Should the CIA choose our President?

[Elvis]

Michael Moore, great unwashed cloaking device aside, is worth 50 million dollers. He's part of the elite

To say that Michael Moore is part of the elite is ridiculous. Moore doesn't get invited to Warren Buffet's summer flings, Bilderberg meetings, Bohemian Grove parties or Council on Foreign Relations membership. He gets thrown out of GM stockholders' meetings. Michael Moore is a working class intellectual who happened to make a lot of money with his (usually good) documentaries. By no means does earning $50M buy Moore a seat at the grownups table. By that measure, Lady Gaga should have a seat on the Bilderberg Executive Committee. (Which might not at all be a bad idea.)


On edit: By the way, Michael Moore worked very hard to earn that money.

[brekin]

Michael Moore, great unwashed cloaking device aside, is worth 50 million dollers. He's part of the elite

To say that Michael Moore is part of the elite is ridiculous. Moore doesn't get invited to Warren Buffet's summer flings, Bilderberg meetings, Bohemian Grove parties or Council on Foreign Relations membership. He gets thrown out of GM stockholders' meetings. Michael Moore is a working class intellectual who happened to make a lot of money with his (usually good) documentaries. By no means does earning $50M buy Moore a seat at the grownups table. By that measure, Lady Gaga should have a seat on the Bilderberg Executive Committee. (Which might not at all be a bad idea.)
On edit: By the way, Michael Moore worked very hard to earn that money.

Sorry bro, you have to leave your heroes at the door at RI. Moore is in the 1% by income. That isn't working class, and he's hardly an intellectual (but that is another story). That he got filthy rich off of his anti-capitalist stunts and films should make him more suspect than those who go in to the cabal meetings through the front door. And by the way, Trump worked very hard to earn his money to. Cry me a polluted river.

Moores second home where he worries and intellectualizes for the working class as he counts the money from his stocks in Boeing, Haliburton, Honeywell and Pfizer.



Michael Moore’s $2M hypocrite house: film director lives like the 1% he condemns
http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comme ... rite-house

After Lying About His Wealth on National TV, Michael Moore Admits He's A One Percenter
http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/noe ... admits-hes

[Cordelia]

^^^
That's one ugly domain for a 1%er. Hope his first is less of an eyesore.

[82_28]

He got paid for being someone who earned it. I spent a lot of money on all of his video shit (and movies) going to rallies and such. Why? Because I am an idiot leftist.

[JackRiddler]

I just cannot get behind the false equivalency that somehow Trump really represents some anti-war, anti-neo-con, anti-military position. If, Allah forbid, he were to meet with an untimely demise, will people be spinning him like Kennedy as some great rider on a white horse against the CIA and false-flag military involvement?

Yeah, that's what's incredible here - and highly insulting.

Arguing this on this board either requires a moron, or takes us for morons. Blind morons who somehow have managed to miss every word that the Kayfabe Hitler has actually and repeatedly said.

I'll throw myself in from the bottom of the last page because I'm alot fucking more interesting than most of the shit on this thread.

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Should the CIA choose our President?

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Of course. The CIA has been doing that since 1963 and the results have been splendid.

Should questions that insult the intelligence of the average R.I. reader be posed? Why not? Situation normal, right?

Let's see, should Nordic's liver be sold to the current Blackwater successor firm for immediate harvesting and transplantation into the body of a serial killer who is then equipped with body armor and machine guns and released into Disneyworld on the busiest morning of the year, with the entire park surrounded by federal troops to assure that no one escapes from the carnage?

Hell no! No fucking way! I oppose!!!

One of the more insulting suggestions in the first comment is that people here are reading Trump through the media. Here? Only Trump-level thinkers and Trump apologists/supporters would try that canard on R.I.

There is little need to read Trump through any means other than direct exposure to the man. To his speeches and words, coming directly from his voice, his gestures, his thumbs. To his decisions, easily viewed and read. To the consequences of said decisions, seen at airports and in now (re)burgeoning detention centers. We've all had a lot of direct exposure to this creature of petty and transparent evils, quite recently. Some of us have had the displeasure for decades, longer than with the Clintons.**

If you come here, to Rigorous Intuition, and try to suggest to people here that their impression is formed by the media, and really they just need to understand him a bit better, then they will see what a lesser evil he is, then either you are treating the people here as total fools, or you are a fool. My guess in this case is option b.

