Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
lmsinca
markinaustin
Memetrics
novahockey
quarterback
ScottC
yellojktVital Statistics:
| Last | Change | |
| S&P Futures | 2264.8 | -3.0 |
| Eurostoxx Index | 345.1 | -1.4 |
| Oil (WTI) | 52.2 | -0.8 |
| US dollar index | 91.3 | -0.1 |
| 10 Year Govt Bond Yield | 2.44% | |
| Current Coupon Fannie Mae TBA | 103 | |
| Current Coupon Ginnie Mae TBA | 104 | |
| 30 Year Fixed Rate Mortgage | 4.13 |
Markets are flat this morning as we await the FOMC decision at 2:00 pm EST. Bonds and MBS are up.
What to look for in the Fed statement: The biggest thing to watch will be the dot plot, which shows the forecasts that various members have for the Federal Funds rate. This is different than the 10 year, which determines mortgage rates. Market participants will compare the September 2016 dot plot with the December 2016 one and look for a shift in the general trend, either up or steepening.
Generally speaking the dot plots have been heading downward over the past several years as the Fed has been consistently high in its estimate for GDP growth. If the new dot plot is more aggressive (say it predicts 3 hikes for 2017, when before it was 2 hikes, then you could see a bond sell-off, which would send rates higher.
Janet Yellen will have a press conference at 2:30, and will probably do her best to dodge questions about Trump and his influence on the economy.
Retail Sales for November disappointed this morning, with the headline number up 0.1% and the core number (ex autos and gas) up 0.2%. November retail sales can be noisy, as more and more shoppers procrastinate. Still, this goes along with the weak Redbook same store sales number yesterday.
Inflation at the wholesale level is on the upswing, according to the Producer Price index. The PPI rose 0.4% MOM and is up 1.3% YOY. The core index is up 0.2% MOM and 1.8% YOY. Inflation remains below the Fed’s target which gives them the room to go slowly with rate hikes.
Mortgage Applications fell 4% last week as purchases fell 3% and refis fell 4%.
First time homebuyers face a shortage of real estate going into 2017, according to Redfin. For starter homes, the problem is acute. Over the past year, prices have risen 7.5% as inventory fell 12%. This increased the percent of income needed to buy a median home in that segment to 38.5%, an increase of about 2 percentage points. They are hopeful that the bottom is in with respect to tight inventory, however some of that will depend on regulatory policies of the new administration. On the plus side, credit will probably ease a bit as the financial system gets more clarity on regulation. On the negative side, immigration limits will exacerbate the construction labor shortage we currently are experiencing.
Filed under: Economy |
All Things in Moderation 
Frist!
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Really?!? You had to post that???
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I’m hoping there’s a Kanye/Trump duet on Yeezy’s next album.
It’s a brave new world out there! Anything can happen.
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PL Meltdown, Day 37.
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And shows no signs of letting up…
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It really doesn’t. It will take a while, anyway, because the election isn’t going to truly be over until Trump has lasted a year without being impeached. Until he’s sworn in, they will hope that the electors choose Hillary, directly or by Republican electors choosing other Republicans, thus giving Clinton a majority of electoral votes (even though under 270).
They are keeping unrealistic hope alive! And so, can be disappointed anew every day.
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The more they run around like clowns the better. Blame everyone and everything else and don’t ever change.
The Democratic Party and its affliates like the PL exist to win the meme of the week and maybe an SNL sketch.
Meanwhile we’ll be on a beach earning 20%
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I’m hoping so! I could use 20%.
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The truly pathetic thing is I don’t thing Sargent or Waldman has written a single piece on the Louisiana Senate election and how the Democrats didn’t even bother. It’s like an NFL team just deciding to concede the extra point after a touchdown.
They should also cover Aleppo and what it means for Obama’s foreign policy legacy, but that really is a bridge too far.
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how the Democrats didn’t even bother
This is why I desperately miss Dr Dean.
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Man, and how has the world changed? Dean basically got nuked because of an enthusiastic scream. And also because he may have been too young and dynamic for the Democratic establishment.
