Finally now we can just drop "The Leader Of The Free World" bullshit

Just drop it.

Forget about it.

Move on. Its had its day.

As for Exceptional? Not even in the slightest.

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JekyllnHyde's picture

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A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma

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dervish's picture

@JekyllnHyde of an understanding of geography in many military circles, not that long ago.

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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

snoopydawg's picture

@dervish

IMG_0999.JPG

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Was Humpty Dumpty pushed?

dervish's picture

@snoopydawg I'm stealing that one Snoop.

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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

@JekyllnHyde @JekyllnHyde anymore! Had to laugh this evening as Jill Stein is trending on twitter. As in thanks to Jill Stein we have Trump as Prez!

Edit, too many as (hiccup) too many Ol Fashioned(s)

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O.k. When is the next meeting for the revolution?
-FuturePassed on Sunday, November 25, 2018 10:22 p.m.

@WIProgressive I thought it was all Susan Sarandon's fault.

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They say that there's a broken light for every heart on Broadway
They say that life's a game and then they take the board away
They give you masks and costumes and an outline of the story
And leave you all to improvise their vicious cabaret-- A. Moore

@Johnny Q @Johnny Q edit, for Tulsi!

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O.k. When is the next meeting for the revolution?
-FuturePassed on Sunday, November 25, 2018 10:22 p.m.

edg's picture

@WIProgressive

Jill Steinovich, the Russian plant who thwarted Hillary's Ascension?

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CB's picture

@edg
wined and dined her and then bedded her in the Kremlin.

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thanatokephaloides's picture

There's been no change, LaFeminista.

We still are the leader of the "free" world.

It means the same thing that it always has: the boys with the baddest toys and the fewest scruples about using them on their fellows.

Nothing has changed since Smedley Butler's day. Nothing at all.

Bad

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

@thanatokephaloides Americans. Finally some post WWII mumbo jumbo can be laid to rest permanently.

Just call out the US for the heavily armed bully that it is.

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snoopydawg's picture

@thanatokephaloides
they have changed. I remember cops coming into my elementary school and telling me that they were my friends.
Now they have taken their masks off and shown us who they really are.
IMG_0836_7.PNG

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Was Humpty Dumpty pushed?

ggersh's picture

wasn't Barry fabulous(BS artist)
and Dubya stupendous(ignorant)
clinton charming(is, is is, to clever for his)
bush a Nazi(a Nazi)
raygun the greatest(actor)
carter Mr.Rogers
Ford a bush stooge(one of 3)
Nixon quite a liberal, but a madman(a madman)
maybe JFK was the last shot we had(what might have been)

exceptional maybe at one point, but where exactly is that point?

but we are a progressive country in that with
each passing president they get progressively worse.

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I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

@ggersh with no problem in interpretation.

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In ignorance, arrogance and stupidity there's no one better.

Edit to add cruelty as well.

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Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur

Pricknick's picture

@lizzyh7
I'm proud to be ignorant. If I weren't there'd be nothing to learn.
I used to ask those in class to raise they're hands if they were ignorant. I was mildly surprised and pleased when some did.

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Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.

@Pricknick And as I'm sure you'd agree, it's the willfully ignorant that really piss me off. And we are chock full of those here in good old Murka.

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Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur

dervish's picture

is this guy. Iceland lays a better claim to actually being free than most.

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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

Big Al's picture

what are we going to do with those that still believe this shit?

No one said it better than Carlin. In this video he schools a white conservative short hair with tie about the illusions we live under. The white short hair with tie had nothing, fucking nothing. "Elections are just a charade", said Carlin.

People laughed, as did the white short hair with tie, but you can bet most of them turned right around and voted in the last election. It's like we can't stop playing, like an addiction. We're addicted to the illusions because if they go away, we don't know what we'll do, how to live, just like an addict. It's like, "if we don't elect a president, how can we function? How can life go on?"

Why? Because our founding fathers, man, our founding fathers. When does that not sound like a cult?

[video:https://youtu.be/1cg6Ku3rRnY]

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@Big Al What we actually need is rendered meaningless.

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dervish's picture

@LaFeminista serfs are still serfs, and royals are still royals, the rest is just details.

