What can you even say about a person whose response to the news that a Saudi Arabian murder squad chopped a Washington Post journalist into bite-sized pieces and then lied about it is to worry that the scandal might prevent him from selling them more weapons? Here’s Donald Trump, a man who we’ve decided to entrust with the power to inflict a nuclear holocaust at will, explaining that Jamal Khashoggi’s apparent torture and murder is a fine price to pay if that’s what it takes to keep Lockheed Martin in the lucrative business of murdering Yemini schoolchildren.

https://slate.com/culture/2018/10/trevor-noah-jamal-khashoggi-donald-trump-daily-show.html

It's sickening, really.

I can't even follow this shit.

It's been a worrying trend for a couple of years now that journalists have become fair game.

Branson pulled out of a meeting and the Saudis cancelled a project. I think he's fine with that price. What about these arms manufacturers? No moral compass at all? Doesn't Lockheed have a position on this?

Of all Trump's chicanery, this business with Saudis, weapons sales, and butchered journalists disturbs me the most.

I'm hoping this finally is the 'Hurricane Katrina moment' - the moment when even the so-called 'Trump supporters' start to wake up to how Trump is destroying the presidency. At least if that happened, then this appalling travesty will have some positive outcome for the world.

No moral compass at all? Doesn't Lockheed have a position on this? — Benkei

You're wanting a 'moral compass'? Haven't heard of such a thing, but I'm sure for the right money, Lockheed can build one for you. What sort of money are you talking?

Incidentally, does anyone remember Trump shellacking Obama for bowing to the Saudi king?

Well, they do have a mission, vision and values statement. You'd hope it's more than just a bit of text. "Do what's right..."

Edit: forgot the link: Lockheed Martin mission, vision and values

No, I think you forgot that all of Lockheed's employees are Trump zombies.

Doing the right thing is whatever helps our glorious divine leader.

Incidentally, does anyone remember Trump shellacking Obama for bowing to the Saudi king? — Wayfarer

That must have been correct. Trump is divinely inspired in all things. Like Kim, he doesn't have a rectum.

The ramifications of global warming within the next 80 years will be far more detrimental to civilization than the non-skeptic public understands. — Maw

What do you mean by this? Detrimental to civilization?

Incidentally, does anyone remember Trump shellacking Obama for bowing to the Saudi king? — Wayfarer

I think Trump was just making a point about business etiquette. He didn't criticize Obama because he thought the president ought not to bow to the king at all. He rather thought the president ought to bow in the opposite direction.

Isn't that part of the Time Warp dance?

Trump doesn't bow, he curtsies like a proper school girl.

No doubt... much groundwork had to be laid... as has been.

There are two ways that climate change will pane out. The first, and most likely scenario, is that our inability to slow or stop climate change will severely affect food supply and raise sea levels, particularly in underdeveloped countries that do not have the capability to handle distribution of resources or mass migration of their citizens. As a result, people from these countries will likely immigrate to developed countries in North America and Europe. As we have recently seen, mass migration from underdeveloped countries to developed ones often results in reactionary, neo-fascist movements, which have gained political currency across America and Europe, as citizens feel threatened by mass migration, and demographic and electoral shifts. This will be especially true as the threat of raising sea levels and food supply shortage looms overhead.

The second, highly unlikely scenario, is that socialist policies are enacted to ensure cohesive policies to slow and eventually stop climate change, before the aforementioned affects occur. However, if they do occur, that distributive measures are enacted to provide a more egalitarian distribution of resources.

citizens feel threatened by mass migration — Maw

One of the unfortunate outcomes of a mass migration threat could be defensive war involving population annihilation. It might be nice if all the destination countries joined in welcoming all comers in a "we're all in the same boat" spirit of camaraderie and compassion. That might happen for a while, as long as the numbers are not too high in the beginning. But it probably wouldn't last long.

I don't think there is any group more or less likely to be infinitely kind (or harsh) in response to really high population movements in their direction. It will depend how the destination population views their own situation. If they feel insecure without high population movements, then they may support an aggressive operation to repel the unfortunate people who must move or die where they are.

Is it possible to repel hundred of thousands of people on the move? It is possible, of course. It would just be extraordinarily savage. But humans are capable of savagery, regardless of how they behave when all is calm, all is right.

So, again: the critical effort to control CO2, methane, and other green house gases. (I don't have much confidence the world can get its collective act together soon enough.)

I see. I thought you meant that civilization itself would be threatened.