Dean has his opinions about Trump, I know, but one of them has to be: “WTF? I let out a little primal scream and I’m out, and this dude is on tape repeatedly being a lunatic . . . and he’s president? I mean, dude. WTF!”
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Depends on if you mind having non progressives in the party.
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This is the part where we note that it’s important to have two competitive parties for the two party system to work, so Democratic weakness is actually bad for the country.
i.e. just like every piece of fake advice that was offered to the Republicans on PL for the last four years after the autopsy.
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It’s interesting. On the one hand, they are writing for clicks. PlumLine gets reliably front-paged and is obviously a traffic-attractor at WaPo. So, it makes sense they are catering to the audience. The audience, by and large, wants to wring their hands over Trump or attack the crazy liberals because they can’t accept Trump . . . it’s all click-bait, in other words.
I’m sure WaPo occasionally floats stories that cover Aleppo or Louisiana, but they aren’t the draws that Trump is. So the next article is also about Trump.
Which is funny for a career choice that is commonly made so they “can change the world”. Of all the things going on the world they are likely to have any influence on, the president is probably least likely. Of all the topics where they could potentially say something new or unique or educational, reporting on Trump is the least likely area to produce anything novel or beneficial. But it gets clicks.
I’m sure there are incentives inside the WaPo, too. Could be Paul and Greg know what gets front-paged, and they more they get front-paged, the better things are for them.
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How to repeat the same mistakes because they are incapable of learning:
“Democrats fear the DNC race will become a rehash of the Bernie vs. Hillary fight
Updated by Andrew Prokop
Dec 14, 2016, 9:02am EST ”
http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/12/14/13870482/dnc-chair-election-tom-perez-keith-ellison
It’s also great that a guy who refuses to identify as a Democrat can cause so much trouble for the party. He’s their Trump.
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Meanwhile, back at the ranch…
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From Adams:
I think the better explanation is the second one.
I think the best explanation is a third, unstated one: Their rhetoric and actions are not a reflection of what they actually believe, and they are getting bored (not to mention that the weather is getting too cold to protest!)
Calling Trump Hitler and protesting against him is not an indication that they actually believe they are living in an analog to 1930s Germany. It is just an indication that, for various reasons, they really don’t like Trump. The evidence to support this explanation is experience….protesting, calling people they don’t like “Hitler”, and over-the-top, hyperbolic characterizations of things they object to is what the left does all the time, about everything.
Bush was Hitler, Romney was Hitler, now Trump is Hitler. The right has “hated” women, gays, and blacks since Reagan’s era. On and on. None of this is particularly new.
The left is no more “hallucinating” that they are in 1930’s Germany than is a screaming baby hallucinating that it is being tortured. It is simply doing the only thing it knows how to do in order to get attention. And eventually it gets tired of screaming.
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I actually think it’s the first one.
It’s just that Democrats/progressives/liberals are too lame to actually stop Hitler.
Good thing Trump isn’t Hitler.
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That’s striking to me
If his is a real threat, hashtag campaign doesn’t stop the movement.
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jnc:
Good thing Trump isn’t Hitler.
🙂
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YOU’RE TOTALLY NORMALIZING HITLER, ER, TRUMP!!!1!1!!!!!!1!1!11!
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They believe they’re in ’30’s Germany and that they can get away with calling righties Hitler is because Righties love being compared to Hitler, so in that regard they’re safe.
And dumb, I’ll add.
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“is not an indication that they actually believe they are living in an analog to 1930s Germany.”
But they could believe it. I don’t think they really have much of an idea of what living in 1930s Germany was like. So it could be easy for them to believe “this is exactly the same!”
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KW:
But they could believe it.
Sure, they could. They could believe almost anything. But as I said, I don’t think they do.
The left’s protests and shouts of “Hitler” and “White Nationalism” are not attempts to express actual ideas or any coherent thought. They are simply predictable expressions of emotion.
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I just fail to understand why, as a conservative / libertarian, I am supposed to care that Podesta clicked on a phishing email, which leaked info that confirmed what I have always suspected: that the MSM and D party are on the same team, and Hillary had to cheat to beat a septuagenarian pinko.
The DNC is the fundraising arm for a political party. It is not the government.
Would the outcry be different if it turned out that the hacker came from Iowa, Israel, or Indonesia?
