President Trump: The NEW one and only politics thread

Really? I would think she's his dream opponent.

 

LOL ... Reagan wasn't President in 1980.

 

LOL. Yes, I blew that one. Confused election with inauguration.

Are two data points in your business enough to make you commit to wholesale changes to it?

 

Likely not, but Trump could have done a hell of a lot better.

 

He says a couple of things (including a small mention in the link I just provided).

1. It's mostly folk legend with zero concrete evidence that points toward Putin. The most famous murdered Russian journalist was probably Anna Politkovskaya, shot in her apartment building in 2006. Cohen was a close friend of hers. He says neither her family nor her friends believes Putin had anything to do with it --- it's simply the default button pressed by the West.

Let's say, for example, that Rush Limbaugh was found murdered today. Best known for his relentless attacks on the Clintons and Obama. Would Clinton or Obama automatically be accused of ordering the murder? Of course not. But it might not be too hard to imagine a Clinton or Obama supporter who was fed up with Rush doing such a thing. Many --- not all, but many --- of the perpetrators of these crimes in Russia have been brought to justice, though there will always be the question hanging over them ("Ah, but did they do it on Putin's orders?"). For his part, Putin has said that Anna's death has made the Kremlin's job much HARDER than when she was alive, because of all the blowback. We'll never know all the answers for sure, of course, and that's maddening.

The best program I have heard to address this stuff was this episode from a few weeks ago.

audioBoom / Tales of the New Cold War: The Demonization of Vladimir Putin. Stephen F. Cohen @NYU @Princeton University @TheNation.com EastWestAccord.com

2. To this day, there are lots of people and media opposing Putin. Many newspapers, many TV stations. Believe it or not, but RT is not the only media outlet in Russia. If you want to read criticism of Putin in Russia, it's very easy to find. And nothing is happening to these people.

3. The violent deaths of journalists in Russia started in the Yeltsin era (1991-1999). Sixty-five were murdered in those 8 years. How many times did you hear about Yeltsin being a killer? Former President Dmitry Medvedev calls it an atmosphere of "legal nihilism" that plagues the country.

4. There have been 36 trials of the people who murdered journalists since Putin took over. There were 10 such trials under Yeltsin.

 

Yes, I blew that one. Confused election with inauguration.

 

You know, he was wrong ... perhaps there's a more nuanced parsing of the data that leads to thus-and-such being the highest in 40 years ... but he flubbed it. He might be well-advised to try being a little more careful with his bluster.

 

Well, you could have said the high rate resulted from the specter of Reagan as President. I've seen crazier hot takes 'round these parts ...

 

Is there an offshore book allowing bets on your question?

 

I screwed up. I should have preceded my question with, "Not counting dittoheads . . . "

 

So ... no letter of recommendation?