Trump Thread

[Husar]

NONE of these are rights, but taxing me to pay for these services which are more practicable when provided in common makes sense. Whole point of governance really. Does healthcare follow this pattern?

Yes, the entire healthcare industry profits from this and so do you. Insurance makes more treatments available to everyone, which may otherwise not exist since the people having them mostly can't pay for their development. And then it also ensure that doctors get plenty of experience. And it makes everyone safer by providing e.g. vaccination to every citizen instead of just those who can afford it or wouldn't rather spend the money on a new phone.
And then there is mental care, would be weird to ask patients to pay for it themselves or just let them run around, potentially with guns. Especially if they're so affected that they can't possibly work to earn the money for treatment.
Plus you get a lot of indirect benefits by keeping people alive who may have a disability in one area but really shine in another, see Stephen Hawking.
And then of course there is basic human decency, the idea to not just do things because YOU benefit from them, a demand often made by conservatives in general, see also below. Christian values also demand not to think only of yourself.


Insurance is another tool entirely, parsing out the risk and choosing to accept greater base costs than required in order to transfer the risk of catastrophic payments in the case of an unlikely but not impossible catastrophic "damage" for which the insurance has been taken. To work effectively, however, insurance has to calculate the likely total risk involved and to base fees on the need to cover "Z" numbers of catastrophic events spreading the cumulative cost of the likely number of these and other events over the premiums of all persons participating in that insurance.

Yes, health is like a lottery with compulsory participation and not having insurance is like asking to only have the winners pay for the lottery tickets. Republicans like to talk about how society has lost its morals and yet complain about sharing the burden of the unfortunate. The whole chrity model is just bogus because if you want to help everyone and not cherry-pick people (similar to death panels?), you have the same overall cost. Except woth charity even more people wouldn't pay, so the moral people have to pay an even higher price for the same result. Insurance makes immoral people pay a fair share as well.
Consider that even financial markets, the epitome of capitalism, use insurance shemes to guard against catastrophes. Not always successfully, but even the most die-hard capitalists us the idea for themselves.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Yes, the entire healthcare industry profits from this and so do you. Insurance makes more treatments available to everyone, which may otherwise not exist since the people having them mostly can't pay for their development. And then it also ensure that doctors get plenty of experience. And it makes everyone safer by providing e.g. vaccination to every citizen instead of just those who can afford it or wouldn't rather spend the money on a new phone.
And then there is mental care, would be weird to ask patients to pay for it themselves or just let them run around, potentially with guns. Especially if they're so affected that they can't possibly work to earn the money for treatment.
Plus you get a lot of indirect benefits by keeping people alive who may have a disability in one area but really shine in another, see Stephen Hawking.
And then of course there is basic human decency, the idea to not just do things because YOU benefit from them, a demand often made by conservatives in general, see also below. Christian values also demand not to think only of yourself.



Yes, health is like a lottery with compulsory participation and not having insurance is like asking to only have the winners pay for the lottery tickets. Republicans like to talk about how society has lost its morals and yet complain about sharing the burden of the unfortunate. The whole chrity model is just bogus because if you want to help everyone and not cherry-pick people (similar to death panels?), you have the same overall cost. Except woth charity even more people wouldn't pay, so the moral people have to pay an even higher price for the same result. Insurance makes immoral people pay a fair share as well.
Consider that even financial markets, the epitome of capitalism, use insurance shemes to guard against catastrophes. Not always successfully, but even the most die-hard capitalists us the idea for themselves.

Not sure I agree with your second paragraph in its entirety, but I am far more a fan of insurance than of a government health service. And you know from previous posts that I am well aware that the current US system is, in some ways, the worst of both archetypal forms, despite some cutting edge capabilities that are amazing (though generally very costly).

[a completely inoffensive name]

He got better about such things -- was actually embarrassed by his earlier posts when I necro-threaded one or two.

Not about economics. He did change his mind about LGBT matters though.

[Husar]

Not sure I agree with your second paragraph in its entirety, but I am far more a fan of insurance than of a government health service. And you know from previous posts that I am well aware that the current US system is, in some ways, the worst of both archetypal forms, despite some cutting edge capabilities that are amazing (though generally very costly).

I see compulsory insurance and government healthcare as very similar. Usually the argument is made that the private sector can do it cheaper, but consider that they need the same administration either way and dividing it over several different corporations can lead to overhead such as each of them having a CEO and a board of directors with enormous salaries whereas the government could do with one department head who probably gets paid less. Surely the corporations would save costs by paying the line employees less, but how low wages are good for the country is another topic worthy of discussion. :sweatdrop:

It is possible to get a decent healthcare system without having the government as a single payer, we happen to have that in Germany. It keeps getting changed though and the whole system seems to be run in some weird government/insurance cooperation. For people who make a lot of money or are self-employed we also have a seperate private insurance industry, which apparently amounts to making one a first-class patient since they pay the doctors more or something like that. However, health insurance is compulsory for most things here and the big standard insurance companies can't just take it away, even if one does not pay repeatedly AFAIK. During employment the payments are deduced before the wage is paid out though, just like income taxes and other things.

The point is, it does not really matter, as long as everyone is covered. The Republican plan is terrible because it does not cover everyone, drives up the cost, benefits the ones who have no problems with healthcare anyway and basically turns the US even more into a class society where the amount of wealth determines the worth of a human life. And it is only made worse by their claims to be the moral party that stands for family values etc. Lies, lies, lies, I say...

[HopAlongBunny]

The budget is a governments statement of priorities.
Trump's priorities are pretty clear: internal surveillance and defense.

If you want a looksee: https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget

[HopAlongBunny]

Looks like a mixed bag for the polls on this:

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-is-tempting-fate-on-health-care/

A nurse at dialysis had the best comment:

"If I hear one more person say: Appeal Obamacare but don't touch my ACA; I'm gonna scream!"

[Greyblades]

Welp.


https://youtu.be/tcC1JSEssfE

First the FISA requests now this, I look forward to seeing the doozy of stretch that'll be needed to sweep this one under the rug.

[Husar]

Cry me a river, noone cared when that Obama fascist regime basically stripped me naked and Trump continues that.
They might as well screw over some citizens to show how wonderful all this surveillance is. Snowden is a hero.
Trump shouldn't whine if he has nothing to hide.

