@newtboy
i am neither weasel nor eagle.

i am a leaf on the wind...watch me soar.

Certainly we can't all be eagles, but those who've resigned themselves to being weasels should recognize their station and act accordingly, not pretend they fearlessly soar the skies of death deserving rewards and accolades from the comfort their burrow.
I get where you're coming from, but I disagree it's one or the other. Checking out and half assing it because success didn't come fast enough only ensures it will never arrive. Working hard and smart striving for greatness is the best way to achieve it, but of course it's still no guarantee.
And yes, the "system" could certainly use improvements too, but an individual can have far more positive impact on their own lives by working to improve themselves than they can on the system working to improve it. It's best to work on both whenever possible.

@newtboy -
I like / agree with your take on each of the 4 issues, but 4 really is easier said than done.

Having skills and making yourself invaluable happens quite slowly over time, and only if the arbiter correctly recognizes that value. I think capitalism has such a stranglehold on modern life that minor variations in short term profit/loss potential get overvalued while major intangible things (or at least, less tangible in quarterly reports) get ignored.

And just in general, everybody needs a job or purpose, but we can't ALL stand out and be invaluable. Eagles may soar to great heights, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines. Sometimes steady adequacy is, well, adequate.

Thinking that the world owes us happiness is a character flaw, but "checking out" by half-assing or phoning it in is a fairly rational response to a system that doesn't give a fuck about us as individuals, even those that DO go the extra mile. Fix the system (to the extent that it can be), and better results would follow.

Weird. I get the sense that from the perspective of the author of the question, he's taking the specifics too literally; sort of the opposite of how people try to weasel out of introspection when confronted with things like the trolley problem ("I'd pull the lever, AND shout as loud as I could to try to warn the guy", etc.).

To me, the idea is not to be worried about things like accidental use of the power, whether or not you know/believe that you have the power, etc. Assume that you have the power, you are aware that you have it, and that there is no risk of accidentally triggering it. Would you use it?

I can say with near certainty that I would have used it when I was younger; faced with situations like the experience he had with the bully when he was 13. I might have given it up after a single use, when firsthand confronted with the reality of it. Or I might easily have descended into the depths of utter evil, and eventually started using it casually, for offenses real or imagined.

If I got the power NOW, I think it is fairly likely that I would never use it. I'd be strongly tempted, though.

I do agree, but on the other hand sometimes these things go well beyond legitimate "questions about your actions / statements / plans".

Subject even the most patient person in the world to enough stupid / leading / clickbait-y questions, and eventually they'll get annoyed with it. Which is of course the entire point, so that they can clip that reaction out of context and run it with a headline like "Watch as Senator X flies off the handle after being asked a simple question!"

Some of these incidents are definitely sleazy politicians trying to weasel out of scrutiny to the greatest degree possible. But I'm sure that many of them are the political version of Marshawn Lynch just wanting to do his goddamn job without being constantly peppered with pointless questions from the media. And we all thought he was awesome for showing up to media days and saying only "I'm just here so I don't get fined", right?

Not trying to trivialize the political arena down to the level of a public spectacle like professional sports, but I think the comparison is at least a little valid.

I voted 3rd party (Stein, but Johnson would still have been a better option than Trump or Clinton in my opinion). I'm comfortable and happy with my decision.

Hillary would have gotten some good-on-the-surface stuff done, compared to Trump's bad-on-the-surface stuff. But I simply don't/didn't trust her to not do dangerous and terrible stuff on the sly. She's a corrupt weasel. Trump is an incompetent blowhard that has been and will continue to be under a massive amount of scrutiny. I think the long-term damage he can do will be limited.


...Except for the Supreme Court. If there's one "lesser of two evils" argument that gives me pause in favor of Hillary, that's it. But even including that, I'm still comfortable with the way I cast my vote.

Basically, things have to get worse before they get better. Revolution, upheaval, something's gotta give. Trump has the "advantage" of making that more obvious, more quickly than Hillary would have. So, uh ... yay Trump?

I think Sam Harris is awesome, so there was a lot of interesting stuff in there even though it came from before the election.

I agree with everything he said about who Trump is; his motivations (or lack thereof), narcissism, potential psychological issues, etc. Yet I disagree with his threat analysis. I still think that Trump's "balloon flying around randomly" presidency seems like it could easily be better than a Clinton presidency.

Trump will cause some incidental damage with his chaotic randomness. But basically, it will be 4 years (please) of loud noises and flashing lights that mostly goes nowhere. Hillary, with all the baggage and rumors etc. that may not true, is still in general the kind of person that people like Hitchens said she was. She's savvy, subtle, and frankly dangerous. And she's extremely well connected. When Trump randomly bungles his way into some big screw-up, we're going to hear about it. If Hillary weaseled into some dirty back-door stuff that could cause real long-term problems, there's a good chance we'd never find out about it.

Then he mentioned the "Trump vs random US citizen" argument. Jesus, I'd have taken random US citizen in a heartbeat over Trump or Clinton. Hell, I think that would be a fantastic way to call a mulligan and replace every last member of our corrupt, incompetent, and entrenched congress...

I'm with @Chairman_woo . YES, Hillary was the "lesser of two evils" option.

Maher and the rest are upset because they think that "lesser of two evils" is an overly simplistic take on the actual degree to which either of them would have actually been evil. Fair enough, sorta. Piers Morgan is essentially just arguing semantics while the big picture just sails over everyone's heads.