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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

@Big Al And just so MUCH stupid for George to rebut. These simpering idiots who defend this system, I hope they're forced to watch themselves one day when they finally figure it out.

And you make a great point about elections in this country - it is hard to know what in hell to do instead of them. And really, I guess the argument that if we don't vote they'll just install their choice is pretty moot.

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Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur

snoopydawg's picture

@Big Al
He said that they are just "figure heads. Just look at the policies that stay the same no matter who is president or which party they are from."
I can't argue with him. There isn't much difference between what Bush, Obama and Trump have been allowed to change when it comes to our foreign policies, except Trump is keeping his campaign promise to go after the family members of ISIS.
As for his domestic policies, he is just doing the same things, only quicker. How have our regulatory agencies enforced the rules before Trump's administration? Clinton was ready to privatize social security, but the Monica Lewinsky affair disrupted his plans. Obama did the cat food commission, but for some reason didn't implement it.
Anyone believe that Hillary would have left SS alone?

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Was Humpty Dumpty pushed?

@snoopydawg that's the point I try to make when people around me want to rail about the Trump outrage of the day. Because it's always about Trump personally but where were these people when Obama was doing the same things or setting the stage for Trump? And where was the concern when Her was supporting the same ideas? Trump is pushing harder and expressing less concern over the optics, but he's just the next link in the chain, not an outlier unfortunately.

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Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.

snoopydawg's picture

@Dr. John Carpenter
how bad Trump is for what he 'might' do. There are so many articles that say what Trump is doing should be illegal.
For example, the Saudi $110 billion weapons sale. The author who was writing about this said that it's possibly illegal. What they don't say is that the deal was put together during the Obama administration.
And what about the $115 billion weapons sale that Hillary sold to the Saudis when she was SOS? That's just as illegal as the Trump deal.
People are upset with the deportations, but no mention of Obama deporting record breaking people.
During the general election, I kept reading about 'what' Trump 'might' do and said that Obama and Hillary 'did' the same things.
They are being hypocrites.

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Was Humpty Dumpty pushed?

@snoopydawg because the one possible positive I hoped for out of this election would start to see what was going on behind the curtain, with the Trump administration's disregard for the optics. What I guess I didn't count on is how ingrained the politics as team sport has gotten to the point where people desperately need to believe Trump is an exception, even when that totally defies logic. I just don't understand any other way intelligent and perhaps well meaning Democrats can accept that Obama would have done all this swell stuff, if it hadn't been for the mean old Republicans and yet Trump blows in and does whatever he damn well wants. The fact is, they both did exactly what they've really wanted with full support of the government. It's a bit much to see today Obama coming out tut-tutting Trump on some issue, knowing full well he had the ability to pull the rug out from much of this when he was President* or that these are either continuations or the next steps from things he did while in office.

* IIRC, there was a whole list of things circulating before Obama let that was stuff he enshrined and things he had the ability to over turn that people predicted would be problematic.

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Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.

snoopydawg's picture

@Dr. John Carpenter
Everything that other presidents have done is being blamed on Trump.
The Good Americans

The Good Americans are resisting … they’re resisting Trump, who, after all, is the one responsible for all that stuff, all those wars of aggression, the CIA coups, the torture, the death squads, the ghettos, et cetera … our entire seventy-two-year history as Enforcer of global Capitalist empire and all the incalculable human suffering and irreparable damage to the planet it has caused … all that is somehow the doing of Trump and his puppet-master, Vladimir Putin. Or at least it’s not Obama’s fault, or the fault of any of his Democrat predecessors, those champions of the poor and downtrodden who never need to be resisted.

The Resistance March

This one probably won’t quite match the Nuremberg rallies for flat-out hysteria, but give the ruling classes some time

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Was Humpty Dumpty pushed?

@Big Al God, I miss Carlin. He bulldozed all of those fucks.
And he is right. Voting is a sham. Our government is a fake government.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

@Big Al "If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal."

I first heard that on an album of his from '88, I think. Took a while for that to sink in.

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Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.

Once other countries get out from under the thumb of the US, maybe they will refuse to go back - ever. The US has had its way for far too long.

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

dervish's picture

@dkmich that this dystopian phase will result in world wherein the US has to play by the rules and stop being exceptional. In that world, we'd have to make goods and services and trade them with others to be prosperous, not just kill them and grab their stuff.