:stare:

[rory_20_uk]

I see compulsory insurance and government healthcare as very similar. Usually the argument is made that the private sector can do it cheaper, but consider that they need the same administration either way and dividing it over several different corporations can lead to overhead such as each of them having a CEO and a board of directors with enormous salaries whereas the government could do with one department head who probably gets paid less. Surely the corporations would save costs by paying the line employees less, but how low wages are good for the country is another topic worthy of discussion. :sweatdrop:

It is possible to get a decent healthcare system without having the government as a single payer, we happen to have that in Germany. It keeps getting changed though and the whole system seems to be run in some weird government/insurance cooperation. For people who make a lot of money or are self-employed we also have a seperate private insurance industry, which apparently amounts to making one a first-class patient since they pay the doctors more or something like that. However, health insurance is compulsory for most things here and the big standard insurance companies can't just take it away, even if one does not pay repeatedly AFAIK. During employment the payments are deduced before the wage is paid out though, just like income taxes and other things.

The point is, it does not really matter, as long as everyone is covered. The Republican plan is terrible because it does not cover everyone, drives up the cost, benefits the ones who have no problems with healthcare anyway and basically turns the US even more into a class society where the amount of wealth determines the worth of a human life. And it is only made worse by their claims to be the moral party that stands for family values etc. Lies, lies, lies, I say...

Germany so often does things... better. And because so much is ingrained other countries can not just copy it - families who care for their workers and most people who do mainly follow the rules as that is the right thing to do and help others as that is also right. Family owned Mittelstand who take the long view, not selling out at the first opportunity.

The UK / USA has a winner-takes-all mentality at all levels from those at the bottom who are out to get whatever they can to those at the top who act in exactly the same way. An all-pervading sense of both envy and entitlement with little concept of duty or responsibility. Unions who don't want to work with employers but would rather have adversarial relationships.

We have a bunch of politicians who are either insane, incompetent or sociopaths. I'm not sure which is worse. You have a leader who in a relatively considered and quiet way does a good, glamorous job.

Yes, I am a Germanophile (my last holiday was to Berlin - and is my choice for my next) and probably things are not as rosy as they seem.

But grafting the mentality of how the German system works onto the UK or USA just wouldn't work until the psyche changes. And of course the irony is that the UK and USA have some of the highest percentages of German ancestors of most countries.

~:smoking:

[Husar]

Germany so often does things... better. And because so much is ingrained other countries can not just copy it - families who care for their workers and most people who do mainly follow the rules as that is the right thing to do and help others as that is also right. Family owned Mittelstand who take the long view, not selling out at the first opportunity.

The UK / USA has a winner-takes-all mentality at all levels from those at the bottom who are out to get whatever they can to those at the top who act in exactly the same way. An all-pervading sense of both envy and entitlement with little concept of duty or responsibility. Unions who don't want to work with employers but would rather have adversarial relationships.

We have a bunch of politicians who are either insane, incompetent or sociopaths. I'm not sure which is worse. You have a leader who in a relatively considered and quiet way does a good, glamorous job.

Yes, I am a Germanophile (my last holiday was to Berlin - and is my choice for my next) and probably things are not as rosy as they seem.

But grafting the mentality of how the German system works onto the UK or USA just wouldn't work until the psyche changes. And of course the irony is that the UK and USA have some of the highest percentages of German ancestors of most countries.

~:smoking:

Well, I'm trying to do my part for the required cultural changes. I often check out the youtube comments under videos and how some people there defend the private sector economy stuff or even go full anarchy makes me think they just adopt arguments and never think them through. That is probably also an education issue and having more private schools would seem unlikely to fix that. Here we are often a jealous of how schools in the US or Canada are often shown to have the latest technologies, but I'm quite convinced that a good teacher is worth a thousand times more than having a beamer with touch capabilities. We may forget a lot of the information that we learn during our education, but the thought patterns, the correct application of logic and so on, these are things that can last us for a long time. And these are things the teachers need to teach. Given how people often get through school by memorizing what they think the teachers want to hear without really understanding it, it shouldn't be surprising that they might do the same later in life. :no:
And I'd say the same happens in Germany as well, I'm not saying our education system is a lot better.

I wouldn't even say capitalism is bad per se, but its use depends heavily on your goals circumstances and to some degree the type of capitalism you apply. When you have long-term goals,. infrastructure technologies and serious environmental concerns, the kind of capitalism we often see today, you're just maneuvering yourself into a lot of trouble. One could even say the irony of our society is that we have such good healthcare overall that our society became dominated by old people who look for short-term profit as they may not live to see the long-term ones. They're also so drunk on the short-term gains of the past, using a relative abundance of resources, that they refuse to see that this can't go on forever in the future. And they focus entirely on the economic consequences and call everything else a "fake science" (see people saying liberal arts should disappear etc.). And this was a segway to the following article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/17/upshot/what-if-sociologists-had-as-much-influence-as-economists.html
Especially interesting:


For starters, while economists tend to view a job as a straightforward exchange of labor for money, a wide body of sociological research shows how tied up work is with a sense of purpose and identity.

This is another segway to the following German article, which basically argues that another communist revolution is a pipe dream because Neo-liberalism has tied our self-worth to our financial success and therefore we lose all self-esteem if we are not rich and if we are rich we have no desire for revolution. Basically a form of self-enslavement of the poor masses who blame themselves for their lot in life rather than the system that is designed to perpetuate their situation.
As one example for a worrying development it takes the sharing economy, which basically turns communism into a product that corporations can sell us and at the same time removes more ownership from the consumer who has to pay for more and more things every day that his parents used to own after a one-time payment. The ownership of the rich and dependency of the poor and middle classes sold under the disguise of convenience and instant satisfaction. In the long term it commercializes every aspect of life and makes capitalism take over our entire lives.
http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/neoliberales-herrschaftssystem-warum-heute-keine-revolution-moeglich-ist-1.2110256

[Husar]

Welp.


https://youtu.be/tcC1JSEssfE

First the FISA requests now this, I look forward to seeing the doozy of stretch that'll be needed to sweep this one under the rug.

Heh, now that I happened upon another video, it turns out Trump was wiretapped but your video shows only half the truth because even this Nunes guy said Obama wasn't involved, and thereby sort of contradicted himself. :dizzy2: So Trump was wiretapped and his claims about it are still bullhonkey as far as we know so far. What did you say in the other thread about reserving judgment? And while we're at it, the whole terror scare laws were enacted under Bush, Obama's terrible deed was using them more instead of repealing them.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElRVvIWQbCY

Relevant part starts around 3:22.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

First effort to replace the ACA has been pulled by Speaker Ryan. United opposition from democrats and by ardent conservatives.

[a completely inoffensive name]

"This is a big fucking deal."

[Greyblades]

Saw that coming a mile off.


