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[Loud Whispers]

Or piecemeal to whoever gets a hundred guys with construction equipment and rifles out to their local nuclear silo first

Nah, just look at the fall of the USSR. Nuclear missile guards are prepared for the collapse of their nation since their job description is "you must defend these even if our nation is wiped off the map by nuclear hellfire." Political partition is par the course by comparison. This is important. Nuclear arsenals are designed to outlive their countries, USSR had 1 million people guarding nuclear material, warheads or secrets, under immense economic pressure to sell stuff that shouldn't be sold to people who shouldn't possess this stuff. Also notable that the USSR's nuclear stockpile got split between Belarus, Ukraine, Russia and Kazakhstan, with the USA and Russia mutually helping denukify all former Soviet states. Ergo it should stand to reason that some powerful nations would aid the disunited states denukify the weaker breakaway states

[RedKing]

Latest WH blunder:

Team Trump lawyer pushes back, saying (paraphrased) "If this was such a clandestine meeting and such nefarious people, the Secret Service wouldn't have let them in the room."

Secret Service: "Uhh, we weren't there and didn't know anything about this. Don Jr. wasn't under SS protection then."

I didn't realize Lionel Hutz was working for the White House.

[Frumple]

I think the most fun thing about that is that the SS hasn't actually said they weren't there, as near as I can tell. They said (unless the full body of the email statement that mess is referencing has been released and the context made things materially different from the bit that's being quoted) they wouldn't have been if Jr. hadn't been under their protection... not that no one in the meeting was under their protection and they were uninvolved and/or unaware of the meeting, heh.

It's probably just some kind of finicky gimmick to their procedures that means they can't say something or another that would be required for a direct, "No, we weren't sodding there, no one in that meeting was under our protection at the time", or someone hard failing an editing pass, but... still. It's fun stuff. Makes me want to know how intentional it was, ehehe.

[smjjames]

I did think that the Trump lawyer did have a bit of a point because while Trump did have Secret Service coverage at the time (had been for at least half a year by then), I'm not sure what their protocols were for entering Trump tower. But that may have been just while he was there and the more serious coverage didn't come until later.

So, yeah, it's a bit interesting that they didn't outright deny that they never did get into contact with those at the meeting. Kind of leaves open loopholes for the Trump admin to argue that it's the USSS's fault that the meeting took place and that they didn't stop them, which is just blame shifting.

Also, Russia is refusing any conditions/concessions for the return of the diplomatic compounds and seems to be calling them a violation of international law. Sounds like diplomatic sheneinighans to me, and with the Russian collaboration very likely having compromised the Trump admin (what the Russians call Kompromat), I wonder if they might employ a little blackmail. Though they wouldn't be able to get Congress to comply, heh.

[RedKing]

I think their Final Form defense at the end of all this is going to be, "Look, you knew Trump was fucking crazy when you voted for him! It's WHY you voted for him. You could have stopped this, America. This is entirely your fault."

[Neonivek]

Eventually I am going to look up why Hillary is a bad Presidential candidate.

There are legit arguments I am sure. Yet you really have to hit that wall of stupidity to get to it.

[MrRoboto75]

Eventually I am going to look up why Hillary is a bad Presidential candidate.

She singlehandedly murdered Ben Gahzi via the use of butter e-mails, and even today is still at large.

[smjjames]

Eventually I am going to look up why Hillary is a bad Presidential candidate.

There are legit arguments I am sure. Yet you really have to hit that wall of stupidity to get to it.

There isn't one single overriding reason why she wasn't a great candidate in general, if that's what you're looking for. I'm sure someone has done a deep meditative thought analysis over it, but the Democratic establishment hasn't done that yet as far as I can tell. They're still trying to find their message, which is part of the whole puzzle of why she wasn't a great candidate.

[Neonivek]

Naw I am sure there is a lot of good reasons beyond just her overall demeener.

Yet lets put another way.

If I was trying to research why Donald Trump isn't a good president and the first reason was how much he insults Rosie O'Donald.

I want had concrete things. For example here is one I know which is Hillary Clinton's Hot Coffee fiasco that shows just how out of touch she is in videogames and in spite being a elected politician, she didn't do her required reading or research into this topic.

Hillary is a magnet for the most unfair and unbelievable controversy. It is like trying to get at the honey in a hive but the bees keep stinging you.

Trump is in many ways the same way. VERY LITTLE of the controversy surrounding Trump during the election was about his rather poor business acumen (though they did focus on how little he knew of politics) but rather about this intense sexism allegations which while valid... It is kind of significantly less important.

[smjjames]

Good luck in finding hard concrete reasons because everybody has an opinion and it'll be studied for quite some time. Also, Hot Coffee fiasco?

I definetly know of the fiasco she had with video games, but not the Hot Coffee bit.

[Starver]

In conjunction with the video game information, I presume it's something to do with/associated with the infamous decensored/re-modded 'girlfriend' scenes in GTA:San Andreas. I can't remember it becoming a fiasco, though time obscures much and even if it wasn't a storm in a teacoffee-cup at the time, it'd be no more than a shower in an egg-cup in today's world, I'm sure. For all parties.

[Neonivek]

In conjunction with the video game information, I presume it's something to do with/associated with the infamous decensored/re-modded 'girlfriend' scenes in GTA:San Andreas. I can't remember it becoming a fiasco, though time obscures much and even if it wasn't a storm in a teacoffee-cup at the time, it'd be no more than a shower in an egg-cup in today's world, I'm sure. For all parties.

It ENTIRELY blew over that is why. Hillary Clinton started a sort of censorship thing, didn't last long... fizzled out.

The only thing I believe that came from it is that videogames can now receive ESRB ratings based on even code that cannot normally be accessed (so they cant like... have a porn video in the code... even if it could only be accessed by hacking the game)

The reason why it looks rather poorly on Hillary is that the games on the docket included... The Sims... Where they are Barbie dolls and a cheat lets you get rid of the blur.

[Starver]

There was little reaction in Europe. The game was already rated "18+" by PEGI prior to the release of the mod. Furthermore, PEGI ratings are enforced by law in many European nations, making it a criminal offense to sell 18+ games to minors.

No wonder I knew so little of it.  (Also, I was definitely old enough, but had no kids of my own to worry about. A schoolfriends' kids were, meanwhile, probably already proficiently blowing the heads off of Elites piloting banshees half a click away, with sniper rifles, even though not yet in secondary school...)

[sluissa]

It was fairly major at the time, and a publisher smaller than Rockstar might have faltered under it. At the time digital distribution wasn't a thing yet (or still in its infancy. Steam came out about a month after the original console release, and the PC release of GTA:SA was only a few months later.) Games still came in boxes on physical media sold mostly in brick and mortar stores. The original shipment of GTA:SA was required to be classified from Mature, to Adults Only, which most stores would not sell. Rockstar was, in order to continue selling it, required to produce and ship an entirely new set of media and packaging and take back what they'd already produced, presumably to be destroyed, as there was basically nowhere it could be sold. As part of the settlement they also had to take back any already purchased copies, replace them with the new "censored" version AND give a cash payout to basically anyone who requested it. Luckily the requests for such a thing were fairly minor, only a few thousand, as most people playing the game didn't give a crap.

It's only the fact that despite all the media and government attention that very few customers actually gave a crap about it, that made it blow over. It was an annoyance for Rockstar, but didn't kill them.

Today it wouldn't be nearly as big of a deal, as even consoles have the ability to patch out stuff post release now. Digital distribution has changed a lot.

[MrRoboto75]

Naw I am sure there is a lot of good reasons beyond just her overall demeener.

For a lot of voters, its just because she's from the democrat party.