No national security related info was disseminated. Nothing of any value was compromised. The Democrats had some embarrassing info released about them.
That’s it.
So why should I care?
How is this any different from having Jimmy Carter’s grandson surreptitiously tape a Romney fundraising event?
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If they had actually planted fake E-mails then I would be more concerned, but that’s never been alleged. Anonymous sources release material like this all the time and it’s usually not with pristine motives.
I agree with the comparison to Mitt Romney’s leaked donor audio footage. I put the hacked DNC E-mails in the same category as that and Trump’s leaked tax returns.
Besides, any organization that let Reid get away with flat out lying about Romney without paying a price doesn’t have any credibility now.
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An unaffiliated Hillary supporter actually did plant fake emails, to discredit the obvious factual Wikileaks emails, and started circulating them around as if they came from the Wikileaks release, when they didn’t.
Because that’s where we are at now. Everything that actually happens will immediately have a huge dose of fiction injected into it. Because it’s easy and getting much, much easier. Trust nothing and no one.
Trump is the leading edge here. He says one thing and then another. He says something and then denies saying it, probably because he doesn’t remember saying it. Soon, there will be so much hard-to-tell fake video and audio of real people saying things they never said that “I never said that” “That was faked” “That’s fake news” “Sure, they say they saw me saying that, they’re probably paying the people who made the fake video” is going to be pretty much every politician until it just gets boring.
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“So why should I care?”
Because it’s Russia trying to influence our election, presumably to their ultimate benefit. Which is bad now that it’s Russian and Republicans rather than the Soviet Union and Democrats, in which case it was “important but delicate”.
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Credit to the Times for acknowledging this:
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How they lost, lesson #147
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I assume the title for #147 is “Understand Nothing About Human Psychology”.
I assume #1 is “Have No Idea How The Electoral College Works”.
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Interesting piece and response:
“My President Was Black
A history of the first African American White House—and of what came next
By Ta-Nehisi Coates”
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/01/my-president-was-black/508793/
“The Problem With Obama’s Faith in White America
The president’s optimism about race blinded him to the pervasiveness and stubborn persistence of racism.
Tressie McMillan Cottom Dec 13, 2016 ”
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/12/obamas-faith-in-white-america/510503/
It seems to me to primarily being an exercise in rewriting history to explain how “racist” America could elect Obama twice and then elect Trump. I expect it to become conventional wisdom on the left.
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Coates is a blog post away from saying that Obama’s white half was the one that got elected.
Hell, they’re saying in now.
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McWing;
Coates is a blog post away from saying that Obama’s white half was the one that got elected.
Coates seems to think that an unwillingness on the part of whites to vote for any black man who explicitly calls whites racists is evidence of white racism.
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We’re just dumb fucking racists.
Loud and proud.
Anybody know of a discount shackle wholesaler? I got people to put back in chains.
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The problem is we’re still a racist, sexist country even if we elected African-American women president for the next 50 years. While that would somehow prove we were still racists, the next time a white dude won, or an African-American conservative, it would be evidence that racism in America is worse than ever. Everything proves we’re racists.
It’s a Kobayashi Maru set up. It’s designed for America and white people and conservatives of any color to always be racist and always be seen as operating from racist motivations, always, all the time, no matter what we do.
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Boom.
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That’s racist.
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Or maybe Obama is right that if you don’t start off with a chip on your shoulder, you can get farther.
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The problem with adopting alarmism as an ideological orientation is that it spreads to everything.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/12/13/scientists-are-frantically-copying-u-s-climate-data-fearing-it-might-vanish-under-trump/?tid=hybrid_experimentrandom_3_na&utm_term=.0cf4a0fe0ea3
It’s complete fantasy on every level. There no circumstance in which publicly available data isn’t already duplicated everywhere. The idea that Trump is going to order them to destroy climate data . . . I mean, I understand, if you’re a college student who has never been required to do anything but participate in victims studies how you could think this way. But accredited scientists?
I mean, I guess. But it’s just alarmism over something that is complete fantasy.
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Hopefully they’ll take some time to also stock up on canned goods and 9mm rounds while copying the data.
