No. No I absolutely don't.

I cannot admire being faithful to the unfaithful, loyal to the disloyal, or offering up your devotion to the devotion-less, just as I can't admire trusting the untrustworthy, believing the unbelievable, and excusing the inexcuseable. Putting on blinders and accepting anything your guy/side tells you and NEVER fact checking those people you admit are professional consummate liars while with zero contradictory evidence, zealously contradicting those who dare to display professional levels of honesty and care in their words is not something to admire.

Water seeks it's own level, eh? Is that why Republicans are still diving deep into the swamp with the creature from the orange lagoon even as they watch him eat all those who went before them?

That was quite good.

But man, that 4th issue is a doozy. Learning that "hard work pays off" is difficult when it just really doesn't, at least not anymore. Massive income inequality, zero class mobility, and on and on. We feel like relatively easily replaceable cogs in a relatively pointless machine because WE ARE.

We hear lots of stories about people that manage to buy in, feel like they are doing something important and making a real impact, enjoy some period of good job satisfaction...

...and then all too often, they end up looking like saps when the company that they work for gets bought out by some massive faceless corporation that doesn't value their years of loyal service at all, at which point they get replaced by A) a robot, B) an outsourced sweatshop laborer in a 3rd world country that can be payed a fraction of the local rate, C) a younger and more compliant hire that will inevitably have a massive turnover rate, but who cares because there are plenty more where that came from, or D) the cokehead nephew of the new CEO that needs a job to keep him out of trouble, and hey, might as well keep things in the family, right?

Maybe I'm just a bitter, late Gen-X'er.

Bill didn't repeatedly grab pussies against their will, or go on to brag about it...and he was impeached over the consensual sex he did have....and it was a problem for me, such infidelity coming from my president proves he's disloyal...and the cigar thing...WTF?!

Doesn't make him moral by far, but there's a huge difference between cheating on your wife by having consensual (oral) sex and cheating on all of your wives by raping your friends' wives, assaulting numerous co workers, paying porn stars, paying prostitutes, pressuring beauty pageant contestants, and likely raping your own daughter.

Get a grip, he's an admitted abuser, philanderer, and clearly has no respect for women or marriage, and his concept of loyalty goes one way, he's loyal to nothing.

Also whataboutism is akin to no defense at all, and is just plain dumb when your comparisons are 1/10 as bad as what you're trying to distract from.

Wow, is he backwards.

Trump...loyal? He's got to be kidding. Trump is loyal to himself and absolutely nothing else. You don't force taxpayers to bail you out at least 8 times if you're loyal to your nation or stockholders (or if you're a decent businessman). You would be hard pressed to find a single person who's ever done business with Trump that would call him "loyal".

I just dropped 3 IQ points by watching the whole thing....I better go watch a NOVA marathon before it becomes a permanent loss.

There is one thing I like about cats. If they don't like what you're doing, they won't be there. No one can accurately say "aww, leave the poor cat alone" if it's not being physically constrained.

Dogs can be too loyal sometimes.

Nice plan - utilize the parts of American capitalism that work = find oil.

The ideals of a social democracy to create a better future = high taxes, high prices, social spending for loyal norwegians, strict moral and legal rules. Make sure to make up lots of first world problems to compensate for the awesomness.

Sell oil, buy Teslas. Have lots of mountains + rain to power Teslas.

Plus you have to already be rich to even contemplate visiting Norway, nevermind somehow get rich easy there. Tip on how to get rich in Norway? Be a tunnel builder.

Free education may mean more social mobility but it also creates a truckload of sociologists.

I like Finland. Its flat and no oil, but almost as successful. How are they doing it?

Russia is having a hard time trying to remain enemy #1.

Putin is doing everything just to retain power. He is the one who needs an enemy, also he needs some way to explain why people in the west are better off than his own subjects, to keep them loyal.

Putin needs to be the enemy of the west but is having a hard time being relevant. I mean what atrocities would he need to perpetrate for the west to properly take notice?

All the west does is talk (and some economic sanctions).

