Juror#8

Hypocrisy like the golf thing or does that just go one way? Trump hard working. That one still resonates. Anyway, serious question ... who cares if Trump was getting some trim on the side? Who cares if Clinton was? The funny thing is how people use Clinton’s indiscretions as a character flaw but it somehow makes Trump is cool and virile. Bman and some others carrying Trump’s water and explaining away all his foibles. Nevermind. Obama made Trump !@#$ a porn star. It was tenant of Obamacare.

Acquire through the draft. Get Dj Moore in the 2nd. All will be well in the world.

We just need to draft Dj Moore in the 2nd. He would immediately slit in as our #2 receiver with #1 potential. Best receiver in the draft imo.

Draft Dj Moore in the 2nd.

I don't care about how much the man plays golf. I care that many of the people who don't care about Trump playing [more] golf, cared a lot about how much Obama played golf ... Barely a year into his presidency. Not saying you because I don't recall you being a part of that crowd. I just don't know why people can't call a spade a spade and I think it's an indictment on our politics and the people who participate within it. More than anything it calls into question the value of their criticisms because they then read as disingenuous and gratuitous partisan attacks. I just knew people would be like "damn, so you know what, I gave O **** for his vacationing and golfing and because fair is fair is fair is fair, Trump is over the top with it so he deserves **** too." Instead, it's silence from the cooks and the doctors and the numbers and the people who live in la and Alaska. But yet the criticisms were impersonal though ...

Hahahaha fair enough. I sure will. I’ll check these out and report back. I’m always up for some good reads and to challenge a personal paradigm or three.

I agree. Initially, I was talking about the dude’s post-presidency love not about anything he did in office.

I don’t agree that he is the hardest working president. And what does that have to do with the frequency and the timing of his vacations? You gave **** to Obama’s about it. Where’s the parity. Oh I forgot, you offer no pretense of being non-partisan. As long as they have an r after their name, their **** doesn’t stink and what they do is reasonable. That’s cool too. Anyway, I see that that’s how you get around that. You did the Crazy Betty routine. Or is that the soft shoulder? The ol’ indignant - divert attention - approach. Either way, it was a little weak. But it speaks volumes. So thank you for agreeing with me.

Agree or disagree, I’ll be interested to see these dominoes that you’re saying are going to fall, fall. I do think that you’re quick to penalize people for institutional and administrative control apparati which have been in place for decades, and I think that where you’ll fall short is in the context of n “intent” that most of these folks don’t have because they willingly follow a formula of plausible deniability. You missed that that when I said it before. It’s true. Lot of conversations with a lot of Lds (granted, legislative politics) where the answer is “he’d rather not know; it’s cleaner then.” Plausible deniability and agency paradigm is how good people hold their nose through their time in Washington. So I stand by my original thesis. Because I haven’t seen anything that suggests that he or anyone pirposefully mislead or undermined the country or its institutions. And I know people who’ve spent time with the man. My best friend, a Republican, met him thrice at camp David when he (my friend) worked there. He’s (Obama) is a good dude and a good dad. And I have testimonials to back that up. If there are books or blogs or websites that you could direct me to, though, I’m always a student and willing to learn new ****.

Well when you ask it that way, sure. But, as you know, you’re making declarative statements and assuming a lot of facts that aren’t in evidence. And that’s not to be disrespectful. It’s to say that we can say things and non sequitur our way through this with powerful inferences relying on questionable facts to back it up. You may be on to something. Or you may be crusading using redacted documents from Drudge Report as your guide. I won’t assume either. What do you mean that I’ll find out soon enough. Interest is piqued ...

Look here chief, I think they’re all crooks. I’ve said as much in many a post about many a thing. I’m an independent voice who appraises politics irrespective of ideological affiliation. Here is what I know ... on principle I don’t agree with much of what you’re saying. It doesn’t mean that you’re not earnest in what you’re saying. It doesn’t mean that you’re not sincere. I just feel that you’re connecting some dots that aren’t there. And that’s more based on my understanding of the poltical machine and plausible deniability and agency theory than what you may be willing to care about. With that said, I should also say that I haven’t cared enough to look into 90% of what you posted. Why? Well, because I think that all politicians are dirty. And most people go on ideological crusades. Some here will rah rah the **** out of you here but will fight tooth and nail to exculpate Trump if the tables were turned. Ugh. Go go back and read the **** here that Obama’s took for golfing or vacationing. Trump is doing it at a record clip and money is going back into his own pocket. *crickets* 3rd where ya at on that? That’s why Im indifferent to the whole scene man. Why? Because I realize that the lot of em are dirt bags. Until someone is passionate enough to do something about something, all this stuff is smoke and mirrors. So whatcha gonna do? You may think that you dropped a mic but you didn’t. I’m not sure what your point was. Do you mean your family and friends? Or the other tens of millions of people from Ohio and West who voted for him. I mean lets let’s narrow this down some. Do you want to talk neighborhoods or what bro?