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It’s fascinating that the left thinks government can be dismantled. Do they have any examples of it ever happening?
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In Germany. By Hitler. Boom!
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KW:
But accredited scientists?
If it were anyone else, it might raise questions about their judgment as a general matter. But they are, afterall, SCIENTISTS, so therefore beyond question. If the consensus of scientists has declared Trump a danger to data, it must be so.
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Man, I can’t argue with science. I guess you’re right!
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Or: back off man, we’re scientists
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🙂
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Vox on Kanye Trump:
http://www.vox.com/culture/2016/12/14/13937352/kanye-west-donald-trump-mutual-fascination-explained
I realize Vox is not “mainstream”, but the whole “words mean things” gets to me. Also, it’s the normalization of white nationalism, to be perfectly honest. It’s like saying: “This regular guy who seems perfectly fine and never says anything overtly racist? White nationalist.” It can work on Steve Bannon because he looks really creepy. But asserting that Trunmp’s cabinet is full of white nationalists makes the whole concept meaningless.
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You’re normalizing Trump.
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Isn’t racism normal?
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Well, if it’s genetic then someone has a lot of explaining to do.
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You’re normalizing normalization.
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KW:
Also, it’s the normalization of white nationalism, to be perfectly honest.
That’s a BINGO! (“You just say ‘bingo'”.)
There is all of this angst on the left about Trump “normalizing” white nationalism. But it is the left itself that is actually doing it, stripping the term of any real meaning.
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Trump’s not doing anything about “white nationalism”. He’s not introducing people and saying, “And he’s a great white nationalist. One of the best. A real family man, a credit to the white race, he truly is.”
It’s the folks who want to tar-and-feather everyone they don’t like as a “white nationalist” that’s normalizing it. When you call people things, and those people look a lot like other people, it’s like: “Well, I never thought of myself as a white nationalist. But if that guy is . . . “
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You know what identity is primary for both West and Trump?
That of being a celebrity.
Their day to day lived life experiences are more similar each other than they are to non-celebrities, regardless of age, race, or gender.
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My opinion of Trump just went up considerably:
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Why do democrats invariably frame people not voting for them as acting out of fear and not something else?
http://www.vox.com/identities/2016/12/12/13894546/obama-race-black-white-house-cornell-belcher-racism
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Brent:
Why do democrats invariably frame people not voting for them as acting out of fear and not something else?
Perhaps because that is what motivates Democratic voters. We keep hearing, after all, about how “afraid” HRC voters are as a result of Trump’s win. And the standard DNC campaign book revolves around creating fear…fear in blacks about being put back in chains, fear in women about contraception being outlawed, etc. Fear is a powerful tool and the Dems wield it well. Perhaps they think this is the primary motivation for any vote.
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I suspect they do it to build their self-esteem..
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From the article:
…he wrote that Donald Trump’s rise was another predictable result of white Americans’ preoccupation with racial group identity
These people are truly unbelievable. All of the identity groups that the left caters to, and this guy is saying that white Americans have a preoccupation with racial group identity? Is he f-ing kidding?
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Now that’s funny.
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59% of whites voted against Obama. 93% of blacks voted for Obama. But whites have a preoccupation with racial group identity.
This really is complete and utter lunacy. Total twilight zone stuff. And the geniuses at Vox are incapable of pointing it out.
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Because Hillary wasn’t totally white.
The real identity groups are ideological. Color coding is just a convenience. You don’t get a pass on the left if you’re a black conservative, any more than you get a pass on the right for being a white communist.
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How to solve the issue of whether or not Uber drivers count as employees or independent contractors under California law.
“Uber Expands Its Self-Driving Car Service to San Francisco
By MIKE ISAAC
DEC. 14, 2016”
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I think it’s only a mater of time until Uber is a self-driving taxi company, and the human drivers are just eliminated from the calculation altogether.
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What we need at full employment is more cowbell:
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Krugman no longer believes in counter-cyclical policy, just deficits all the time. At some point, already past, that became cartoonishly ludicrous. It is almost as if he is knee jerking in advance of DJT’s Inauguration to the equally cartoonish idea of ever more Laffer. Polemics instead of economics.