@Fairbs

It's pretty simple. Due to massive gerrymandering most congressional and senate seats are 'safe' Republican or Democrat seats, the only real threat they face is from within their own parties. If you're a Republican loyal to the regime you're less likely to get challenged.

@bcglorf
you left out that anwar had worked for the CIA and NSC as a consultant,and that in his earlier days as an imam was critical of al qeada and was very pro-american.

look,i am not arguing the fact that anwar did become radicalized,nor am i denying that his shift in attitudes (which was mainly due to americas handling of the iraqi war) had become not only critical,but had gone from condemnation to calls for violence,and praise for violence.

which brings us to the fort hood shooter nidel hasan who was an avid fan of anwar al awlaki,and DID have a correspondence with awlaki.which when examined,was pretty fucking one sided.it was apparent that hasan was attempting to get in the good graces of awlaki who,evidenced by the email correspondence,had no real relationship with hasan.though awlaki did praise hasan,and his violent actions.

so i do not get where 'the emails are closed".just google nidal hasan and anwar al awlaki emails,and you can go read for yourself.

and as for these emails as justification..i really do not see your logic in this respect.

so if someone becomes a huge fan of mine,and emails me constantly because we met ONCE and now they think we are buddies and share common interests (which,maybe we do),and that person perpetrates a violent act.

am i responsible for that act?

and here is where the crux of the discussion REALLY is:
maybe i AM responsible.
maybe i am guilty of inciting violence.
maybe i should be held accountable,because not only did i keep this mans violent intentions to myself,which resulted in death,but then praised his actions afterwards as being the will of god.

there are ALL possibilities,and they are valid questions.
they are legal questions,and maybe there should be a legal accountability.

should the proper pathway to a legal conclusion be:
a.a remotely piloted drone that targets my phone and launches a missile murdering (assasinating0 me,along with innocent by-standers?

or.

b.working with the yemeni government to bring me into a secure facility to be questioned,and possibly charged with inciting violence and prosecuted in an international court of law?

do you see what i'm saying?

the question isn't if anwar al awlaki,as a prominent imam,was vocally against american foreign policy,or that he openly supported violence in the form of terrorism.

the question is:
how do you address that situation,and prosecute the legalities?

because as scahill posited:how do you surrender to a drone?

could anwar al awlaki be guilty of EVERY charge the US accused him of?
quite possibly.
but we will never know because he was assassinated,as was his 16yr old son.

even your counter argument is speculation based on loose affiliations,and tenuous connections.

you will NEVER be able to supply a concrete,and verifiable accounting of anwar al awlaki's guilt,because you CAN'T..he was assassinated.

and THAT is the point.

now let us take this a step further.
let us examine how this can be abused,and watching trump consolidate executive power by surrounding himself with departmental loyalist,loyal only to him,we can begin to see the beginnings of trumps "soft fascism".

now lets take how you made your argument,and supplant a different scenario,but using the same parameters.

do you SEE how easily the drone program could be used to quickly,and efficiently remove opposing political players from the board? dissenting and opposing voices simply painted as violent enemies of the state that were in need of removal,because of the "possibility" that they may one day actually incite or cause violence?

the state can now murder a person for simply what they say,or write but NOT what they actually DO.

anwar al awlaki didn't actually kill anyone,didn't perpetrate any acts of violence.he simply talked about the evils of american empire,the mishandling of the iraq war (which he was originally in support of) and praised those who DID engage in violent acts of terror as doing the work of god.

should he have been held accountable in some fashion?
i think there is case to be made in that regard,but instead of going through proper channels,and adhering to the protocols of international law,he was outright assassinated.

and just how easily this can be abused is incredibly frightening.

again,i understand we approach things from different angles,but you have to see the danger in this practice,and how easily it can be misused to much darker and sinister purposes.