Heh, now that I happened upon another video, it turns out Trump was wiretapped but your video shows only half the truth because even this Nunes guy said Obama wasn't involved, and thereby sort of contradicted himself. :dizzy2: So Trump was wiretapped and his claims about it are still bullhonkey as far as we know so far. What did you say in the other thread about reserving judgment? And while we're at it, the whole terror scare laws were enacted under Bush, Obama's terrible deed was using them more instead of repealing them.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElRVvIWQbCY

Relevant part starts around 3:22.

I dont remember Nunes saying that, and I think I will stick with the unannotated videos thank you:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kUcoNTR-0g

The best information is uncitated by the left's breed of talk show spin, spin you sneer at when it comes from the right, ah well.

As to Obama's involvement, this is not the dodge you think it is for it leaves either two possibilities: either Obama knew of it and you are wrong, or Obama wasnt aware and thus the US intelligence community spied upon Trump without the Obama's knowledge and consent.

So either Obama spied on his sucessor or he was incompetent and allowed the Intelligence community to become a loose cannon.

[HopAlongBunny]

I guess the Republicans got tired of winning:

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-obamacare-idUSKBN16V149

They had almost a decade to get it together...now they hold all the levers, but still have no plan.

[Montmorency]

Haven't we been over this? The matter under discussion isn't that Trump was spied upon, but that Trump and associates interacted with people who were being spied upon. We already had discussion on this subject for weeks. As far as we know the conduct of intelligence agencies was fully appropriate and legal, whereas not so for Nunes' conduct here.

[HopAlongBunny]

As far as I can tell the "Trump Associates" were bycatch.
The targets of surveillance were Russians; who they were talking to turned out to be Americans.
Perfectly legitimate; the controversy (if there is one) is pure deflection.

[Husar]

I dont remember Nunes saying that, and I think I will stick with the unannotated videos thank you:

[video]

The best information is uncitated by the left's breed of talk show spin, spin you sneer at when it comes from the right, ah well.

As to Obama's involvement, this is not the dodge you think it is for it leaves either two possibilities: either Obama knew of it and you are wrong, or Obama wasnt aware and thus the US intelligence community spied upon Trump without the Obama's knowledge and consent.

So either Obama spied on his sucessor or he was incompetent and allowed the Intelligence community to become a loose cannon.

Well, you're obviously impersonating the alt-right spin on this because you keep linking to one interview when he was clearly talking to reporters at least twice. The only unfortunate thing is that I can't find a full video of the interview(s) where he stands in front of the white house, except for ones where your alt-right friends cut out the part where he says Obama's involvement cannot be ruled out.

Your terrible bias becomes clear when you say I'd be wrong if Obama knew of it when I didn't claim that Obama didn't know a thing. I said we're none the wiser and when there are rumors you don't like, you say we should reserve judgment, yet here you are gloating over Nunes being vague since it's a rumor you like.
Or you can just take what Monty just said (I hadn't read about it before) and ask yourself why Trump would be in contact with foreigners who are under surveillance? Russians perhaps? :clown:

[Strike For The South]

Eat shit Paul Ryan

[Husar]

Eat shit Paul Ryan

Are you referring to this?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LT3Px11xN-0

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I have always conceived of the ACA as a health care plan more or less designed to fail in such a manner as to generate huge groundswell for the adoption of a national healthcare system along the lines of Canada or possibly of Germany. The extant insurance and healthcare system that obtained at the outset of the ACA was not and is not capable of absorbing the healthcare need and, despite good intentions, will have to jack rates on the insured etc. until people reach a point where they are deeply angry at the whole thing. At the same time, the expanded medicare rolls will be receiving coverage that is apparently cheaper and seems [may in fact be] no less effective than that being received by the increasingly high premium insureds. When the crisis hits, medicare will be expanded into some form of national health program.

With this defeat, I think this is now more or less inevitable. The within-the-system conservatives under Ryan never really expected to have to legislate on this -- figuring they would lose the White House and knowing they would never be veto-proof in the Senate -- so NOBODY took the precaution of having someone design a "what if we actually have to govern and live up to our campaign promises" plan to deal with healthcare despite having at LEAST six years to do it. The inside-the-system conservatives want to try to keep the good parts and get rid of the bad, but this will be difficult at best and unworkable at worst.

The ardent conservatives wanted the healthcare bill to have the following text: "The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 23 March 2010 is hereby repealed." They then want subsequent legislation that gets rid of most if not all federal oversight of healthcare, returning those decisions to the control of the states while allowing U.S. citizens to purchase healthcare across state lines. They very much see healthcare changes as something that happens AFTER the ACA is repealed. Repeal and replace, to them are separate activities that should happen in that sequence -- and their replacement approach would be far different.

Oddly enough, despite their mosaic construction of competing bases of support and regardless of political exploitation of some of those bases of support by party leadership, the Democrat party is the group with the consistent position on nationalizing healthcare and making it government apportioned to all. And they have been shockingly consistent in this over the years, with this being their goal for at least the past 30 years (with elements of the party having supported this goal since the turn of the 20th).

The GOP is divided against itself, the Dems have reason to hang together, and each year under ACA rules exacerbates the crisis and does so in a fashion that will yield the true-to-their-hearts goal.

Oddly enough, this may well mean that the Quixotic campaign of Bernie Sanders -- one of our few true Socialist Democrats -- may end up winning after all. His campaign damaged the Hillary "inevitability" mystique; that siphoning of belief in Hillary may well have kept some of Hillary's support home and given Trump just enough of an edge to win in the Electoral College. Without Hillary in the White House, the Dems can unify around defending Obamacare WITHOUT a Clinton trying to "improve" on it and unifying the GOP opposition. If the GOP cannot unify on this issue -- an issue on which many of them campaigned -- they will effectively allow the bill to accomplish its real purpose of nationalized healthcare. Once healthcare is run by the government, I think it unlikely that government will be prevented from nationalizing university education as a right....thus Bernie Sanders' policies become the ultimate success of his campaign.


I suppose I should be content that we are the last in the West to go this route, championing the individual over the collective (neither is perfect of course, but that is another thread). The march of history has been against us in this as more and more states turn to state oversight and control across the board --and I cannot even fault the intentions of those efforts. Earthly glory passes.

[Husar]

I suppose I should be content that we are the last in the West to go this route, championing the individual over the collective (neither is perfect of course, but that is another thread). The march of history has been against us in this as more and more states turn to state oversight and control across the board --and I cannot even fault the intentions of those efforts. Earthly glory passes.

I'd say the biggest issue with many "championing the individual"-approaches is that they seem to end up championing a few individuals while most individuals are collectively screwed. It sounds good in theory or if you're part of a priviliged collective of individuals, but fails in practice, much like certain ideologies on the extremely collective end.

