The way I see it, either Trump is, and this guy and all his buddies in congress believe Trump is, and rationally should be way more serious about getting people prepared for potentially having to engaged in resistance to that, possibly to include armed resistance (Trump attempted a self-coup already, that would be a reasonable reaction).

Or… Trump isn’t, or isn’t doing a good enough job for it to be a legitimate threat, and consequently Raskin et al are cynically blowing things out of proportion to benefit themselves in the election, while not actually taking seriously the call to action they are implying is necessary.

In the first case, they are underreacting to an event that has the potential to end the American experiment in democracy; in the latter they delegitimizing their own position by failing to accurately explain why and how Trump’s plans are not threatening enough to rise to the level of serious resistance. In either case I do not think Democrats have properly handled the situation.

It seems like any time there’s a resolution in the UN that doesn’t totally suck the US votes against it, so, yeah. That checks out.

This is my immediate thought too. I have been under the impression that, after having their infrastructure partially nationalized during the Bolivarian revolution Chevron and the like viewed Venezuelan oil as too risky to invest the absolute shitloads of money they would need to to expand their production beyond where it already is. Maybe Chevron is uniquely positioned for this because of the extent of their preexisting infrastructure, but I’m curious to see if they just slow walk the deal until Trumps out, or something?

I certainly think the possibility of Venezuelans throwing a wrench in the plans after anger with the theft of their sovereignty boils over is greater than zero, but, like, who knows what’s being said beyond public knowledge. Maybe the bad taste left by Maduro is enough where thats just not a risk? Maybe there’s some other assurances we aren’t privvy to? Maybe Chevron is just greedy enough to try regardless?

I would love to see the logic behind that belief. It’s gonna be a good read. According to the first few results on the internet, the entier oil industry is, like, 4 Trillion per year (IEA says 3.5 Trillion in 2018). What the fuck is the slop bot supposed to do to make almost an entire US GDP of money?

Here’s to hoping they have a pre-programmed kill limit

Cory Robin’s book on Thomas taught me that you can learn a lot about the supreme court justices by reading the opinions they’ve wrote. I don’t have the time to now, but if you’re genuinely curious it would be a good starting point.

is this one?

Probably petrochemicals.

I often wonder if they believe this themselves, or if they just cynically say crap like this out of contempt for people.

I’m not sure that’s accurate. I mean, Heusinger, who was a high-ranking member of the Wehrmacht, was later a West German general, and a Chairman at NATO. Definitely striking, but not the only similar example. Denazification was woefully incomplete.

Only his election chance are dead… Orban got off easier than the Pope.

Someone finally listend to their lawyers

“Possible Twin detected. Please send verified lab results of your DNA’s methylation pattern to unlock your computer”

Yeah. It’ll solve itself when the habitability of the planet declines enough to prevent the continuation of a high-tech global economy.

Unfortunately we’ve lumped a bunch of agencies under DHS, notably FEMA, but also some other things like cybersecurity, customs, and WMD mitigation agencies. So, while I would love for ICE, and a bunch of other fascist-ass agencies to be deleted, thia particular route to doing that also shuts down some agencies that are undeniably important.

Yeah, but the trend has been significant revision downward for months now. Anyone who’s been watching was expecting this.

If the choice is “be poor” and “sign up to be on call to murder brown people”, surely we can agree that “be poor” is the better choice.

This is really what I’m wondering. Like, he definitely doesn’t understand this, but since when has “not understanding something” stopped Trump?

Maybe, but the other guys with lidar are using 1.8 RDP’d in Filipino drivers (without US driving licenses) per car… so maybe its a pipe dream either way.

Thanks for the insight.