If you are not reading him as the sick, dangerous, fascistic, racist, unstable, woman-hating sociopath that he is -- did I mention woman-hating, because that's constitutive almost more than anything else? and if you are not above all reading his essence -- that of a transparent con-man who has lived through nothing but scams, petty crimes and lies sold to the stupid all his lonely life -- then either you will, inevitably, get it, sooner or later, or you won't. But either way, you are of little other than academic interest to me.

I am interested in the emerging majority who know what the fuck time it is, and who want alliances in a struggle, first and foremost, to bring down the immediate and imminent danger. I hope and in fact am very optimistic that this is happening in a fashion that exposes and weakens and causes a greater drive to reform all kinds of bad systemic factors, including the deep state. I will certainly not choose sides between those elements of the deep state who are making trouble for the would-be classic-fascist-style dictator or the man himself.

The question has a number of false premises. There is no "we." If there was, there certainly would be no "our" president. There should be no president at all, this is a bad system for this particular country and people. There should be no CIA.

Any further questions?

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** Note, because I can't do this part of the justified trash talk often enough: You're certainly not going to come here and tell me I don't know Donald fucking Trump. The man of New York City. The product of Queens. That's right, cosmopolis-hating cowboys: you elected a New York scam artist who thinks you are unwashed doofuses -- "poorly educated, I love poorly educated" -- and if you voted for him for any reason other than that you too are a white-supremacist woman-hating bully-boy predator like him, if you really think this character is attacking the establishment for you and gives a fuck about your pathetic life and your pathetic problems, then you fucking are a doofus. You elected a really stupid scam artist, too, a low-grade scam artist, one that 90% of everyone in New York City figured out long ago. You are like the last person at a WWE show who still thinks it's a real fight. There are millions of you and I'm told I'm supposed to figure out how to talk to you poor sensitive snowflake souls and not scare you off, but meanwhile I'm going to worry about the MAJORITY who are not quite as stupid, because they are the ones who need to organize first, and put up the fucking fight in earnest.

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[Project Willow]

^ I think you've ventured a bit into the hysterical, JR. Trump is more of a monster than Cheney, or Poppy Bush, or Kissinger? I don't think so.

Also, it's readily apparent that you're brilliant in many ways. You don't need to call other people idiots and morons to make a point.

xo

[brekin]

Like a double dose of Dubya: Donald Trump’s presidency will be like the George W. Bush disaster — only worse
The Trump White House already resembles a far more extreme version of the disastrous Bush administration
http://www.salon.com/2016/11/19/like-a- ... nly-worse/

In yet another post-election example of wish fulfillment, there are rumors circulating that president-elect Donald Trump won’t actually stay in office all four years because he won’t want to do the job. After Trump met with President Obama, we heard reports that he “seemed surprised” by the scope of the job. We have also heard that Trump won’t want to sleep much in the White House and that he is likely to spend more time at Trump Tower. Then there is the idea that all Trump wanted to do was win, not actually lead. The New York Times reported back in July that Trump stated that he wouldn’t rule out quitting after he had won.

But before you get too excited by that prospect, we need to remember the presidency of George W. Bush, because all signs suggest that Trump will be a lot like George W. — only worse. Trump may not do the job, but that won’t mean he’ll step down, and it won’t mean that his tenure as president won’t screw everything up.
Let’s start with the obvious — there is no reason why Trump needs to stay in the White House or do much, if any, of the job. He can take a play right out of George W.’s book and go on endless vacation while outsourcing the job. Don’t forget that during his eight-year presidency, Bush took 879 days of vacation, including 77 trips to his Texas ranch.

And before you celebrate the idea of the orange-faced goon staying away from Washington, remember who Bush left behind to do the work. As Trump assembles his transition team and floats ideas for cabinet members, there is an uncanny resemblance to the Bush administration. Many think that it was the absolutely horrific team that Bush assembled that fueled the disaster of his presidency. Trump shows sign of doing him one better.
From Mike Pence (our new Dick Cheney) to Michael Flynn (our new Donald Rumsfeld, even if he is sitting in Condoleezza Rice’s old office as National Security Advisor), there is simply no reason to think that the advisors to Trump will be anything but worse, more extreme versions of the team that ran things under Bush. In fact, I am willing to venture that after Flynn takes over we will be wishing for the days of Rumsfeld and his torture memos. Rumsfeld will look restrained next to the guy that Politico calls “America’s angriest general.” And if you thought John Ashcroft was incompetent as attorney general, wait until you see what happens when Jeff Sessions gets going. Paul Krugman described Ashcroft as the worst attorney general in U.S. history — my guess is he’ll have to revise his assessment after Sessions is confirmed.

