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Friday, July 29, 2016

An Attack on American Democracy Itself

We should have seen this one coming: Robert Mugabe endorses Trump:

"Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump appears to have the endorsement of one of Africa’s most notorious despots, Zimbabwe’s longtime president Robert Mugabe."

"US lawmakers Chris Coons and Adam Schiff were visiting the southern African country to discuss wildlife trafficking when a request for a meeting with the interior minister turned into a sit down with the president, according to an interview with Politico this week."

"According to Coons and Schiff, the discussion turned tense when Mugabe asked why the US insists on sanctioning Zimbabwe. The senators and their delegation listed reasons why the sanctions have remained in place—the US has sanctioned the country since 2002 after reports of election abuse and human rights violations. Mugabe has held on to power by repressing his rivals as well as the public.

After an awkward silence, Mugabe said, “Once [Trump] is your president, you’ll wish you’d been friendlier to me,” according to Coons’ retelling of the encounter.

http://qz.com/745601/zimbabwes-robert-mugabe-is-rooting-for-a-trump-presidency/
As Trump would put it 'There' something going on.' Dictators of the world unite.

Kim Jong-un is also impressed with Trump and think he'd be a wise choice for President.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-usa-trump-idUSKCN0YN35S

Meanwhile, Trump and his buddy Putin

"We cannot ignore news reports that the IT servers of the Democratic National Committee have been hacked, with some experts attributing the attacks to hackers affiliated with the Russian Government. Other reports claim that documents stolen in these hacks have been released publicly at the instigation of the Russian Government, and there is widespread speculation that the release may be an effort to influence the outcome of the US presidential election."

"The facts remain to be conclusively determined, but the investigation of these events should have the highest priority. If true, this is an attack not on one party but on the integrity of American democracy. And it may not be the end of such attacks. It is not unthinkable that those responsible will steal and release more files, and even salt the files they release with plausible forgeries."
"This is unacceptable. Our president should be chosen by American citizens, not by foreign adversaries or interests."

https://www.aspeninstitute.org/news/press-release/members-aspen-institute-homeland-security-group-issue-statement-dnc-hack/

Trump would rather an electorate of his peers: Putin, Kim John-un, Iran, Mugabe.

10 comments:

  1. Jason Taylor highlights a winning line from HRC's convention speech:

    “A man you can bait with a tweet is not a man you can trust with nuclear weapons.”

    http://theresurgent.com/the-gop-has-no-one-to-blame-but-themselves/

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  2. I hope it's possible to get through to more Republicans, Independents and bern-outs: this is not a normal election. Even if you don't like or trust Hillary, she will follow the constitution. There will be another election in 2018 and one in 2020 and they will be fair elections. She won't declare martial law and dissolve congress. She won't ignore the Supreme Court. She won't be an irresponsible finger on the button. If her initiatives are rejected by congress she won't act like a petulant child and do God-knows-what. She will not tell bold faced outrageous lies to our faces. She will not turn press briefings into "safe spaces" where only softball questions are asked. If you don't like her policies and what she stands for and if she does have success getting her legislation passed, then that legislation will be reverseable. Imagine Hillary manages to get some gun legislation through that you don't like:

    A.) What are the chances it will have any teeth to it with a GOP congress?

    B.) If by some miracle it does have some teeth, it will almost certainly have a decent chance of being reversed. That's precisely what happened last time a Clinton got some quasi-meaningful gun legislation passed.

    C.) If you don't like her likely Supreme Court picks because you're afraid of how they'll rule on abortion cases, remember that she's unlikely to have a filibuster safe majority in the Senate. In all likelihood we'll have more of the same. And being pro-life starts with having and adult rather than a petulant child with their finger on the button.

    D.) Berners: you thought W was bad? You thought W stonewalled and covered up the facts? You thought W was cynical and careless with American lives, American treasure and world stability? You haven't seen anything yet if Trump gets elected. You'll be downright nostalgic for W's administration!

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    Replies
    1. Unfortunately most bern-out Berners are probably too young to remember what W was like. I'm not talking about the vast majority of responsible Bernie supporters, I'm talking about the ones that really believed in free unicorns and pixie dust for all. I'm talking about the impossibly sanctimonious campaign finance purists, and the "personality cultists" who "feel" more warmth and authenticity from Bernie: people who mistake feelings for a lifetime of evidence (like we saw on the stage on the DNC convention making the case for Hillary). People who make the good the enemy of the perfect.

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  3. Trump disowns the convention he previously bragged about planning:
    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/07/29/1554133/-Donald-Trump-suddenly-disowns-the-crappy-convention-he-planned

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  5. Talk about an attack on Democracy:
    More cyber attacks on Democrats.

    Clinton needs to get on the phone to her allies in Silicon Valley and see what can be done about this pronto! They need to get the best minds on this right away, and button up security. Putin and god knows who else out there are desperate to influence our election and Trump is 110% for it because he's a disgusting traitor.

    Imagine how Trump would utterly shit his pants if his tax returns and other "private" communications were hacked, or if the Vichy GOP comms were hacked.

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  6. Alarm bells should be blaring full blast right now about cyber security. This is a HUGE wake up call. Assuming Clinton wins this election, we need to make this a national security priority: it's utterly outrageous that we should be suffering one attack after the next like this from probably foreign agents. Sane Republicans should realize this and get on board. A Mitt Romney type candidate (one with a more traditionally conservative view of Putin and Russia) would be vulnerable to the same kinds of attacks.

    This is like WaterGate * 100.

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  7. Yes. You're not the first to point out it's like WaterGate. Mind you that came after Nixon had been POTUS for 5 and 1/2 years...

    What should be done-but won't be of course-is a Congressional probe,

    Doesn't have to start with Trump. Start with Jullian Assange

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