Nov 2023 Mod notice:
There may be other, more specific, threads about some aspects of US politics, but this one tends to act as a hub for all sorts of related news and information, so it's usually one of the busiest OTC threads.
If you're new to OTC, it's worth reading the Introduction to On-Topic Conversations
and the On-Topic Conversations debate guidelines before posting here.
Rumor-based, fear-mongering and/or inflammatory statements that damage the quality of the thread will be thumped. Off-topic posts will also be thumped. Repeat offenders may be suspended.
If time spent moderating this thread remains a distraction from moderation of the wiki itself, the thread will need to be locked. We want to avoid that, so please follow the forum rules when posting here.
In line with the general forum rules, 'gravedancing' is prohibited here. If you're celebrating someone's death or hoping that they die, your post will get thumped. This rule applies regardless of what the person you're discussing has said or done.
Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Random question because I'd like to be able to use a particular expression knowing it's accurate: Has any President before Trump had so much trouble within the first months of his presidency? It seems like his only true accomplishment thus far is outliving William Henry Harrison.
Has any prior President made such a hash of the first months of their term without literally dying in the first month of their term?
edited 6th Jun '17 8:01:14 AM by sgamer82
Lost in Space
Oh, bother.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Yes, and none of them good.
Collector Of Fine Oddities
@leak arrest, amusingly enough puts Trump's most rabid supporters in another pickle; they've been screaming the leaks are entirely inventions of teh lubural medias!!!1! so acknowledging the arrest means acknowledging that Trump lied about it being fake, which of course he cannot do because he's the glorious leader. The ones I know are tying so many knots trying to fit both together that I imagine they have quite the headache.
Well, there was Lincoln's first few months....
Clinton had a rough first year but it was nothing compared to Trump.
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
Just a harmless giant from a foreign land.
Turns out, the Saudi deal is nothing but hot air
A nice butterfly
He could possibly brag about being the President who has single handedy managed to improve U.S-Russian relationships like no other before.
It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes
Given stuff like the air strike on Assad's forces, he isn't even doing that particularly well.
And well it's more likely he's doing the exact opposite since basically everyone who's not the Republican Party is the most suspicious and tense about Russia that they've been since the days of the Cuban Missile Crisis. If anything he set Us-Russia cultural relationships decades further back.
edited 6th Jun '17 8:46:19 AM by Gaon
"All you Fascists bound to lose."
Causing freakouts over sourcing since 2018
Is it really their fault their source didn't see a barium meal test coming?
I have disagreed with her a lot, but comparing her to republicans and propagandists of dictatorships is really low. - An idiot
Lost in Space
Wikileaks is a group of assholes. Well, it's one main asshole and a bunch of hangers-on.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Cause Wikileaks never releases sensitive personal information. -.-
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
Lost in Space
It's fine when they do it, because they're righteous defenders of Truth. The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized and all that.
edited 6th Jun '17 9:26:37 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Jupiterian Local
Wait, Wikileaks is pissed at someone for not properly redacting leaked documents?
That's rich.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
From what I read in Wa Po[1], the Intercept may have bumbled a bit; when they sent images of the leaked document to their NSA contact for vetting the image included the postmarked envelope it came in. That gave investigators the city and it's a small step from there to finger where the leak originated. Winner also didn't cover her tracks well; I saw one source mention that her background was as a linguist and we might not be looking at someone with Snowden's level of tech-savy. She also made contact with The Incercept with her personal email.
In a bit that may amuse some people here, one of the emails was a request for a transcript of the podcast Glenn Greenwald made the comment about not having concrete proof of Russian interference.
Personally, I haven't decided whether this leak was a good idea or not. We are dealing with intelligence of an ongoing investigation in this case, albeit one the administration would prefer be snuffed out. You won't hear me villianizing her but jury's out on whether this is a case of Honor Before Reason.
edited 6th Jun '17 9:54:35 AM by Elle
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
Regardless we have hard proof now that the Russians did get into voting software, that's gotta be worth something right?
Oh really when?
Honestly, I am not really sure that I follow the whole thing...did the company she was working for hiding that hackers had gotten to their software, or did they work with the official investigators and she just leaked the document because she was under the impression that the government wanted to hide what really happened?
TBH I'm not sure how the contracting company (Plurbius) had access to the report such that Winner was able to print it out. They advertise translation services as one of their main specialties. According to the audit of the office, a total of six people printed the file.
From what's visible of her social media. Winner is opposed to Trump.
edited 6th Jun '17 10:09:39 AM by Elle
Every sane person is opposed to Trump. That doesn't mean that the motivation wasn't worry about the whole election issue ending up downplayed and not addressed again.
We don't know anything about Winner's motives beyond that (and that she read/listened to The Intercept). As you might imagine she's a little indisposed when it comes to speaking for herself.
I don't think it's likely she was personally involved in the investigations into Russian activity. Her beat was Afghanistan; she is fluent in Farsi and a couple other regional languages.
edited 6th Jun '17 10:25:05 AM by Elle
Addendum to my post on the last page; it's more like six people total, in the country, printed the document. The logging of who prints what is apparently managed by the NSA's computers.
Also, even without seeing the postmark, investigations probably could have fingered her: Modern color printers embed a hard-to-see code into printouts which tracks info about when a document was printed and info about the printer.
From WTF just happened today, via Buzzfeed
Kids are quoting Trump to bully their classmates.
How long until someone torches one of those "American Idea" hotels?
Bullies will be bullies. Even if Trump weren't president, they would still find another way to pick on the other kids they don't like.
edited 6th Jun '17 11:07:57 AM by FireCrawler2002
So... On the latest NSA leak: Of course the reality tv show host Donald Trump would be foiled by a Reality Winner.
1 2 We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. -KV