While Steve Bannon may be no match for Bush’s Karl Rove, Trump has Sarah Palin on a short list for secretary of the interior — a spot that Bush’s pick luckily made largely forgettable. The cabinet picks are still being bounced around and aren’t yet definitive, but there is not one name in the running that shouldn’t be causing you to panic. Trump has no one who remotely resembles Colin Powell on any short list.
Those imagining that Trump will be “a uniter, not a divider” need to remember what actually happened under the presidency of the guy who first uttered those words. Despite the fact that Bush ran under a banner of “compassionate conservatism,” we now have proof that his presidency “began a period of previously unmatched partisanship in our politics.” It’s worth noting that Trump has not once, not ever spoken of compassion as a core political value. In fact he ran a campaign that had dividing our nation as a key goal. So we have every reason to believe that he will make the polarization caused by Bush seem cute.

The fact that both Trump and Bush lost the popular vote is only one of the many pattern matches to their campaigns. From election fraud to election rigging, the campaigns had much in common. Both candidates had highly elite upbringings and yet somehow managed to fashion themselves as folksy, regular guys who would stand up for average America and represent the “silent majority.”
Bush couldn’t pronounce the word “nuclear” and Trump can’t speak in a full sentence but both of them will have had the nuclear codes. They both seem incredibly dumb, but Bush’s dumb lacked the aggressive, mean, bullying tone of Trump. Bush often looked confused, like he didn’t understand the words on the teleprompter. Meanwhile Trump often looks unhinged and downright nuts. Once we first see Trump address the nation from the White House, we will be yearning for those bygone days when our horrible president simply looked like a deer in the headlights rather than a cartoon-character villain.

The Bush administration was the master of spin — lying to the public 935 times before taking us to war in Iraq, supplying constant propaganda, spying on citizens, intimidating journalists, and denying the public the truth. Meanwhile, Bush himself barely understood the Internet. In a 1999 Salon interview he wondered whether he needed to even engage with online media. Now we have a Twitter-obsessed reality TV-trained president, who not only uses social media to harass critics, but also plans to sue any reporters who publish pieces critical of him.
Bush sat there quietly, silently fuming while Stephen Colbert delivered one of the most satisfying roasts in comedy history. Can you possibly imagine thin-skinned Trump handling that? It’s more likely that our political comedians will end up in jail.

I’m not going to take you through the thought process of imagining what will happen if Trump has to face a 9/11. I’ll only remind you that Trump has openly supported torture, assassinating the families of terrorists, arming nations with nuclear weapons, dismantling NATO, and using nuclear weapons in Europe.
What’s really way worse is that some of Bush’s stated policy positions look downright moderate and reasonable in comparison to Trump’s. There is the fact that Bush actually advocated for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, unlike Trump, who thinks climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese. The fact that Bush’s actual environmental policy was a total disaster is only a dark omen for what is possible under Trump.

If you really want to feel sick, recall that Bush campaigned as a centrist and was considered a very similar candidate to John Kasich when they were both in the 1999 primaries. Bush campaigned on bringing “integrity and honor” back into the White House. Compare that to Trump, who campaigned on banning Muslim immigrants, building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, and repealing Roe v. Wade. On Bush’s second day in office he reinstated a policy that required any non-governmental organization receiving U.S. government funding to refrain from performing or promoting abortion services in other countries. On Trump’s second day in office he could well nominate a Supreme Court Justice.

There is really no end to the various ways we can look at all that was bad under Bush and imagine how it can be worse with Trump. The Bush administration decimated our founding values, led us into permanent war, destabilized global politics, destroyed our economy and divided our nation. And Bush looks “low energy” when compared to what Trump can do.
Bush is consistently named as one of the worst presidents in U.S. history, and he left office with a record low approval rating. There’s no reason to think that Trump can’t do worse than that. It’s time to stop fantasizing about Trump quitting the job and to start dealing with the reality that we may have just elected the very best worst president of all time.

[Nordic]

And you're posting copypasta crap from Salon on RI? ^^^^^^

Good God.

I just wanted to say "what Willow said". Repeat. Repeat.

And hey 82, the Moore of whom I was speaking is the current Moore, who is indeed hysterical as fuck right now. Not the Moore who did Fahrenheit 911 and Bowling for Columbine. That Moore has been lobotomized by current events. Like so many others. Like people who copypasta from Salon.

Anyway I don't mean to spend much time here any more, but I had a thought I wanted to share.