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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

@dkmich
They actually haven't needed us for a long time they just haven't realized it. Technology is now spread all over the world, we have nothing unique. Russia is the biggest grain exporter. State-of-the-art Technology is spread from Europe through Eastern Europe, Russia and Asia. China is the world leaders in many areas, including supercomputers of their own design and manufacture. The US is far more trouble than it is worth. Government, Democracy? Nothing to be learned from the US. High level corruption, something not to be learned from the US. Indiscriminately using the world's most lethal military violating international law? Something to never be repeated by any country, that's the lesson. Strip away the fake veneer of US Liberals and you have nothing to emulate.

The Trump administration lays it all bare. That's us. This may be good, it's time for the world to be weaned of Uncle Sam. France, Germany and Italy are already saying that the Paris Accords may not be re-negotiated. The US will not be a big factor in converting to sustainable energy, other countries are already leading the way, Germany and China for instance. The US will have to be led by the nose kicking and screaming. The World has not been our friend, only our sycophants. A friend tells you when you are wrong. The West agrees to join any coalition of the sycophants whenever the US says to. The US is continuing the tradition of Western imperialist counties with the 21st century Crusades. Heh, let's go bomb another Muslim country? No problem, the coalition of Sycophants are right there. How stupid can they be in not seeing what they are doing? Trump lays it all bare, now open your eyes.

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Capitalism has always been the rule of the people by the oligarchs. You only have two choices, eliminate them or restrict their power.

lotlizard's picture

@The Wizard  
might that not actually be a silver lining?

After all, it is 72 years after the end of World War II, and 28 years after the end of the Cold War.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@The Wizard I wish the world were run that nationalistically, but I'm guessing it's not.

The U.S. is the arsenal of the global 1%. I don't think it'll be that easy.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

snoopydawg's picture

@dkmich
they might enjoy their freedoms enough to stop participating in our global hegemony. If this happens, they might decide to prosecute our government for their war crimes. Big IF, but I can dream.
The opening scenes of V for Vendetta shows the civil war in this country because it over extended itself and collapsed.

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Was Humpty Dumpty pushed?

Whether or not we are exceptional will be shown by how we respond to the current catastrophe.

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Beware the bullshit factories.

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They say that there's a broken light for every heart on Broadway
They say that life's a game and then they take the board away
They give you masks and costumes and an outline of the story
And leave you all to improvise their vicious cabaret-- A. Moore

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

It's pretty exceptional to be a superpower that appears to be tazing the other superpowers in hopes of drawing them into a nuclear war.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

earthling1's picture

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Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

lotlizard's picture

http://www.epsilontheory.com/notes/westworld/

It’s this micro explanation of the divorce between political risk and market risk that I think will prove to have the most long-lasting impact on investor behavior. You know, I started writing Epsilon Theory because Mario Draghi kicked me in the teeth in the summer of 2012 with the pretty words of his mythical OMT program. I couldn’t believe that mere narrative could be so powerful. But it is. It’s the most powerful thing in the world. Bad enough that politicians have wielded this power for centuries. Worse that Central Bankers have recently proven to be such adepts. Now that Wall Street and the global banking synod have fully embraced the dark narrative arts? Katy bar the door. Even when the androids of Westworld knew it was just a story, they were hard-wired to respond. So are we.

This writer illustrates his impression that, when it comes to the Free World’s financial foundations, Trump, like his predecessors, doesn’t really have the power to lead much of anything. Central bankers Janet Yellen and Mario Draghi do.

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but it's not the end of the world. Mostly because we were already doomed under Obama. The Paris agreement was 16 pages of lip service and a chance for world leaders to prance around without actually doing anything. The fact that it was supported by Goldman Sachs should give everyone a clue.

And right after Obama signed it he cancelled the ban on foreign oil sales to encourage more fracking. So my umbrage is somewhat limited now.

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CB's picture

@TJ
than under any other President. He also authorized the laying of enough pipeline to go around the world more than once.

He outdid Palin's "Drill, baby, drill." by a factor of ten.

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dervish's picture

@CB and so many others, we had absolutely no choice in the 2008 election. We only got to choose which package the crap was delivered in.

Drill, baby drill indeed.

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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."