The second, highly unlikely scenario, is that socialist policies are enacted to ensure cohesive policies to slow and eventually stop climate change, before the aforementioned affects occur — Maw

I doubt that too. It would require a global military-style government of some kind. Either that or the emergence of a new global religion.

I foresee disintegration in the relationships between global entities and an every-man-for-himself sort of arrangement. Not exactly Mad Max.

From CNN (fake news):

"It's going to be an election of the caravan," Trump said at a campaign rally in Missoula, Montana. "You know what I'm talking about."

In an extended riff about illegal immigration and the caravan, Trump told the crowd that Democrats were banking on the caravan to arrive before Election Day so they could vote for Democrats -- even though as asylum-seekers, they wouldn't be citizens and therefore would not be able to vote in the congressional elections.

It’s frightening to think that tactics like this actually work. Are Trump supporters really that moronic?

Will Trump go down in history as the most successful troll of all time?

Rick Wilson on the arrest of the MAGA Bomber.

trump has been a master of manufacturing a crisis, creating fear, and assigning blame for it, and unifying some mass of people against this made up enemy. He instinctively knows that every hero needs an arch villain.

It is simply amazing that he has been able to turn an ever dwindling crowd of desperate people fleeing abject poverty and violence into a strategic threat to he United States that requires military intervention is both a credit to both his and many of the Americans baser instincts

How an educated electorate has allowed a Trump to happen continues to be a mystery to me.

Stochastic terrorism as characterized by the Rolling Stone article below:

1. a public figure with access to the airwaves or pulpit demonizes a person or group of persons
2. with repetition, the targeted person or group is gradually dehumanized, depicted as loathsome and dangerous—arousing a combustible combination of fear and moral disgust
3. violent images and metaphors, jokes about violence, analogies to past ‘purges’ against reviled groups, use of righteous religious language—all of these typically stop just short of an explicit call to arms
4. when violence erupts, the public figures who have incited the violence condemn it—claiming no one could possibly have foreseen the ‘tragedy’

Not quite identical to hate speech I guess, but close.
Looking back, I don’t recall Obama having gotten into this territory, but Trump on the other hand...
More importantly, what do you think?


Trump’s Assassination Dog Whistle Was Even Scarier Than You Think
Republican nominee engaged in so-called stochastic terrorism with his remarks about “Second Amendment people” and Clinton
David S Cohen
Rolling Stone
Aug 2016

Trump's belief that he can change the 14th amendment by executive order, may well be the most dangerous thing I have ever heard a president ever say, and it had a 3 sec news cycle.

You must have missed his call for the troops at the border to treat thrown rocks as rifles.

The absurdity of his desire to void the 14th amendment is that his defenders then jump into proposing the Supreme Court could reinterpret it. You know, the same guys who inist on justices who strictly interpret the constitution.

Is anyone else nervous about society right now? I'm nervous. I haven't been this nervous in a while. Since the twin towers fell. But I think I might be even more nervous now than I was then because it feels like America is starting to war with it'self and it's neighbors and it's planet with no concern for ethics what so ever.

Is anyone else nervous about society right now? I'm nervous. I haven't been this nervous in a while. Since the twin towers fell. But I think I might be even more nervous now than I was then because it feels like America is starting to war with it'self and it's neighbors and it's planet with no concern for ethics what so ever. — Lif3r

It's going to be okay, Lif3r, just stay with me. Like you, I was shaken to the core by the attack on our country and I still to this day have a very difficult time with accepting the reality of what happened that day and how those looking to find a "reason why" seemed to remove the humanity from it all.
But that doesn't mean that we as a nation are going to fail, we as a nation are in the middle of change. When people use platitudes like "The only constant in life is change" this is what they are talking about. The only problem is that we are the ones walking through the storm, making it impossible to see the other side of change, the sunny side of the storm we are currently walking through. If you could see it from a distance, you could see the edges of the storm framed by sunshine but it's not always that easy.

What we have to do, when we find ourselves walking in the storm we are currently walking through as a nation, is to keep walking for it does no good to stop and get soaked nor do we wish to turn back through the storm we have made it so far through, only to have to walk through it again.

No, take my hand and together we will weather this storm and make it out the other side, I have faith in you and I have faith in me to succeed at that. Just understand, we have a shared responsibility to bring with us grace and understanding of what others may be going through that we are unaware of, never losing sight of the fact that we need to take care of ourselves before we can offer assistance to another no matter how desperate they may be. Much like the Oxygen we are required to breathe, you need to tend to your own self, before helping another traveling with you, in the event of the loss of cabin pressure on a plane for without the instinct of self preservation, you will be of no help to anyone including; but not limited to yourself.