[Greyblades]

Your terrible bias becomes clear when you say I'd be wrong if Obama knew of it when I didn't claim that Obama didn't know a thing.


Heh, now that I happened upon another video, it turns out Trump was wiretapped but your video shows only half the truth because even this Nunes guy said Obama wasn't involved, and thereby sort of contradicted himself.

Just stop. Tell us where Nunes said that Obama wasnt involved or cease your endless dodging.


Yet here you are gloating over Nunes being vague since it's a rumor you like.
Nunes is vague about Obama's involvment he is not vague about what he believes happened.

[Husar]

Just stop. Tell us where Nunes said that Obama wasnt involved or cease your endless dodging.

Post #511, 3:54. It's very clear that Obama wasn't involved in tapping Trump's phone because Trump's phones weren't tapped. :rolleyes:

The part where Obama may have been involved in wiretapping refers to the wiretapping of other peoples' phones. If Trump calls them, his voice may be recorded, but again, you should then ask why Trump calls foreign criminals under surveillance. If Nunes isn't vague, why are you still trying to blame Obama?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I'd say the biggest issue with many "championing the individual"-approaches is that they seem to end up championing a few individuals while most individuals are collectively screwed. It sounds good in theory or if you're part of a priviliged collective of individuals, but fails in practice, much like certain ideologies on the extremely collective end.

Economics is not a "fixed pie." Were it to be, then you can ONLY view capitalism as slavery and extortion of the many by the few. This is one of the implicit and flawed assumptions that undercuts the otherwise useful critique of capitalism proffered by Marx & Engels.

Economics is an expanding (and occasionally contracting but over the long haul expanding) pie. Thus the fortunes of most may hope of improvement over time.

To take advantage of these changes, numerous systems have developed over time. The West, having discarded autocratic/and oligarchic approaches [though not their lingering effects] has moved towards one of two macro "choices" for tapping into economic growth over time: equality of outcome and equality of opportunity.

I do not believe that equality of outcome can be achieved, though admittedly a noble goal in many ways, because individuals seeking to better the lot of themselves and their closest companions will seek to game any system to advantage. By contrast, I believe that striving for equality of opportunity faces fewer flaws -- though I acknowledge that this can never be perfected either. I view it as less bad.

[Husar]

Economics is not a "fixed pie." Were it to be, then you can ONLY view capitalism as slavery and extortion of the many by the few. This is one of the implicit and flawed assumptions that undercuts the otherwise useful critique of capitalism proffered by Marx & Engels.

Economics is an expanding (and occasionally contracting but over the long haul expanding) pie. Thus the fortunes of most may hope of improvement over time.

To take advantage of these changes, numerous systems have developed over time. The West, having discarded autocratic/and oligarchic approaches [though not their lingering effects] has moved towards one of two macro "choices" for tapping into economic growth over time: equality of outcome and equality of opportunity.

I do not believe that equality of outcome can be achieved, though admittedly a noble goal in many ways, because individuals seeking to better the lot of themselves and their closest companions will seek to game any system to advantage. By contrast, I believe that striving for equality of opportunity faces fewer flaws -- though I acknowledge that this can never be perfected either. I view it as less bad.

The view of economics as an ever expanding pie that everyone can get a bit more of with time is flawed in itself for several reasons:

1. It equates wealth with money and treats them both as absolutes. A person with five televisions will still feel poor compared to one with five hundred though. This sociological/psychological aspect is completely ignored.

2. It ignores that we live on a planet and cannot forever expand our use of resources unless we invent interstellar travel and various other things. These resources will eventually become a zero sum game as you can't just increase them as required. The same is true for the size of markets.

3. The rich can afford the tools required to expand at the expense of the poor. See e.g. Somalia where Europeans rampaged through and removed all the fish because the poor Somalians can't afford to prevent it.

4. As I posted somewhere as well lately, the system createsincentives to blame the poor as soon as they want more. See Somalia again where the fishermen who fought back with their own means were pirates and everyone was gloating over us killing them. Nevermind that we created the incentive for them to turn into pirates in the first place. Similar examples can be found within a country where poor people are called leeches while those who have plenty are praised as good businessmen for taking ever more.

5. The system inherently stabilizes the wealth of the wealthy and therefore the poverty of the poor, and this destroys the whole hoping for better fortunes part as social mobility decreases further and further. This is because the wealthy once again have the tools, whether through bribes, better (expensive, not universally accessible) education or otherwise, to influence the political and other systems to work for their own advantage and stabilize their position.

Point number one alone pretty much guarantees increased social unrest the bigger the gap between the richtest and poorest of a society. And from a moral point of view this gap is inexplicable. Most of the explanations I've heard so far are hollow nonsense.

I tend to see capitalism as a good system for growth, as you say it works well if and when it can expand and grow things. But in a world that cannot grow endlessly, such as the one on this planet, it will inevitably have to be replaced by a sustainable system that does not depend on endless growth.

As for everyone getting a piece of a growing pie, consider that investors, most of whom are very rich people, usually do not invest if they get a return of 5% or so if the pie grows by 2%. Thus they always make sure to slowly gobble up larger proportions of the ever-growing pie, whereas the poor can't do much against losing proportional ownership of the pie, regardless of the pie's growth, this makes them poorer as per point one. The fishermen who used to be fishermen and then lost even that low income as wealthy fisheries just took all the fish away to increase their own wealth are one example of this.

[a completely inoffensive name]

I have always conceived of the ACA as a health care plan more or less designed to fail in such a manner as to generate huge groundswell for the adoption of a national healthcare system along the lines of Canada or possibly of Germany. The extant insurance and healthcare system that obtained at the outset of the ACA was not and is not capable of absorbing the healthcare need and, despite good intentions, will have to jack rates on the insured etc. until people reach a point where they are deeply angry at the whole thing. At the same time, the expanded medicare rolls will be receiving coverage that is apparently cheaper and seems [may in fact be] no less effective than that being received by the increasingly high premium insureds. When the crisis hits, medicare will be expanded into some form of national health program.

With this defeat, I think this is now more or less inevitable. The within-the-system conservatives under Ryan never really expected to have to legislate on this -- figuring they would lose the White House and knowing they would never be veto-proof in the Senate -- so NOBODY took the precaution of having someone design a "what if we actually have to govern and live up to our campaign promises" plan to deal with healthcare despite having at LEAST six years to do it. The inside-the-system conservatives want to try to keep the good parts and get rid of the bad, but this will be difficult at best and unworkable at worst.