Who said it was ok? Read my response to 3rd.

You’re missing my point. My point is that Rhino should sue Obama and post about it on his blog. I never said that Obama was perfect. I don’t think that he was. What I think is that he is a good man and was a good effective president. And I don’t think that his preceidency was marred by any more dirt then anyone else’s presidency. You raise one thing, I’ll raise you something else. I might not not be able to use cool acronyms because I don’t give that much or a !@#$, but the point will still stand. All of them are dirty. They take an “ends justify the means” approach to bull their way through their presidency. It’s not unique to Obama, or Clinton, or Bush, of Kennedy, or Fdr, or Woodrow Wilson. They shouldn’t be doing it is not up for debate. But it doesnt make them a bad person or an ineffective leader. If you think otherwise, you should consider our court system. And blog about it. Dont talk all about it, !@#$ing be about it.

1. You should have a blog. I’d seriously read it. I mean it. Set it up and I’m in. 2. I like everything but the recency bias. Do yo really think that anything Obama did is unique to his presidency? Do you think that what Clinton or the Bushes or Reagan did was unique to their presidencies? Do you know how many weapons and how much money was underhandedly flowing to the Middle East or to Latin America to fund partisans under Reagan and Hw? I don’t know. Do you? Congress didn’t sign off on that purse string. Do you know how much of that unregulated shall I say “contraband” was used to shoot at our soldiers twenty/thirty years later. In the law there is a causality and a nexus there that’s hard to argue against. Complicit much? In the lawsuit that I get to at the end of this, can you consider an indictment against Reagan as an accessory and for negligent entrustment? Please and thank you. Anyway, maybe your dick is hard for this because social media has given you a platform and a research tool that didn’t exist when Nixon was using Hoover to leverage and blackmail political adversaries. Man I wish I could live in your world where in the last twenty-five years executive corruption arrived newly in Washington with its Birkin bag and red-bottom shoes. You know now what you can do - with your extensive research and all - you can bring suit against Obama. You likely have standing if you can show a material impact. I wouldn’t think that that would be a threshold that you couldn’t overcome. You have research. Make it happen. And then post updates on your blog. That I’ll read. Peace out Girl Scout.

Obama is a good man and he was a good president. All kinds of people held views during their lifetime, before they knew that they would have a lens of public perception shoved in their face, that could be characterized in all kind of arm-chair quarterbacky, and contextless ways. Trump was a bigot who didn’t want niggers renting property from him. Lbj wasn’t a friend of black folks and thought they were largely stupid (maybe he was right), but worked with Mlk on ****. Nixon, for as intelligent as he was, was also paranoid and wanted to use government resources for covert **** all over Asia and wanted to spy on political adversaries. Jfk was a philanderer. Fdr was a philanderer and a liar. Hw and Reagan were liars and were in defiance of Congress (arguably) and Hw knows what bell he was ringing with the Willie Horton ad. W bush either lied or was incompetent in the rush into Iraq. We can cherry pick **** all day. These people’s lives are on display every day for eight years. They will make mistakes and they will have successes. They give up their normalcy to run to caretaker the country and Obama did so as admirably as anyone else before him or since. You don’t like his agenda, his politics, or his legacy. Cool. But don’t make it about more than that. Cut the guy some slack. They want the same thing you do - domestic tranquility and relative safety. We had both. Move the !@#$ on. You can name call and characterize if you feel it strengths what you have to say. I’m sure it feels good typing it. But it doesn’t make what you’re saying any more valid. But it convinces me that you at least have conviction. And I can respect that. I don’t use words like “treachery” lightly and it isn’t a synonym for bad decision-making or boneheadedness. There is an overtness and an intent that’s implied in that word such that it shouldn’t be bandied about like “Lol.” So cue up your hyperbole. I’ll play along and I’ll even respond for a while because people like you are necessary to the fringes and the superficial part of robust dialog. But to be fair I’m receiving your comments - as incendiary and passionate as they are - with the same seriousness that I take someone typing about saggy titties in all caps. And I don’t know why they call him Poppy. And I do know that he had his moments of jackassery and slight (see my post above to the other guy).

Your hyperbole aside, I’m wondering, is that unique to Obama? Or are there republicans that you can say the same about? Careful ... You could just tell me that it’s a thread about Obama so that’s why you singled him out and I’ll accept that.

44 and 43 did great things for this country. For every thing that they did that was arguably “bad,” I can counter with something opposite to restore balance to their legacy. And such would be the cadence for every president throughout history. Our politics has just become this acidic catastrophe of blame and vitriol because it’s viewed through such a truncated and slanted lens. Ugh. What the !@#$. And this is a thread about what someone is doing post-presidency. So their personality and them as individual citizens is appropriate for discussion. There have been plenty of threads litigating their success and failures in office.

Same on the lack of party affiliation. I'm not getting locked in to that. You may be right and you may be wrong. I don't know. What I do know is that that chart doesn't conclusively prove anything one way or the other. I will say this though, I've heard on authority that I'm comfortable with that Trump was surprised that he won. Take that for what it's worth.

