Duke Silver

^^ To bootstrap (see what I did there?) further, Betsy DeVos, the soon-to-be Sec Ed. has her vast fortune compliments of Amway, one of the biggest pyramid schemes in U.S. history. How does bilking hundreds of thousands of people out of money make her a smart business person? It only makes her (husband's??) family a group of grifters who likely used political connections & their supposed piety in religious circles to get away with larceny. Murrica. I'll also wonder aloud about Carl Icahn, newly named economic advisor to PEOTUS. No doubt, he's massively rich. There's no denying that. But what has he built? He has a holding company and has made billions buying & selling & breaking up commodities. I have zero issue that. I have close friends who are on their way to great wealth doing similar things. However, that hardly makes them people I want leading macroeconomic policy for an entire nation. He (& they) know squat about the broad economy beyond how it impacts the commodities they buy & sell. They know how to make $$, no doubt. But that is not the same thing as formulating broad economic policy.

^^^ School boards is where it's at. Seriously. It's where the most reactionary locals go to vent their spleens. It only makes sense that so many get elected for those seats. There's nothing easier locally than to bitch & moan about the schools; what they're teaching, the costs, etc. This is why I implore any even marginally politically-inclined non-crazy people to run for school board seats. The Tea Party made a killing in the oughts by getting their crazy asses on boards across the country, and they've spring-boarded into state/national politics from there.

This exactly what I've been thinking this week.

Obama is the racist. ^^I have a virulently racist cousin who spouts things like that on Facebook constantly. Whenever I read various public posts made by such people after clicking on trending topics, I die a little bit inside. Then I get pissed and try to be an activist in my own way.

Trump NY co-chair makes racist remarks about Michelle Obama

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https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/812304736619732992

^^^ Deflection, projection, gaslighting....all techniques in the authoritarian toolbag.

Things like campaign finance is so boring, so mundane; it makes average people's eyes glaze over. However, this is really where the GOP, along with gras roots funding of local crazies by the Koch brothers, rubber hits the road. As dirty as this finance game is, on both sides frankly, it always makes me wonder why some Dem super PAC doesn't just splinter into dozens of hard-to-decipher LLC's & pay to put activists on the ground in states like, say, NC & WI to combat various voter suppression, especially voter ID. There has to be a way to actually help the disaffected obtain those state issued IDs that the right wing is so hard about people having to vote. Just sayin'. The other side fights with guns, Democrats.

Keep filling that swamp Team Trump. Buffoonery + thievery all in one group of deplorables. https://twitter.com/thehill/status/812297735156142080

https://twitter.com/edyong209/status/812296098618507264 https://twitter.com/surlyurbanist/status/812337016033673216

We can't just let go of #RussianHack. Too bad the new administration, obviously, will for sure, and Congress...well, who knows what those clowns wind up doing. Putin says only Russia knew Trump would win Trump & Putin: master gaslighters.

^^ I think KAC has been lying for so long that if one of her kids asked her if they can have a cookie, KAC would spend 10 minutes dissembling, formulating a "say-nothing" response.

A few of us have posted articles/data showing the disparity in economic output/contribution to federal coffers between blue & red states, the former contributing much, much more to the economy. Under Trump, red states are finally going to be able to turn themselves into poor, unhealthy paradises

I fully endorse this point of view. Why waste time on people who make you unhappy?

^^^ Yep, a couple weeks ago, I posted a WaPo (I think) article discussing exactly this. It was actually that pile of filth Hannity & other so-called conservative talking heads discussing coming up w/ a label to combat all the negative connotations of "alt-right" being attached to right wing thought. As you said, "alt-right" was actually a re-branding undertaken by Richard Spencer. ***It was the white supremacists who came up with that label; it was NOT liberals who labeled them as such.***

......

#RESIST

^^ I hate it that happened. It just creates sympathy for that family.

Dems do stupid stuff, but the GOP is straight-up "cut off your nose to spite your face" levels of stupid.