You will be okay, I will be okay and together we as a society will be okay and with that secured, we will then be able to reach out to help others. :sparkle:

Trump's claim that he can with a stroke of his pen overrule the US Constitution is the very definition of authoritarianism. The fact he can publicly announce such an intention, with popular support from his racist, science-denying, conspiracy-theorist base, right before the mid-terms, tells me that unless there is an actual blue wave in two days, that we may not even have a presidential election in 2020. After all, the last free-election the Russians had, they probably didn't think it was going to be their last either. No American should assume at this point that our democratic institutions will survive Trump's onslaught. Especially with a conservative Court that may not stand up for the Constitution, and a Republican party that is now seemingly out in the open about its endorsement of a white-ethno authoritarian state.

Screw Trump, and his fascist followers. I'm standing on the side of liberty.

Trump's claim that he can with a stroke of his pen overrule the US Constitution is the very definition of authoritarianism. — LD Saunders

Just as with everything else that Trump says he will do, this too won't go anywhere. You're simply making the mistake of thinking these issues too logically and not thinking of what Trump actually does here.

Do you Americans have the wall? No.

Is it logical to deploy the army to the border when by law deploying sheriffs, other police or the national guard would be far more effective and basically the intended action if there actually would be a problem at the US border? No.

Is it logical to make claims of tax cuts to ordinary people when the congress is on recess or to think that an executive order will overthrow the constitution? No.

The whole intention is just to get the left to be outraged and simply to give the appeareance of something being done. Appearances are enough. People actually don't care if things really are done or not because they are too obsessed in hating the other side.

People didn't care that Obama continued the war-on-Terror quite on the lines that Bush had gone and increase the drone killings, they were just satisfied they had a democrat as president. And so it is with Trump. How absolutely inept at leading anything Trump is simply doesn't matter. If you just go and yell that all Trump supporters are fascists, that's what Trump wants. That's what conservatives will hear: you calling them fascists.

ssu: You are missing the entire point I made. When Hitler came to power in Germany, he had no idea how far he could go in persecuting Jews. He certainly didn't start mass murdering them the day after seizing power. Why? He wanted to see what people's reactions would be. Hitler was frankly amazed at how little protests he received, both domestically and internationally, as he started persecuting Jews. Because he got so little resistance, the persecutions increased. Although Trump is not Hitler, the analogy is still instructive. Trump has stated, openly, before the mid-terms, that he is above the US Constitution. If on Tuesday the Republicans win, then he'll take that as approval for his position, and he'll become more extreme. If, the Democrats win on Tuesday, then he'll get the message that Americans are not approving of his authoritarian claims.

As far as Trump wanting people to call him a fascist, how is that true? That's the last thing he and his fellow-travelers want. Right-wing political correctness is in fashion these days --- no matter how much of a racist a person is we should not call them a racist. Why not? If the description is accurate, then it is useful, and in Trump's case, the description of him and his supporters being racists is accurate.

The whole intention is just to get the left to be outraged and simply to give the appeareance of something being done. Appearances are enough. People actually don't care if things really are done or not because they are too obsessed in hating the other side. — ssu

This is a good observation. Trump is a marketer who likes to win, devoid of principles. Deploying troops to the border is theatrics that is cheered by his supporters and decried by his detractors. When his detractors react hyperbolically, he "wins". By continually discussing his nonsense, we keep it alive and keep his supporters energized. The "invasion" by the caravan has become a major issue in the election because Trump made it so, and we detractors keep discussing it. News sources that attempt to expose Trump's absurdity with facts add to the problem because 1) his supporters aren't interested in facts, they cheer Trump because they agree with his sentiments 2) his detractors keep the discussion going; the more absurd his behavior seems, the more we react, the more we pump up his supporters - especially when our reaction is hyperbolic.

Consider his assertion that he'd eliminate birthright citizenship. When his supporters go on TV and are confronted with the facts, they jump immediately to the absurdity of birthright citizenship - appealing to the base despite having no legitimate means of doing anything about it. This multiplies the opposition responses, since now there's the urge to respond to the notion that it's absurd, added to the unconstitutional nature of his claim and the implied racist/xenophobic attitude. This creates even more passion in his followers and keeps the discussion alive. This is a win for Trump.