Maybe, maybe not. But I challenge you to tell me how that is an indictment upon Trump as a leader and a change agent. And I challenge others to list 10 leadership qualities about Obama, that they didn't like, that Trump doesn't exhibit. We we have to get out of d and r politics: ''When d does this it's pathetic; when r does this it's explainable." Obama was a good guy and a good American and a good president, He kept us safe, protected the brand, served with dignity, didn't mire us in anything we couldn't get out of, had a political plan and an agenda that he thought was in the best interest of the country and that he tried to advance that (whether you agree with him philosophically is another discussion), and he facilitated an effective transition to new leadership. He balanced that with being a good dad and husband. Trump is a good man trying to do a tough job and he deserves the flexibility to be able to do that. He may be a philanderer and he may not have wanted blacks to rent from him forty years ago, (his property, his choice), but he hasn't done anything to suggest that history won't see him as a decent, and perhaps a great, president. Dont let the media, on either side, talk you out of the obvious. You may be wondering "what side is this guy on?" I don't have a "side." Right is right and wrong is wrong - sides notwithstanding.

I don't think he"s a fraud. I think he is a brand selling a product to the American people. He's identified an unoccupied space in the market to whom he's marketing his wares. But the picture that you show above as evidence of fraudulence to my knowledge happens every Friday night between r and d at Ebbit and cap lounge and in town houses on Prospect street in Georgetown. If people knew how cool Obama and Boehner were and how much they would dine and drink with one another, they would probably lose their minds. Bush and Wesley Clark were also real cool. They're people at the end of the day, not the archetypes the media makes them out to be. Most of all, in role, they're all just salesman looking for an audience. Trump is just doing it better than most. Not because he believes most of what he says, but because he knows that what he says needs to be said and most others are too chicken-**** to say a thing that moves the political needle in a direction off-center. Most people who have worked in politics know that politics is simply a back and forth of meaningless quibbling that's been structuralized and codified. There is an acceptable level of fluctuation that can happen in order to keep people bought in to the idea that "something is happening in Washington." Trump is trying to shift that decorum. If if you're a student of history, you'll no doubt recall the way that wars were once fought. They were an almost mechanical exchange of fire and movement that was cadence and turn based. It took a long time to do or win anything and the argument for it was "civility." Analogizing that to politics ... and as it relates to that traditional notion of decorum, Trump is the Boston Tea Party.

Yea I'm not sure that they do. I've had more than a few conversations with politicians and staffers and it's like they get off on contriving battle lines that they principally don't care about. And they're all complicit in it. I don't mind Trump. To be fair, I'm more indifferent to him than anything. It is somewhat irksome that he gets a pass on things that Obama never could, and I think that Trump is napaleonic megalomaniac with a waffling personal constitution, but (and I mean this sincerely), that doesn't make him a bad or ineffective leader. People try to use his personal foibles to implicate his capacity for leadership and I fundamentally don't subscribe to that. Weird thing is that the same contingent used things that they didn't like about Obama politically to infer that he was a bad person which I think plays into the same political allegiance-based mind games which underscores the superficiality and single-serving nature of our political ethos. I truly think it's odd that people (some on the right) are giving trump that benefit of that doubt, but did the opposite for Obama. Obama would, and did, get castigated for some of the things that Trump does per course. If right and wrong stood on principle rather than politics, then we'd see a lot of Bman articles about how bad of a leader Trump is. And those same vicissitudes were true Bush to Obama. And Clinton to Bush. And Bush to Clinton ... It'd be sweet if we could evaluate leaders apart from the "d" or "r" that follows their name.

I would but it wouldn't fit on screen.

Yep I'll bite - huge Patton fan here. Not the "hollywooded" Patton that people conveniently lean on. Nah it's not because of movies or lore; rather it's because I've read extensively about the unforgiving African desert and the German two-spring mines, the marking of dak tropicals, and the perceived invicibility of Rommel and the German Wehrmacht. Patton reimagined armored warfare as much as anyone and, above all, he was an uncompromising, unsissified, defiant, son-of-a-bit%!,who would make most of us arm chair historians pee ourselves with testimonials around what it was like to stare down the strength of the reich near its peak. He struck fear in German command and may have led German braintrust into a strategic blunder leading up to dday. Reasonable minds may differ, but for a lot of reasons, gully reasons, I like Patton a lot. Then I'd take Winfield Scott before I'd even consider Jackson.

I've known people who've worked for or with hw bush, Cheney, Clinton x 3, Obama, and w. bush. Obama and hw are two of the best, most genuinely good-natured people that you'd ever want to meet. Everyone here, if afforded one hour to spend with either , would say, "you know what, forget what I said before, cuz they kinda aight." Bman would even be like "Obama good people." It sucks that our politics is so distant and impersonal. It makes for a weird brand of challenging citizenship.