The ardent conservatives wanted the healthcare bill to have the following text: "The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 23 March 2010 is hereby repealed." They then want subsequent legislation that gets rid of most if not all federal oversight of healthcare, returning those decisions to the control of the states while allowing U.S. citizens to purchase healthcare across state lines. They very much see healthcare changes as something that happens AFTER the ACA is repealed. Repeal and replace, to them are separate activities that should happen in that sequence -- and their replacement approach would be far different.

Oddly enough, despite their mosaic construction of competing bases of support and regardless of political exploitation of some of those bases of support by party leadership, the Democrat party is the group with the consistent position on nationalizing healthcare and making it government apportioned to all. And they have been shockingly consistent in this over the years, with this being their goal for at least the past 30 years (with elements of the party having supported this goal since the turn of the 20th).

The GOP is divided against itself, the Dems have reason to hang together, and each year under ACA rules exacerbates the crisis and does so in a fashion that will yield the true-to-their-hearts goal.

Oddly enough, this may well mean that the Quixotic campaign of Bernie Sanders -- one of our few true Socialist Democrats -- may end up winning after all. His campaign damaged the Hillary "inevitability" mystique; that siphoning of belief in Hillary may well have kept some of Hillary's support home and given Trump just enough of an edge to win in the Electoral College. Without Hillary in the White House, the Dems can unify around defending Obamacare WITHOUT a Clinton trying to "improve" on it and unifying the GOP opposition. If the GOP cannot unify on this issue -- an issue on which many of them campaigned -- they will effectively allow the bill to accomplish its real purpose of nationalized healthcare. Once healthcare is run by the government, I think it unlikely that government will be prevented from nationalizing university education as a right....thus Bernie Sanders' policies become the ultimate success of his campaign.


I suppose I should be content that we are the last in the West to go this route, championing the individual over the collective (neither is perfect of course, but that is another thread). The march of history has been against us in this as more and more states turn to state oversight and control across the board --and I cannot even fault the intentions of those efforts. Earthly glory passes.

You are reading far too much into the future. Even if this does wind up leaving us with a national healthcare system, education is a separate battle altogether and nothing about these alternative systems championed by progressive Dems should be construed as a battle between "the individual" and the "collective".

Quite frankly, I think that kind of talk is demeaning to the history of the united states, where citizens have had to rise together as individuals in order to obtain the type of system we have today. The problem with viewing politics through such a Presidential centric lens is that you mistake the policy goals as top down directives that were passively accepted by the public once they got their free goodies.

While LBJ passed legislation, there were race riots. When FDR passed Social Security, elderly were dying of starvation. And the wave of new government intervention as ushered in by Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson went hand in hand with the 50+ years of labor riots and outright warfare in the streets.

National health care will be the law of the line not because of Obama or any other Democrat conspiracy. It will be because individual people will recognize that their best option is the government option and they will express that very loudly to their representatives.

[HopAlongBunny]

A nice summation (which means it sounds like me:p) of Trump on healthcare:

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/03/trump_wants_you_to_know_trumpcare_s_failure_is_not_his_fault_but_also_exactly.html

Or Trump on almost anything.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

You are reading far too much into the future. Even if this does wind up leaving us with a national healthcare system, education is a separate battle altogether and nothing about these alternative systems championed by progressive Dems should be construed as a battle between "the individual" and the "collective".

Quite frankly, I think that kind of talk is demeaning to the history of the united states, where citizens have had to rise together as individuals in order to obtain the type of system we have today. The problem with viewing politics through such a Presidential centric lens is that you mistake the policy goals as top down directives that were passively accepted by the public once they got their free goodies.

While LBJ passed legislation, there were race riots. When FDR passed Social Security, elderly were dying of starvation. And the wave of new government intervention as ushered in by Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson went hand in hand with the 50+ years of labor riots and outright warfare in the streets.

National health care will be the law of the line not because of Obama or any other Democrat conspiracy. It will be because individual people will recognize that their best option is the government option and they will express that very loudly to their representatives.

I did not label it a conspiracy, nor a plot. It has been a prime agenda item for more than a generation. They deeply and truly believe it to be the best option for healthcare for the nation. The believed, and do believe, that the broadened coverage (more people covered) generated by the ACA to have been an improvement over the status quo ante. But I refuse to believe they are stupid. They would have had sense to know that expanded coverage had to be paid for by someone and that this would result in the increased premiums and deductibles we are noting today. Nor has it taken the Dems any time whatsoever to push for the enactment of a "public option" in markets where the number of insurers has dropped to one, undercutting competition.

I don't believe they had some nefarious plot in mind taken from some bad movie plot. I think they did this as a "best we can do so far" effort, knowing that the likely failures/cracks in the system would trend TOWARDS and not away from a national healthcare system. Since they believe that any other system is ultimately unfair and actively detrimental to many of our citizens, this isn't a plot but a process.

You are, also, very probably correct that such a government-run system will be a majority preference in the very near future -- polls already show nearly two-thirds in favor of government mandating health insurance in some form, with more than half believing that the system requires major changes -- and darn few of those calling for major change are thinking in terms of fee-for-service.

I do not own, nor seek to purchase, a tinfoil hat.

The GOP needs to repeal the ACA, effective about three years hence, and get HHS configured to run the new healthcare program. There are important questions to be answered, such as the German or Canadian model, the allowance or abolition of private doctoring and the like and these changes will not be well made "on the fly."

[Pannonian]

I did not label it a conspiracy, nor a plot. It has been a prime agenda item for more than a generation. They deeply and truly believe it to be the best option for healthcare for the nation. The believed, and do believe, that the broadened coverage (more people covered) generated by the ACA to have been an improvement over the status quo ante. But I refuse to believe they are stupid. They would have had sense to know that expanded coverage had to be paid for by someone and that this would result in the increased premiums and deductibles we are noting today. Nor has it taken the Dems any time whatsoever to push for the enactment of a "public option" in markets where the number of insurers has dropped to one, undercutting competition.

I don't believe they had some nefarious plot in mind taken from some bad movie plot. I think they did this as a "best we can do so far" effort, knowing that the likely failures/cracks in the system would trend TOWARDS and not away from a national healthcare system. Since they believe that any other system is ultimately unfair and actively detrimental to many of our citizens, this isn't a plot but a process.

You are, also, very probably correct that such a government-run system will be a majority preference in the very near future -- polls already show nearly two-thirds in favor of government mandating health insurance in some form, with more than half believing that the system requires major changes -- and darn few of those calling for major change are thinking in terms of fee-for-service.

I do not own, nor seek to purchase, a tinfoil hat.

The GOP needs to repeal the ACA, effective about three years hence, and get HHS configured to run the new healthcare program. There are important questions to be answered, such as the German or Canadian model, the allowance or abolition of private doctoring and the like and these changes will not be well made "on the fly."

