The next TV show President… Hope he turns out better than the last one did…
Perfect arguments against Democracy, frankly.
Unless we really want President Kardashian and First Husband Kanye…
“Zelenskiy has shown us on the screen what a real president should be like,” voter Tatiana Zinchenko, 30, who cast her ballot for the comedian, said. “He showed what the state leader should aspire for — fight corruption by deeds, not words, help the poor, control the oligarchs.”
It’s tempting to think that American Exceptionalism means our humans are stupider than anywhere else, but it’s really a problem with the species.
OTOH:
He should just have an investigation, then make sure that he gets to control what is released. (Actually, I seem to remember that almost that exact plan was mentioned on Yes, Prime Minister.)
Trump probably told his Fox buddies that the three nations in Central America’s Northern Triangle are “Mexican” and they believed him, or figured their base would prefer to use that stereotype instead of understanding the facts.
a comedian with no political experience as the front-runner
KInd of complicates the question of whether you want to have a potentially civilization-ending conflict over defending these people’s independence.
OMG
Naw, see Brexit. Or Turkey. Stupidity is contagious, and unfortunately it breeds at a rapid rate.
It’s happening! Mexico is metastasizing!
BUILD THAT WALL!!!
The Ukrainians are wonderful people (may be partial, dated one for a while and spent quite a bit of time in the country). There’s a lot of corruption and crap in their politics, though.
And Russia has its hands all over the mess, as they work very hard to influence things there.
Definitely worth holding the line at Ukraine, or things will only get worse, and WWIII will start heating up (we’ve been in Cold War II since the invasion of Crimea).
OT (somewhat) but I was reading an article in today’s (Sunday) Courier Journal about Braidy Industries. Sorry I can’t link to it because it is not on the CJ 's terrible, awful, no good website at this time. So I’m going to lift directly from the story and summarize a little here:
Brady announced it’s decision to build an aluminum mill in Eastern, KY back in 2017. That year it received an unusual direct investment of $15 million from the state in return for an ownership stake and promise to create more than 500 jobs. A stock offering launched in Sept. 2018 slated to conclude in Nov '18. Deadline got extended to Dec 31, 2018 then to March 31 in 2019 and now to June 15th 2019.
“The announcement references an ‘anticipated investment by an identified potential strategic investor,’ whom the company does not specifically name. No assurances can be provided at this time as to the timing or terms and conditions of the anticipated strategic investment, or that it will occur at all, the announcement said.”
Mill originally said to open in 2020, but recently said it’s on track to bring the mill “full operation in 2021.” It broke ground in 2018.
“Previously Braidy had said it planned to raise $500 million in fresh equity capital in addition to pursuing hundreds of millions of dollars in loans.”
The kicker:
“The company also has said it can’t disclose details about certain aspects of its current stock sale because of confidentiality requirements and strict nondisclosure agreements, although a prior business update said Braidy had received more than 1 Billion in 'substantial indications of interest from various accredited parties, such as institutional investors and wealthy individuals.”
Didn’t Oleg Deripaska just get sanctions lifted from him? He’s an aluminum oligarch right? Am I tin foil hat wearing here? Gov. Bevin is a trump lap sitter and sycophant.
I’m all for creating jobs in Eastern, KY that are not coal mining and this is a great start. I suppose even if Deripaska is the mystery money man here there’s probably no law against it, at least anymore, but something smells here.
-late: story by Morgan Watkins
Louisville Courier Journal
USA Today Network
I’m just being grumpy. I’m a little bitter about what happened to Yulia Tymoshenko and encourage Manafort to think about that, among other things, while he does that time. See, you guys were discussing stupidity upthread, and I can relate because I once had this youthful utopian assumption that people would wise up eventually. Then youth passed, nobody wised up, in fact they got stupider, and it’s going to be that way for the rest of my life. 
At least look at the demographics… The “stupidity” crowd is largely aging out, so self-solving problem. Particularly if we can get their healthcare revoked.
That’s also interesting this time… There are two candidates in this race with that name, check out the other one… Perfect example of how their elections are being fucked with.
I know you’re trying to cheer me up but the aging process, well, that hits closer to home every year. Once you’re old enough to drive it’s a mixed blessing at best.
Don’t forget old enough to drink!
Please. Stupid Futures are safer than T-Bills.
Should have caveated it-- the certain specific racist/misogynist/bigot breed of stupidity.
JFC. Before long, blatant corruption is going to be so common we won’t need to bother calling it “blatant” any more. Doesn’t anyone bother to hide their fuckery these days?
I used to think all the bigots and irrationalists and militarists would die off and sensible younger people would take over. But they kept making more stupidity, partially because Republicans (and some industrialists who bought power from both parties) starved the public school systems, and partly because social media enabled foolish ideas and gut feelings to spread faster than facts and good judgment.
Your OneWordAnswer™: No.
Your ExpandedAnswer™: Hell, those of us who were paying attention during the 2016 election had plenty of clues that made it public on the russkie influence. Sure, we didn’t know all the specifics, like the Trump Tower meeting, but things like Guccifer, the call from Trump to hack Hillary’s e-mails, his announcement that he was going to have a big speech about dirt on Clinton that was never followed up…
So they’re getting away with the blatant stuff, why would they stop?
BTW don’t you think we should have a story on those northern triangle countries getting zeroed out in such a stupid way? It’s at least as important as having one more Creepy Uncle Joe story.