Probably should have cited the seating of the new Congress, not DJT. DJT’s idea seems to be that debt is always good, too. I remember when I was taught the notions of leverage and OPM. Works better for real estate than for federal policy. Duh.
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mark:
Polemics instead of economics.
The transformation of Krugman from respected economist to unhinged political hack is actually rather sad. He’s basically become Michael Moore with an advanced degree.
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The stuff he won the Nobel prize for kind of made sense. Unlike much of his present work.
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IMO, the freshwater economists are ascendant at the Fed, which will annoy Dr. Cowbell to no end…
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Why not provide evidence?
Pretty important right? importantt eneoufh to reveal sources and methods, right?
If it’s not released can we then assume its horseshit?
If Obama has evidence why doesn’t he prosecute?
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Anyone else see an ongoing amplification process that will have Trump being a Russian deep cover agent by the end of it?
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I don’t believe a single word that comes out of that administration anymore…
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They are all indistinguishable from Harry Reid now.
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I think it’s time I come clean…
I’m a Ruskie spy.
They had me pegged at PL a long time ago.
McCarthy was tighter than anybody will ever know
The Venona paper? Tip.Of.The.Iceberg.
Me and Trump, we’re fucking commies, yo.
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The left is batting what, like 0-8 for these supposed “hate crimes” aren’t they..
http://heatst.com/life/she-made-it-up-nypd-arrests-muslim-girl-who-claimed-attack-by-trump-supporters/
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The only potentially legitimate pro-Trump “hate crimes” have been primarily crimes of yelling racist stuff by people who are ostensibly “pro Trump” but more significantly just mentally ill:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/racist-pro-trump-tirade-over-bag_us_583c55cce4b000af95eef322
And some of the pro-Trump, pro-Nazi graffiti (which has apparently stopped, but in 2016 I believe all graffiti crimes are hoaxes, but the SPLC doesn’t agree) which can (probably) never be verified or discredited.
The “I was attacked in the subway” story was just stupid. I noticed a lot of outlets who could have covered it decided not to touch it, and they were the smart ones because it was obviously fake. And stupidly so. In that she placed it on a location where the on-and-off, at least, is well documented, in a city where every skirmish is documented by cell-phone, and in an urban area that’s 80% (or thereabouts) populated by self-righteous liberals. The idea that some redneck racist pro-Trump dudes were harassing a Muslim woman in the subway and assaulting her while several New Yorkers turned away and ignored an assault on a Muslim by a loudmouthed racist Trump supporters . . . the whole idea was insane. Phones would have come out, some people would have been recording it while others would have jumped to defend the Muslim victim from the Trumpian attackers. The proposed scenario would not have been more unbelievable had she included that one of her attackers had horns and defied gravity and shot lasers from his eyes.
I’m almost less offended by the lie than how awful it was, and that anyone took it seriously.
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View at Medium.com
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Of, FFS, what is the left going to do? Send in an army of beta-males and feminazis armed with dildos?
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Don’t under estimate the lethality of an assault dildo.
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First, the author describes rugged and dedicated individuals willing to sacrifice their lives for a noble cause. The #NotMyPresident crowd can’t be bothered to stand out in the cold for more than a day or two, so . . . not gunna happen.
Second, this story ends, as do all “second amendment solutions” stories, with the nascent rebellion being crushed by a militarized police state and the National Guard. There is a very, very small likelihood of anybody prevent Trump from taking power, violently or not. Although the attempt would certainly do more to marginalize the left in a lot of areas.
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How much you wanna bet the author jacked-off after hitting “publish”?
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I thought the article was lame. Honestly not 100% sure what he hoped to accomplish. Was he intentionally proposing something, or just trolling Trump-haters, or . . . what?
I’m gonna say he took care of himself beforehand. His prose seemed unfocused, and the process described is not a remotely credible-strategy. National Treasure‘s “steal the constitution” plot was more sensible.
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BTW, WP isn’t letting me add a new post this am… not sure what is wrong…
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It’s me, I’m waiting to hear from Putin to determine if it’s appropriate.
Stand by comrade.
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Awaiting the word, comrade
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(Raises fist in White Power, communist solidarity)
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Post is up now
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