Trump is a buffoon. A bull in a china shop. YES, he's doing blatantly evil/stupid things. Subtlety is not his forte. When he does bad things, we're going to find out about them.

Hillary is a vastly more savvy politician. Machiavellian, one might say. I think there's a very real argument to be made that her track record of (barely) weaseling out of very questionable actions and generally getting away with stuff that has sunk lots of other politicians suggests that it might be reasonable to be quite afraid of what Hillary has done / could do that we wouldn't find out about.


I'm not pleased with either one of them being the President. But honestly, I think that it will likely be easier to overcome and repair the damage done by "big dumb animal" Trump than it would have been to track down and discover all the cunning little traps, pitfalls, and closed-door deals that a President Hillary could have got done.

I found one thing extremely interesting in *2* separate interviews with Assange when he was asked whether or not there was any Russian involvement -- including the one with Hannity shown early in the video here:

Hannity: Did Russia give you this information? Or anyone associated with Russia?
Assange: Our source is not a state party.

Very close to verbatim that exchange appeared in a print interview a week or two ago. The resulting headlines: "Assange denies Russian Involvement in the Leaks", etc.

But look at that answer. It is very carefully worded, but it doesn't directly answer the question. "Our source is not a state party" doesn't rule out that the source is Russian. It sort of rules out a source with known associations with the government (of Russia or anywhere else), but it could be an independent / private individual at face value that got the information from state parties.

I find it odd that nobody (as far as I've seen) has brought up that carefully worded answer, when it stuck out like a sore thumb to me the first time I saw it in print.


That being said, I 100% agree with Greenwald when he suggests that accusations are not proof. And the CIA and other agencies have a massive track record of shady dealings done in the name of "national security", as defined by whoever is in charge. Taking them at their word seems pretty hopelessly naive at this point.


But beyond all of that, I honestly don't care who did the hacking and what their motivations were. The government seems happy to record and analyze everything we say and do, and to claim that people like Edward Snowden are traitors for simply telling us about it. Well, get used to some of your own goddamn medicine. If you are running for public office, you should expect that your rights to privacy are going to be challenged much more strongly than those of Joe Average. You're a person of interest -- for pretty legitimate reasons.

Assume that absolutely everything you've ever said on the record (and lots OFF the record) is going to be gone over with a fine-toothed comb. If you've got any skeletons in your closet, expect that there is a good chance they will get exposed. And probably at the worst possible time.

What should both parties take away from this? Gee, it might be a good idea to choose candidates that can stand up to at least a basic level of scrutiny. Backing slimy weasels that look great and charismatic after a quick once-over might come back to bite you in the ass.

Good post. I've always been interested in the history of WWII, I'm re-reading Ken Burns' "The War" these days. The best book I have read is David Webster's "Parachute Infantry", he was a good writer who was there at the Normandy and Market Garden airdrops and also did Germany occupation duty. They did him a real disservice in the "Band of Brothers" episode "The Last Patrol", they made him out to be a weasel when he was anything but.

I have a few questions if anyone would care to satisfy my curiosity, I've seen/read a lot of stuff and I don't know what the reliable sources are for this. I'll list them so they're easy to answer, and I'm not trying to imply stuff or score any points, I just want to know. Sorry if any of this is tin-foil hat rubbish but I've been unable to sleep recently and ended up watching a lot of old crap, in a weakened mental state.

1 - Were those people with her yesterday, and does she often travel with, a nurse and a doctor?
2 - What's with the coughing and sicking up green globules into the glass of water? Never seen anything like that green stuff before.
3 - Did she need help getting up some stairs a while ago, or were they misleading photos?
4 - Why did no one react to her going completely limp? I can understand the well trained entourage explanation, but they didn't even look around to check for danger, considering their VIP went lifeless.
5 - Why did they take a collapsed elderly woman with pneumonia to an apartment rather than a hospital?
6 - Why say it was heat stroke?
7 - Has she really been pulling out of a lot of campaign events?

To be honest, I don't find her collapsing a worry at all. I've collapsed due to illness and I'm healthy and fit. What i do find strange is the reaction and lying about it. Somehow that makes me question the other things, but there you have it - my questions.

I think Clinton and Trump are equally bad. Clinton represents everything that disgusts me about politics - the 1%, 'the establishment', privilege and modern society, she will continue to sign off murdering innocent people and destroying the ecosystem for profit worldwide. Trump is.. well, offensive, sexist, racist, but i think only because it makes him popular, like a school bully, but he doesn't understand the new platform he has or what effect his words have on how people behave, and all in all that makes him a cowardly, selfish, egotistical weasel who we're about to give the keys to everything. Either way, we are fucked.

"Pop" goes the weasel...

"I thought it was illegal to hint that people should kill a President, even if you are joking."

She's not a president. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threatening_the_President_of_the_United_States

"Trump Jokes That Gun Owners Can 'Fix' the Clinton Problem"

Here is what he said:
"By the way, and if she gets to pick, if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do folks. Although the Second Amendment people maybe there is, I don't know."

He said "maybe there is" something that they (the 2nd Amendment people) can do - but he doesn't know. Pure weasel words.

Considering they are weasel words, I see an awful lot of reading into them.

IS that a stuffed weasel?

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Colbert, The Late Show' to 'Colbert, The Late Show, dnc, Julius Flickerman, weasel, podium' - edited by eric3579