There should be studies on what would be the most cost efficient method given the reality on the ground. Over here, other than how alien we find it that not everyone gets coverage, the aspect of American healthcare that most stands out is how astoundingly expensive it is to get a reasonable level of coverage such as we get here. It's increasingly becoming the case here too, as the Tories are starving the NHS for funds which subsequently drives patients to A&E, which is far more expensive per patient seen than previously available other care.

[HopAlongBunny]

PoltiFact on various claims during the repeal/replace mess:

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2017/mar/25/fact-checking-trump-gop-health-bill-stalls/

Obamacare is not in a deathspiral; it could be better

[a completely inoffensive name]

I did not label it a conspiracy, nor a plot. It has been a prime agenda item for more than a generation. They deeply and truly believe it to be the best option for healthcare for the nation. The believed, and do believe, that the broadened coverage (more people covered) generated by the ACA to have been an improvement over the status quo ante. But I refuse to believe they are stupid. They would have had sense to know that expanded coverage had to be paid for by someone and that this would result in the increased premiums and deductibles we are noting today. Nor has it taken the Dems any time whatsoever to push for the enactment of a "public option" in markets where the number of insurers has dropped to one, undercutting competition.

I don't believe they had some nefarious plot in mind taken from some bad movie plot. I think they did this as a "best we can do so far" effort, knowing that the likely failures/cracks in the system would trend TOWARDS and not away from a national healthcare system. Since they believe that any other system is ultimately unfair and actively detrimental to many of our citizens, this isn't a plot but a process.

You are, also, very probably correct that such a government-run system will be a majority preference in the very near future -- polls already show nearly two-thirds in favor of government mandating health insurance in some form, with more than half believing that the system requires major changes -- and darn few of those calling for major change are thinking in terms of fee-for-service.

I do not own, nor seek to purchase, a tinfoil hat.

The GOP needs to repeal the ACA, effective about three years hence, and get HHS configured to run the new healthcare program. There are important questions to be answered, such as the German or Canadian model, the allowance or abolition of private doctoring and the like and these changes will not be well made "on the fly."

Not trying to be hostile, but you are making a big assertion, 'Dems knowingly passed legislation that could explode the health care system' and then trying to walk it back by stating they acted with good intentions. They needed to compromise to win red-state Dems, and they went with 1990s GOP policy. The crux here was making sure healthy people signed up in enough numbers to cover the cost of those with pre-existing conditions, which didn't happen. That's on the right-wing think tanks who came up with the policy, not the Dems for giving it a shot.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Not trying to be hostile, but you are making a big assertion, 'Dems knowingly passed legislation that could explode the health care system' and then trying to walk it back by stating they acted with good intentions. They needed to compromise to win red-state Dems, and they went with 1990s GOP policy. The crux here was making sure healthy people signed up in enough numbers to cover the cost of those with pre-existing conditions, which didn't happen. That's on the right-wing think tanks who came up with the policy, not the Dems for giving it a shot.

Perhaps I was wrong. To be fair, I cannot claim to know what was on their minds as they made their decision. I am not a telepath. I could well be projecting my own sense of "how could they really think it would work otherwise" onto those past decisions.

And there are strong similarities between elements of the ACA and the healthcare efforts enacted under Gov. Romney in Massachusetts -- a fact pointed up during the 2012 campaign. I am not personally aware of the basic elements in the ACA having been promulgated in "right wing" think tanks, but I also must note that I do not regularly read the policy papers put forward by such. So I defer to your knowledge (though a cite or two for me to check upon would not be thought amiss).


For a new healthcare plan to work, all citizens must receive adequate healthcare (the support for few or no exclusions/concept of health care as and individual right is a clear majority position). To do so, funds contributed by the relative healthy must be higher than that required for their care, in order to defray the costs of those who have fallen grievously ill and could never hope to afford the full cost of care for themselves.

The ACA has not, so far, managed to procure the numbers needed. What can be done to improve participation?

While wealth strongly correlates with health, those in good health exceed those who possess wealth. How can the system be crafted to tap into this properly?

What constitutes adequate healthcare and what, if any, limitations should be placed upon healthcare?

If the government runs healthcare, what mandates must exist for that healthcare to be administered fairly and effectively?

[HopAlongBunny]

Score one for the Republicans
They made good on their 2009 pledge to stop health-care:

http://www.theonion.com/article/gop-makes-good-2009-promise-block-presidents-healt-55630

[a completely inoffensive name]

Perhaps I was wrong. To be fair, I cannot claim to know what was on their minds as they made their decision. I am not a telepath. I could well be projecting my own sense of "how could they really think it would work otherwise" onto those past decisions.

And there are strong similarities between elements of the ACA and the healthcare efforts enacted under Gov. Romney in Massachusetts -- a fact pointed up during the 2012 campaign. I am not personally aware of the basic elements in the ACA having been promulgated in "right wing" think tanks, but I also must note that I do not regularly read the policy papers put forward by such. So I defer to your knowledge (though a cite or two for me to check upon would not be thought amiss).


Your questions after this section deserve a separate reply. But as for sources, a couple of newspapers have attempted to dig into the history of the idea, usually pointing to the Heritage foundation as the platform which cultivated the idea in the early 90s.
1. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970204618704576641190920152366
2. https://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2012/02/07/the-tortuous-conservative-history-of-the-individual-mandate/#405b35055fe9
3. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/15/health/policy/health-care-mandate-was-first-backed-by-conservatives.html

The smoking gun they like to point to is a publication from the Heritage Foundation in 1989: http://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/1989/pdf/hl218.pdf
Admittedly, it does say "Nothing here should be construed to reflect the views of the Heritage Foundation". But the idea at least was floated around in those circles.

Also, while Hillary Clinton was pushing for HillaryCare after the 1992 election, Congress asked the Congressional Budgetary Office to begin considering the impact and treatment of an individual mandate as part of an alternative Congressional Reform package: https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/103rd-congress-1993-1994/reports/doc38.pdf

Yes, RomneyCare did make use of the mandate. In fact, during the second half of the Bush Administration, the individual mandate seemed like a bipartisan solution that both Conservatives and Liberals could embrace.
A bipartisan bill was proposed in the Senate in 2007 that essentially was the pre-cursor to the ACA, mandate included: https://www.congress.gov/bill/110th-congress/senate-bill/334/cosponsors
Once Obama was elected however, well...suddenly the idea became a lot less palatable.

I wish I could dig into this deeper and make a more convincing case rather than just throw you a bunch of links, but later this week I will have some more free time to engage your reply a bit further.

