Bluey's Dad

1) Correct - and it's extremely disappointing that the DNC acted in such a corrupt manner. 2) We don't know of course, but like you I think that's likely 3) NFI. I've heard some theories so far (not mine, but have read these): a) The ability as a foreign power to influence an election to this magnitude weakens American Democracy as a whole, to the comparative benefit of Russia. b) They have something on him and feel they can control him, or, they feel they have a better chance of manipulating him given his extreme lack of political experience. c) He has business links that are not public (remember he and many of his cabinet appointees have not disclosed conflicts of interest) that benefit them both with him as POTUS. I lean towards this one, given that he flies to his resort every weekend and recently raised room prices there. This means every time he goes, the American taxpayer pays for his accommodation and that of the secret service. Who do they pay? Why, the owner of the resort of course! I wonder who that is! It's disgusting. Given he's ok with this, I wouldn't be surprised if he has Russian business ties.

Agreed. This is a massive issue. As you say, Comey is probably the best we have. All we can do is look at his actual quotes and interviews when this all comes out and ignore the surrounding [censored] of deflections.

It would be a massive scandal if he was tapped without probable cause. I personally think it's more likely he wasn't tapped at all, or that he only thinks he was because he saw it on Fox News. There's not much we can do except hope the truth actually comes out.

The whole "Obama wire-tapped me" thing by Trump doesn't make a whole lot of sense. If he was tapped, it means whoever requested the tap had probable cause and had to present that to a judge to authorise the monitoring. If this is the case, Trump wouldn't want that probable cause to be made public. If he was not tapped, it means he's just flat out made stuff up. This is probably not much of an issue to him though as his constituents don't seem to care when he makes things up. No one's held him to account on his accusations of 3 million fraudulent voters. I'm not sure the US electorate cares. Of greater concern to me is the ongoing investigation of Trump campaign members' links to Russia and their subsequent influence on the election. Comey said today (or yesterday I think) that the FBI are investigating those links, but there is no evidence yet of collusion. What we know already about Flynn, Sessions and Manafort however ads to the bad smell emanating from the campaign. All the information the public has right now is circumstantial, with many facts still classified as part of the investigation. We still don't know if Flynn will be prosecuted for a possible violation of the Logan act.

I agree that the heat is disproportionate. The club itself was not banned, as would be the case in other 'team' doping convictions. The club still hasn't actually been punished by the AFL for the doping charges, only the initial 'disrepute/admin' stuff. The players lied on their disclosure forms. They knew - but they cop very little heat.

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/nine-network-buys-st-kildas-infamous-gatwick-hotel-20170315-guyp79.html Apparently the purchaser of the Gat is the Nine Network, who'll likely be using it for The Block. Possibility for Biff to somehow return to his former nest as a contestant? I'd watch if you were on @Biffen, then I'd tell everyone who'd listen that I knew you before you were famous in an effort to milk some reflected glory. You could use your knowledge of the Gat's darker corners to outfox the other contestants. They'll never know why their tools are always going missing. You could even help them identify the contents of the syringes they find! The more I think about this the more I think it's a good idea. Who wouldn't watch Biff, draped in a blue singlet, tattered shorts and boots, taking a sledgehammer to a GAT toilet? I think I might need some of @Wrecker45's tissues...

I think Wrecker was making a joke nut.

As you know Wrecker, I am not a betting man - but if I was that'd be as good a punt as I'd ever get. The kid is gun, plain and simple.

I heard that comment too. Not sure how a newspaper can justify telling just one side of the story. The Age at least has come at it from both sides via Caro and Connolly. The Herald Sun has been a bastion of EFC cheerleading, led by Robbo. It staggers me how that man is the head football writer of a major newspaper.

Although one could also look at Robinson's payment as hush money. If you take that track, then these two 'disgruntled employees' might be saying the very things Robinson was paid not to say, instead of looking at a big compo cheque and saying "me too please". It's all conjecture for now. TBH I wouldn't put anything past the EFC though.

Ah yes the Hollywood brigade. Pretty sure the total move count is zero.

