give Sanders a smidgen of credit for that last sentence â she did not go as far as Trump, who suggested that Democratsâ lack of applause was âtreasonous.â But Republican National Committee Chair Ronna Romney McDaniel abandoned any filigree of restraint, and betrayed her family heritage of decency, when, at the partyâs winter meeting in February, she flatly asserted of Democrats: âThey hate this president more than they love this country.â Again, no momentary lapse â McDaniel said it again on Twitter last month.
This is not acceptable. It is fair game to go after opponents for being wrong on substance or excessive in terms of tactics and partisanship. Say their vision would harm the United States, but do not accuse them of not having the countryâs best interests at heart. That is the vilest calumny.
I have gone down the patriotism road myself, reluctantly and deliberately, in writing about Trump and his negligent response to Russian election interference: âThis is a terrible thing to have to say, but the president is not a patriot, if an essential part of patriotism means being willing to stand up for your country when it is under attack.â But that is the point â it is a terrible thing to say. It should not be done lightly. That accusations of being unpatriotic have become standard Trump administration fare â and that this kind of rhetoric is received with such equanimity â is alarming.
I end with a grace note, which, like Sandersâs ugly remark, also involves Pompeo. It was the move by Sen. Christopher A. Coons (Del.) to allow Pompeoâs nomination to go forward. Coons, a Democrat, planned to vote against Pompeo in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
But his Republican colleague, Sen. Johnny Isakson (Ga.), was to speak at the funeral of a close friend at the same time. So rather than force Isakson to race back to vote later that day, Coons instead voted âpresent,â letting the Pompeo nomination proceed, which it did, and Pompeo was confirmed Thursday.
Graciousness knows no partisan boundaries. Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) performed the same service for Coons when the senatorâs father died last year. But it is a measure of our frayed national temper and poisonous politics that what Coons described as his own âsmall gesture of kindnessâ brought the committeeâs chairman, Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), to the brink of tears. The decency deficit is wide and widening."
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NY Times Editorial Board May 1, 2018
"We donât know exactly what is leading Mr. Mueller to want to ask this question of Mr. Trump, but itâs worth noting that as far back as August 2017, CNN reported that American intelligence services had intercepted communications among suspected Russian operatives discussing conversations they claimed to have had with Mr. Manafort, in which he requested their help in damaging Hillary Clintonâs election prospects. Mr. Mueller has already secured an indictment of Mr. Manafort on federal charges, including money laundering, tax fraud and making false statements, and has extracted a guilty plea from Mr. Manafortâs top aide, Rick Gates, on related charges. Mr. Manafort is fighting the charges while Mr. Gates is now cooperating with investigators.
Whatever information he has, Mr. Mueller, like any seasoned prosecutor, does not ask questions unless he already knows the answers. Whether or not Mr. Trump decides to talk to him, the rest of us will know, too, soon enough."
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It is the young people among the despised classes of America who will pay a price for thisâthe children parted from their parents at the border, the women warring to control the reproductive organs of their own bodies, the transgender soldier fighting for his job, the students who dare not return home for fear of a âtravel ban,â which West is free to have never heard of. West, in his own way, will likely pay also for his thin definition of freedom, as opposed to one that experiences history, traditions, and struggle not as a burden, but as an anchor in a chaotic world.
God, thatâs good.
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Iâm going to go ahead and call this Op-Ed.
And my favorite analysis piece on this amazing work of art.
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YesâŚpowerful. Very.
âI think with Glover, he wants to be putting out the concerns of black folk, of folks who are voiceless in this worldâ quote from this NPR article.
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@anon95374541 Thanks for postingâŚhad not read thisâŚsaw it floating around yesterday.
I fear that when Kanye becomes a more than just symbol of his own narcissism gone wrong, or more than his many insecure and needy parts, then weâve really lost it.
But ohh, waitâŚthen again weâd lost it when T became President.
What a world this isâŚapologists and liars.
Quote
âHere is a country that specializes in defining its own deviancy down so that the criminal, the immoral, and the absurd become the baseline, so that even now, amidst the long tragedy and this lately disaster, the guardians of truth rally to the liarâs flag.â
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NYT Editorial Board âHim Tooâ
Last line is âAnyone involved in the effort to replace Mr. Schneiderman should remember: No one is above the law.â
Weâre living in a zero tolerance world now for many powerful people abusing women, thanks to the #MeToo movement. With people willing to testify/talk to reporters without consequence up jumps evidence of far too many abuses of power and physical dominance.
How quickly they can fall, even within minutes of these allegations. Schneiderman was wrong, admitted it and resigned.
At least he knew he could not win this battle. It matters little at this juncture if he shares with us his remorse. The public outcry would have drowned him out without this action.
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VP Pence gets the award of âWorst Personâ from George F. Will in this WAPO opinion piece.
#disingenuousAtBest, #motherâsLilHelper #WhatAJoke
Word - o¡le¡ag¡i¡nous
ËĹlÄËajÉnÉs/
adjective
adjective: oleaginous
rich in, covered with, or producing oil; oily or greasy.
Because his is the authentic voice of todayâs lickspittle Republican Party, he clarifies this yearâs elections: Vote Republican to ratify groveling as governing.
WSJ âopinionâ piece suggesting there is a âmoleâ that the FBI planted into the administration. I think that piece written by Kimberly Strassel, who is on the editorial board of Murdoch owned WSJ.
Not endorsing thisâŚjust read for outlandish conservative speak.