Since the end game seems to be getting the American people to be ok with the IC overthrowing elections "for our own good", perhaps that was the idea from Day One.

Install Trump as president, then have the media whip up the populace into a frothing-at-the-mouth mob, then step in to save the day by "removing him". Ta dah! No more elections needed, America saved!

Hell we have people here constantly saying "REMOVE HIM". They don't care how.

Maybe Bill Kristol can be our new president. He is 100% behind the Deep State getting rid of Trump.

https://mobile.twitter.com/BillKristol/ ... 4661747712

[stillrobertpaulsen]

Seems like a rhetorical question to ask, even for Hugh Manatee Wins. The correct answer is 'Should the CI...Are you fucking kidding?' but since you asked, why does the answer to the question of who chooses our President matter to you? Three months ago, back when Jill Stein was initiating a recount attempt, you seemed much more blasé about electoral theft:

Somebody, behind the scenes, made sure Hillary lost the election.

There's yer civil war, going on "above the line" as we call the VIP's on a movie set.

The voters haven't actually selected the president, or even the nominees, in a very long time.

Then, after the recount attempt was neutered and squashed, you started a thread about what a great year 2016 was. So when the GOP, or the overworld, or whoever you think is responsible for the debacle in November takes action, it's just same ol', same ol' at worst or indicative of a great year at best?

BTW, I totally agree with what you said in the quote above. I just don't see how what's happening now constitutes the CIA choosing our President. That boat sailed. At best, the shenanigans afoot right now lead to President Pence. Who was already chosen back in November on the same damn ticket with Trump; you couldn't vote for one (or steal for one) without the other. Which, I agree with you, would suck, Pence is no improvement and in some ways is worse. But - and now maybe I'm the one being blasé - that doesn't strike as being a new theft, just shuffling deck chairs on the same sinking ship.

[brekin]

And you're posting copypasta crap from Salon on RI? ^^^^^^
Good God.

Say the word. Say it. You think it is "fake news" because you don't likey?
I'm loving the people who complain about reposting content from official news sources with identifiable journalists compared to quoting their own anonymouse selves opinions as supreme authorities.

I just wanted to say "what Willow said". Repeat. Repeat.
And hey 82, the Moore of whom I was speaking is the current Moore, who is indeed hysterical as fuck right now. Not the Moore who did Fahrenheit 911 and Bowling for Columbine. That Moore has been lobotomized by current events. Like so many others. Like people who copypasta from Salon.

Yes, the definition of sanity is now whether someone agrees with your views Nordic, which took a hard alt-right turn about a year and a half a go. Your actually one person that makes me glad Trump is president and you're not. "Who is indeed hysterical as fuck right now." Ya, ya, (puffing on pipe) indeed.

Anyway I don't mean to spend much time here any more, but I had a thought I wanted to share.
Since the end game seems to be getting the American people to be ok with the IC overthrowing elections "for our own good", perhaps that was the idea from Day One.
Install Trump as president, then have the media whip up the populace into a frothing-at-the-mouth mob, then step in to save the day by "removing him". Ta dah! No more elections needed, America saved!
Hell we have people here constantly saying "REMOVE HIM". They don't care how.
Maybe Bill Kristol can be our new president. He is 100% behind the Deep State getting rid of Trump.
https://mobile.twitter.com/BillKristol/ ... 4661747712

I actually agree with that analysis. Before you scoot to your Trump forums and spend too much time here I actually think you have to agree that Trump & his supporters and his most vocal critics seem to be trying to best each other in destroying democratic institutions and norms. But Nordic you know you would be just be one more person constantly saying ""REMOVE HER" not caring how, if Hilary won, as you were constantly saying "REMOVE HIM" not caring how, when Bush was president. I think Trump won/stole the election fair and square. And he actually deserves the chance to try and initiate his doomsday plan before anything unseemly is planned. Many people are just going to have to suck up the reality he is president. I think his policies should be opposed as legally for as long as possible. But it can't be forgotten Nazi Germany instituted many inhumane and immoral, evil laws. He's only been in office 20 days, though, and he's already pushing his doomsday scenario hard, flipping many moderates to extremo modes. So whatever he has coming, he's bringing on himself. He's had his chance to modulate and soften his rhetoric and policies and cool out his critics and the opposition. The guy has declared war on the press, judiciary, intelligence agencies, Hollywood, immigrants, environment, educational system, etc. of the country he represents. You can't be a democratic ruler if you win the election but the lose the will of the people. If he is going to play the tyrant, he's going out like tyrants do. So, I for one don't fear the reaper.