Yeah. Honestly the whole thing's starting to get kinda scary. I was much more comfortable when it was just the Russians. But the possibility of the CIA pretending to be Russians to influence a presidential election would have been more akin to a spy novel a few years ago. Now it warrants actual investigation. Hell, maybe it was still the Russians - even the possibility that it was the CIA gives them cover and achieves their supposed aim of destabilising US Democracy. This really could devolve into red under the bed style McCarthyism. Must be tough to be an American right now.

Yeah in light of the most recent development I must agree.

lol, I was indeed trying to convey that very notion. Everything is the fault of the patriarchy!

Yeah nah still lost sorry. Either I'm an idiot or it's too subtle. Out with it man!

Why would it be? Symmetry is a tool of the patriarchy.

Certainly agree with this - I reckon that's why Trump will have an issue in a few years. The tariffs alone aren't enough to bring back those particular jobs IMO. He has to do something else as well to full-fill this promise. Since it's where he got his swing from, it's vital to his re-election that he gets those jobs back. I think this issue will be his most important - more than the wall or Muslim bans or his plan to defeat ISIS in 30 days. If he brings those jobs back, he wins another term. If he doesn't, there will be a massive backlash from those who elected him to do just that. They're the people who didn't get their jobs back in the economic recovery, they felt forgotten and then finally heard when Trump came along. It was Clinton's biggest folly to ignore them and she paid dearly for it. Trump simply must deliver on this. Edit - just re-read my post and there's a lot of redundancy in there. Sorry all for the poor wording.

Fair enough. I guess we'll just have to see how it plays out when the tariffs are put in place.

Hopefully he can do it, but I reckon a lot of those manufacturing jobs won't be back and he'll have a very angry electorate on his hands. Lots of jobs are lots due to technology and market forces, but he only really spoke about the outsourcing issue. Personally I think it would have been better to let the market take its course and implement programs to retrain those who lost their jobs. But this brings up other issues - I read recently that part of the issue with retraining mostly male factory workers runs into resistance with them not wanting to go into traditionally non-male industries. So their ego gets spanked twice. Once because their job has been replaced by a robot or someone cheaper overseas, and again when they're told their only other options for employment are jobs they think are only for women (health care/hospitality). So now you throw in macho man Trump, who promises to bring it all back. He better deliver, or that rust belt ego will be hit a third time and they'll be damn angry that their hero didn't come through. If he makes it to the next election without being impeached, I think this will be a big problem for him. All those voters who supported him will see that the factories haven't reopenned and things have not improved. They won't vote for him in the numbers they did before, and some may change depending on if the Dems can put up an even half viable candidate.

I wouldn't call it Agitprop since it isn't state sanctioned - but yes, there is a significant portion of alt-right nut jobs who construct memes and other social/shareable content in order to sway people to their side. Either for ideological reasons or just for the fun of it. It's more organised than we think, via /pol as suggested previously, but has the appearance of being disorganised and amorphous because us normies don't go there and the mainstream media has little understanding of it.

Are you kidding? You seriously think it's more likely Obama was spying on Trump than the FBI was conducting routine monitoring of foreign powers? You said just now, the tapes clearly exist. Do you actually believe they exist because Obama managed to find some formerly unknown method for a President to spy on political rivals (and that he was idiotic enough to use it), or that the FBI was just doing its job and checking out Russia's communications? I believe the claim for 2 reasons: 1 - it was the explanation provided by the source 2 - the alternative is ludicrous Of course nothing is certain - but as I said, this is the beginning of the investigation. We'll just have to see how it plays out.

Uh, no. lol. You can do there for yourself to see. Download TOR first though. Edit: this probably explains the phenomenon better than I can. It's a safe link to an article on a comedy website (of all places). Conservatives won't like the tone since it's played for laughs, but it's useful if for nothing other than getting safe images of 4chan and 8chan without actually having to go to either cesspool: http://www.cracked.com/personal-experiences-2381-toddler-rape-threats-other-tactics-alt-right.html

I don't think it matters any more iv'a. Just saw it was Wrecker quoting Brietbart at the top of the page. He's already too far down the rabbit hole. In a year he'll be quoting /r/TheDonald. In 2 years, the red pill. A few more, 8chan*. Breitbart is like a gateway drug for the alt-right. Nothing we say will make an ounce of difference. I'll miss you, old version Wrecker. *If anyone doesn't know 8chan, you'll know their work. They deliberately design leftist memes to encourage right wing blow-back and outrage and drive more to their cause.