[HopAlongBunny]

Back to the Future? Or The more things change...?

http://www.motherjones.com/media/2017/03/great-war-wwi-documentary-pbs-american-experience-10-takeaways

Racist, divided, with patriots and takers; full circle or business as usual?

[HopAlongBunny]

The Freedom Caucus makes a pitch to fix Obamacare real good:

https://wonkette.com/615068/revenge-of-the-night-of-the-living-return-of-the-obamacare-killing-chainsaw-maniacs-from-hell

Its exactly as bad as you would expect

[Strike For The South]

Just came over the wire that Goursch is being pushed through. Mitch McConnel really is such a shameless little troll. I guess this is the final chapter in Borks legacy? It's interesting though. The first two of these knock down, drag out fights came about in good faith. Bork and Thomas both had plausible reasons why they could be considered unqualified.

Borks views are extreme and very much outside of the mainstream, he also answered questions truthfully during his confirmation which didn't help. Now of course, as the executive you make the pick. However, while it is assumed that your pick will align with you ideologically, it is not necessarily assumed that they swing so far to one side. Bork was ideologicaly pure pick for a position which Before had been more measured and flexible. He was sort of the first shot of the moral majority which eventually would rain down a bunch of bullshit upon American government. Those people need to go away.

Of course there really isn't much to say about Thomas issue. If those allegations were proven, there should be no way he sits on the court.

After Thomas is when the Rs started blocking Clintons appointments, then the Ds did the same thing to Bush, and here we are today.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Just came over the wire that Goursch is being pushed through. Mitch McConnel really is such a shameless little troll. I guess this is the final chapter in Borks legacy? It's interesting though. The first two of these knock down, drag out fights came about in good faith. Bork and Thomas both had plausible reasons why they could be considered unqualified.

Borks views are extreme and very much outside of the mainstream, he also answered questions truthfully during his confirmation which didn't help. Now of course, as the executive you make the pick. However, while it is assumed that your pick will align with you ideologically, it is not necessarily assumed that they swing so far to one side. Bork was ideologicaly pure pick for a position which Before had been more measured and flexible. He was sort of the first shot of the moral majority which eventually would rain down a bunch of bullshit upon American government. Those people need to go away.

Of course there really isn't much to say about Thomas issue. If those allegations were proven, there should be no way he sits on the court.

After Thomas is when the Rs started blocking Clintons appointments, then the Ds did the same thing to Bush, and here we are today.

When do we get past all the parliamentary bullshit and start having congressmen beat the shit out of senators with canes?

[Strike For The South]

When do we get past all the parliamentary bullshit and start having congressmen beat the shit out of senators with canes?

i would pay money to see Schumer and McConnell go at it.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

When do we get past all the parliamentary bullshit and start having congressmen beat the shit out of senators with canes?

We've had canings in Congress before.

[Shaka_Khan]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/bannon-wants-a-war-on-washington-now-hes-part-of-one-inside-the-white-house/2017/04/06/ec4a135a-1ada-11e7-9887-1a5314b56a08_story.html?utm_term=.5454284558ae

Bannon wants a war on Washington. Now he’s part of one inside the White House.

Stephen K. Bannon — the combative architect of the nationalistic strategy that delivered President Trump to the White House — now finds himself losing ground in an internecine battle within the West Wing that pits the so-called “Bannonites” against a growing and powerful faction of centrist financiers led by the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

Less than 100 days into Trump’s chaotic presidency, the White House is splintering over policy issues ranging from tax reform to trade. The daily tumult has created an atmosphere of tension and panic within the West Wing, leaving aides fearing for their jobs and cleaving former allies into rivals sniping at one another in the media.

The infighting spilled into full view this week after Trump removed Bannon from the National Security Council’s “principals committee,” a reshuffling that left the president’s chief strategist less fully involved in the administration’s daily national security policy while further empowering Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, Trump’s new national security adviser.

Bannon, an unkempt iconoclast, has generally chafed at the transition from firebomb campaigning to more modulated governing and for weeks has vented about the possibility of quitting, one person close to him said.

This account of the latest West Wing turmoil comes from interviews with more than 20 White House officials and people close to those in the administration, many of whom requested anonymity to offer candid assessments.

Despite the demotion, Bannon attended Wednesday’s security council meeting, and his friends and allies say the position on the Cabinet-level security committee was always supposed to be temporary — a way for Bannon to keep watch over retired Gen. Michael Flynn, the controversial former national security adviser who was fired in February after he misled the Vice President Pence about his contacts with the Russians.

But the benign explanation for Bannon’s removal belies the growing strife between Bannon, Kushner and Gary Cohn, the National Economic Council director. A registered Democrat who previously ran Goldman Sachs, Cohn is close to Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, the president’s oldest daughter and adviser.

[Inside Trump’s White House, New York moderates spark infighting and suspicion]

Fairly or unfairly, Bannon has borne the blame for several specific policy and political failures, including the scattershot drafting and implementation of Trump’s first travel ban and the strategy and approach to dealing with the conservative House Freedom Caucus, which ultimately helped tank the Republican health-care bill by failing to support it.

The battle over control of a pro-Trump outside group also pitted Bannon, Republican super-donor Rebekah Mercer and her father, Robert, against Kushner.

And Bannon has felt the brunt of general frustrations surrounding the security council. In the early days of the administration, he elevated himself, without Trump’s knowledge, to the principals committee, a move that infuriated the president. He insisted, along with Kushner, on keeping certain staffers over the objection of McMaster.

But the ultimate argument against him, said one person with knowledge of the situation, is that “Bannon isn’t making ‘Dad’ look good.”

As Kushner has expanded his portfolio and consolidated his already vast power — the 36-year-old has been called “the Trump whisperer,” with a direct line to the president — he has surrounded himself with a small group of outsiders who largely hail from the ranks of business and Wall Street. The group includes Dina Powell, an Egyptian-born former Goldman Sachs official who served in George W. Bush’s administration. Both she and Cohn are part of Kushner’s newly announced Office of American Innovation, an internal team devoted to streamlining government.

Bannon and his populist allies view Kushner’s circle with growing suspicion, worrying aloud that the group — whom they dismiss as “the Democrats,” “the New Yorkers” or, simply, “Goldman” — are pushing Trump in a “Democrat Lite” direction. Kushner’s allies, meanwhile, label Bannon’s crowd as “the Bannonites,” “the Nationalists” or “Breitbart,” the name of the incendiary conservative website he previously ran.

Bannon, grousing to friends, has cast the tensions as a battle between the globalists and the liberal Democrats, whom he worries are eager to undercut the populist movement that helped lift Trump to victory. Looming over him daily on his office walls are the promises that Trump made during the campaign, which he methodically checks off.