"well,he said nasty things about us and had a lot of friends who were on the terror watch list"

is simply NOT a valid enough excuse to simply murder someone.

there are protocols and legal procedure for a REASON,and anwar al awlaki may certainly have been in breach of international law and therefor possibly SHOULD have been prosecuted under those terms.

but we will NEVER know,because he was killed.
by an american president.
a nobel peace prize winner and constitutional law professor.

anwar al awlaki was an american citizen,his SON was an american citizen,but due to those abominations:MCA of 2006 and the NDAA of 2012.obama had the power and authority to assassinate them both.

where was there right to face their accuser?
habeas corpus..gone...a legal right that dates back to 1205 a.d by the BRITISH..gone.
innocent until proven guilty....gone.
the right to provide evidence in your defense...gone.

all the president has to do..and DID in this case,is deem you an "enemy combatant" and BOOM..dead.

i really hope you reconsider your attitude in this case my friend,because this shit is fascism incarnate,and now trump has his chubby little fingers on the "fire" button.

god help us all......

Could not agree more, for me it was one of the worst movies I watched in 2016. Need to keep reminding myself that for franchises with loyal fanbases, critic review (Rotten Tomatoes, IMDB, Metacritic) are basically worthless.

"Podesta's emails, and Podesta himself, show that the so-called progressive wing of the establishment is really just a neoliberal insider's club of the rich and powerful, who loyally serve their corporate masters. Podesta's emails are more than just a window into one man, but a window into how the empire's political machine is actually run."

That's one of those bits of info that are shrugged off as lunacy first by those who profit from it, only then to be shrugged off as having been known all along by the same people.

Again, back to Carlin: it's a big club, and you're not in it.

You'd also confirm the pickpocket was guilty, wouldn't you? Well I would - I don't just believe everything I see or hear. I didn't mention it explicitly because I expect everyone to question all of their sources all of the time, like I do. But I don't see how that would make it make less sense, rather that it is more or less accurate of a comparison...? anyway.

In light of that, I think my example not only makes sense but is more valid than yours because yours introduces feelings and bias towards the involved parties that only make metaphorical sense if you refer to jingoistic crap about blindly loyal American nationalism and fear/hatred of Russians somehow. Which is kind of the point I'm questioning in the first place; there is a huge difference between 'applying reasonable doubt to your sources' (your point) and using the Russian excuse to ignore the actual problem (my point).

Also has there ever been an American intelligence leak/failure that was NOT linked to the Russians? I hope we're not reverting to the kind of cold war style paranoia that 10 years ago we would have laughed at around here. Somewhere there's a flow chart in the White House that has 12 boxes on one side listing possible internal failures and fuck ups and they all point to one box on the other side saying "Blame Russia".

If you're genuinely worried about the source making the leak up and it all being just faked, you best take that up with Wikileaks. They have a very robust reputation, the kind that you don't earn easily. It doesn't make them right, but it means you have to make a strong point against them. I feel like it wouldn't be all that hard for anyone with the clearance to check and confirm if it was a Russian fabrication, and then a story confirming Wikileaks was talking bullshit, releasing Russian propaganda, would be huge news.

Don't destroy my hopes, mate! I'm getting a severe case of the assteroids just listening to our politicians talk economics.

There will be no change from within. We are Untertanen, loyal subjects, the lot of us.

Conan's computer is still Windows 7 loyal. Good man!

At about 9:54, the dude on the right asks:
"But why are you assuming that we would find out about it [something / anything shady] then [just before the general election]?"

Because that is when it would cause the most damage, duh. It is well possible that some parties on the right already have something, considering that Guccifer probably DID hack into her server. If any such people DO have anything (or if they get anything new), they are well motivated to hold their cards until revealing them would have the most impact -- ie., AFTER she's locked up the nomination, but just BEFORE the general election.

Cenk and other democrats are 100% right to be absolutely terrified by this. I don't know that I think it is *likely*, but the democrat establishment just glossing over it seems bizarre and shortsighted.

Also, I seriously doubt that Biden would ever attempt to pick up Clinton's hypothetical fumble and run away after the DNC. I figure the GOP bigwigs that are suggesting it just want to make it look like the democrat side is in just as much disarray as the republican side.

But if either party actually does any "contested convention" shenanigans, all they will accomplish is to bring up serious and legitimate questions about their legitimacy within their core base of supporters. This election is proving that large segments of BOTH parties are NOT going to be blindly loyal to their party line and the status quo. In that environment, pushing their luck by inserting some handpicked golden child as their candidate would be suicidally stupid for either party.