Having standards and not meeting them or not holding violators responsible counts as a failure. What does it mean then to act without standards entirely?

The US objectively has standards; it is a signatory to the Geneva conventions. The US often also fails those standards and should be held accountable when it does. Even then, we find ways to dodge justice. Still I feel there is an important difference between having standards and making a good faith effort to live up…

Legal conventions are not mutually exclusive from moral conventions. Ideally, laws are a formalized agreement concerning shared mores.

It has nothing to do with the actions and behavior of the enemy. They are not up to our standards. Let’s not lower ourselves to theirs.

Sure, not technically impossible if it exists. But it seems impossible because the FSB has zero incentive to release it. It goes from priceless leverage over Trump to worthless the moment it’s released. The only incentive for someone within the FSB would have to leak it is for monetary gain (at considerable personal…

There really isn’t any proof in that dossier. Even if there were, nothing in it seems illegal but I’m not a lawyer. The coordination and intel sharing between Trump’s team and Russia should disqualify one for the presidency but unfortunately that ship has sailed. We already knew about Manafort’s connections and Carter…

Sadly, the pee stuff is what is going to get people to pay attention. Aside from being the least important, it is also the most suspect / unverifiable thing in that dossier (outside of the FSB producing the tape which seems impossible).

The CIA definitely doesn’t deserve our trust. This isn’t about only the CIA’s assessment though. The FBI and NSA came the same conclusion that Russia deliberately tried to influence the election. Independent cyber security firms have come to the same conclusion.

I’m personally unconvinced that whatever Russia did…

Did you know that financial problems are frequently cited the most common reason for separation / divorce? I wonder if a race of people that have been historically disenfranchised suffer from systemic financial problems. Nah. It’s probably their skin color / culture. They are just more genetically predisposed to have…

I want you to be outside that wall.

As a woman of color, I will not give the benefit of the doubt to people who voted for Trump. They signaled that they hate me and would be happy with people like me being put on a boat, driven out to the middle of the ocean and sunk. So I owe them nothing; particularly not my respect.

Does anyone know where that one kid is? We need someone sent to the cornfield really really bad. I would also grudgingly accept a jack-in-the-box transformation.

So I would argue that people did not vote for him because of “economic anxiety” or his “populist message”; they voted for him because they liked his racism, misogyny, and xenophobia and blaming the “other” for all of their problems. Polls show that Hillary Clinton won voters who were making 30,000 or less. Trump…

I’d be reluctant to name a boy Kain, given the Cain and Abel story from the Abrahamic religions. I’d guess more Western people are going to be more familiar with Cain than Kain. Don’t name any brothers Abel, just in case.

Trade adjustment assistance has been a feature of America’s response to globalization for decades.

Did you know that a site was created during the Obama administration, that could help people determine which schools, degrees and programs actually make financial sense?
https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/

Matthew Yglesias over at Vox wrote succinctly:

Unless you are calling white supremacy, sexism, misogyny, xenophobia, anti intellectualism and islamophobia, “a populist message.”

Populist messaging worked quite well for both Sanders and Trump.

There is a good chance most, if not all, states don’t have voting districts that reflect the popular distribution of Democrat/Republican votes. Just like on a national level! Republicans only needed to control a state during redistricting to gerrymander out significant number of Democrat seats.