[JackRiddler]

^ I think you've ventured a bit into the hysterical, JR. Trump is more of a monster than Cheney, or Poppy Bush, or Kissinger? I don't think so.

(EDITED) He has not yet accumulated the same record in the mass murder department but I've got serious problems with those who don't see the evident intent to match them and do worse. Does he match them as a monster? Absolutely. As you know, until now he wasn't in the same industry, but within the limits of the industries he has practiced in, he has been absolutely the worst possible human being doing the worst possible things that he could have at every stage.

Other than scam claims for idiots (and I'm sorry, it's idiots who believe stuff like that he's the peace patriot, etc.) he has laid out a clear program, no mistaking it, his regime is going for it 24/7, and every aspect of it is evil and wrong and dangerous and not redeemable and possibly irreversible if implemented. Bringing down this monster and his crew a.s.a.p. is necessary and good and likely opens the way to a different policy universe. But even if it doesn't, there can be no normalization.

And comparisons can really get odious: you're right, people were not out there protesting Cheney, Bush, Kissinger in sufficient numbers - they should have been is all I can say. I WAS. Good that people are out protesting this one, I'm not going to complain but seek to encourage expanding the critique to something more systemic, less personal. He is a product of all that is wrong in America, no question.

There is absolutely an opportunistic aspect here and that is also good. He should be brought down in part because he CAN BE brought down! To beat back and discredit these violent and barbarous politics is a huge opportunity. Absolutely, the real left (the left that has never been in the corporate media, and maybe was half-represented by Sanders) should ride it for all it's worth organizationally and build a coalition and alliances out of all the single issue causes that are already out there.

There is no legitimacy in the media system that lifted him up to his 2015 status and that gave him the nomination as a ratings lark, or in the Republican system of vote suppression that rigged the election for him, or in the Dead Hand of 1787, or in the Christianist fanatic brainwashing for-profit/no-tax enterprises that provide half the Republican base.

Also, it's readily apparent that you're brilliant in many ways. You don't need to call other people idiots and morons to make a point.

xo

Maybe it's part of the point, however. There really is no excuse for people who are playing the Trump apologetics, contrary to everything one can see just from watching Trump, no mediation necessary. He preys actively on the stupid and always has as his business model ever since he branched out from pure real estate back in the 1980s, and those who present the apologetics need to smarten up or are actively taking the rest of us for fools.

You're pretty great yourself, of course.

.

[Elvis]

Sorry bro, you have to leave your heroes at the door at RI.

Sorry sister, you have to leave your assumptions about who my heroes are at the door. Your breezy assumption is wrong.

Editor of Mother Jones. Not an intellectual. Right, okay.

A big house! OMG! Next he'll be setting U.S. economic policy!

Moore's mother was a secretary, his father an auto assembly line worker. Trump started with $200M from his father. The comparison is ludicrous.

[barracuda]

So... it's okay for the FBI to choose our President, then?

[SonicG]

The visibility and turbulence of current shenanigans reveals some measure of unusual or unprecedented resistance to that norm.

It's like watching some dogs fight over Poppy's bone.

Maybe they'll hurt each other bad, and a third dog will get the bone.

How many factions are lurking within the deep state at this point? Kind of like guessing how many jellybeans in a jar, isn't it?

Yes,well, not to dwell on my point a few pages back, lest be accused of "binary thinking"...The core argument seems to be that the CIA wants Trump out because he won't start a war with Russia which Hilary Clinton was apparently dead-set on doing...The CIA needs a new cold war because....and here is where that whole argument gets murky...Because the military needs a continued raison d'etre? Trump has talked bigly and loudly about increasing the military budget of the poor dilapidated US military budget...but has also rattled sabers (before being forced to sheath them) at China, Iran, "terrah"...
And when I brought up the fact about what would China do if the US actually started a war with Russia? Where does China fit in? The defenders of this "CIA is forcing Trump out" meme shrugged...
It seems so much more likely that a spineless slug like Trump would stupidly put himself in the Russian's pockets for his business. Yes, he is now more or less a supporter of global corporate capitalism for the poor socialism for the rich...certainly lower ranking than Kissinger, Cheney et. al., but slavishly wants to be a part of that table where the levers are pulled...

[JackRiddler]

So... it's okay for the FBI to choose our President, then?

Right, that too.

And it's totally okay for CNN and Morning Joe et al., possibly with help from the Clinton camp, to choose the presidential candidate of the Republican Party, which they did prior to any primaries.