Cohn has met with Democrats on several occasions and appears much more comfortable offering lawmakers olive branches than does Bannon, who during the health- care fight argued in favor of forcing a vote on the doomed bill to establish a public list of Republican traitors.

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich cast the disagreements as important and weighty policy debates.

“It’s not about petty soap-opera stuff,” Gingrich said. “Bannon represents a very fundamental change in how we think about economic policy, taking us back to the era from Alexander Hamilton up through the 1920s when we were a much more national economy. Gary represents the New York international worldview and is a very competent and smart guy. There’s a natural tension.

“I think it’s very helpful to have the tension and the arguments,” he added. “I think presidents are much better served if they have different sources of information.”

The president, asked by reporters Thursday on Air Force One if a staff shake-up is looming, said he thought the administration had “already shaken things up.”

“I think we’ve had one of the most successful 13 weeks in the history of the presidency,” Trump said, wrongly referring to the 11 weeks he has been in office.

Some friends of both Bannon and Kushner, who talk daily and still have a cordial rapport, say the tensions are mostly driven by policy.

[White House disavows two controversial tax ideas hours after officials say they’re under consideration]

In February, for instance, a group of former Republican Cabinet secretaries met with Cohn to pitch him on the idea of a carbon tax, arguing it would help reduce fossil fuel emissions while also addressing budget issues. Some left the meeting believing Cohn was open to the idea. Bannon was furious when he caught wind of the proposal, saying the White House was veering too far from Trump’s core nationalist principles as it molded its economic policy.

A meeting last week at the White House at the behest of Kushner and Cohn to discuss health care with Ezekiel Emanuel, brother of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and one of the architects of President Obama’s health-care bill, was another fault line. The mere existence of the staff-level discussion with Emanuel — who had previously met with Trump three times — raised concerns among conservatives that the president was serious about his threat to work with Democrats after his initial health-care proposal failed.

Bannon, allies said, still has the president’s ear, especially on key issues like immigration, where he and Trump are in a complete “mind meld.” But the chief strategist has struggled to adjust to the more regimented mores of the White House. One friend said he hates attending meetings, bemoans the need to frequently wear suits, and finds the government bureaucracy stifling. While living in Los Angeles, Bannon would sometimes participate in Breitbart conference calls before showering and in a T-shirt or bathrobe; his D.C. staff would joke about the last time he got a haircut.

Some of those who resent Kushner’s rising power have compared him to Icarus, the youth in Greek mythology who flew too close to the sun and melted his wings. But because Kushner holds so much clout, many of his rivals fear bad-mouthing him and train their ire on his deputies instead. “When you complain about Gary or Dina, you’re really complaining about Jared and what he’s doing, because you’re not able to complain about Jared around here,” said one senior White House official.

But one administration official warned that Bannon was playing “a dangerous game” because it is “not a smart strategy to go up against the president and his family. That’s a game Steve will never win.”

Patrick J. Caddell, a veteran pollster who advises Breitbart and is friends with Bannon, said that “an outsider administration is vulnerable to these kinds of cracks.”

“Steve is taking the slings and arrows, but I hope Trump understands that the attacks on Bannon are an attempt to undermine Trump,” Caddell said. “That’s the crucial point. Steve is essential to him, the only person who has a clue why the president was elected and why he’s there.”

Regardless, the ongoing drama has taken a toll on West Wing operations, where aides continue to jockey for power and worry about their job security. One senior official pointed to Trump’s interview Wednesday with the New York Times, during which at least six senior White House staffers, including Pence, crowded into the Oval Office.

“Why were they there?” asked the official, saying they should have been working on other tasks. “Now the expectation is you have to be in every picture and every meeting.”

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a White House spokeswoman, dismissed reports of palace intrigue. “There are many serious issues at hand, which the president has been totally focused on, and the only conflicts his advisers are concerned with are those that are impacting the lives and safety of Americans, as well as the citizens of the world,” she said.

Trump, for his part, enjoys a somewhat chaotic management style and so far hasn’t aligned entirely with either camp. Aides say one moment the president will praise Bannon and sound out nationalist themes. The next, he’ll see a headline about “President Bannon” and grimace.

[a completely inoffensive name]

We've had canings in Congress before.

Yep, and less than 5 years later we had the civil war.

[HopAlongBunny]

Trump deflects masterfully from his Russian ties in the "American way" ie: bombing the snot out of a weak foreign power that has no reply:

https://wonkette.com/615254/trump-bombs-shit-out-of-syria-and-media-cant-stop-happy-jizzing-about-it

If dead babies are the trigger...this is a campaign that has only just begun

http://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/trump-middle-east-policy-1.4061371

[Gilrandir]

Trump deflects masterfully from his Russian ties in the "American way" ie: bombing the snot out of a weak foreign power that has no reply


No reply indeed? What about the fabled Russian Pantsyr and C-300? Having being warned beforehand, they could have at least intercepted the Tomahawks.

[HopAlongBunny]

No reply indeed? What about the fabled Russian Pantsyr and C-300? Having being warned beforehand, they could have at least intercepted the Tomahawks.

Perhaps; Such a response would need Russia to have shared the warning with Assad...no idea if they did.
Syria does have the Pantsyr, supplied by Russia, whether or not Syria had a chance to use it; again I have no idea.
It might be the case that the target was just not worth the expenditure of any ammunition to defend it; airfield? there are more of those, and not like its difficult to make another one; besides Russia has loads of planes :)

[Brenus]

Russia has still not the means to oppose USA.
Putin didn't (couldn't) react to a Russian airplane shot down by Turkey and one of the crew member murdered by the militian paid by Turkey. No way in my opinion, at this time, Putin/Russia will do something.
Now, more worrying is how Russia will use this for their own purpose. If I was Ukrainian, I would be deeply worried about Trump's wording (national interest).
US president changed, US policy still the same.:shrug:

[Gilrandir]

Perhaps; Such a response would need Russia to have shared the warning with Assad...no idea if they did.
Syria does have the Pantsyr, supplied by Russia, whether or not Syria had a chance to use it; again I have no idea.
It might be the case that the target was just not worth the expenditure of any ammunition to defend it; airfield? there are more of those, and not like its difficult to make another one; besides Russia has loads of planes :)

AFAIK, Russia was informed by the US about the missile strike and they got their planes and people away from the airfield which was targeted. Russia uses this airfield as a stage one (planes do not "live" there, they come to refuel and the like), so when ALL OF THEM packed and left hastily I don't think Syrians didn't guess the import of this even if they weren't directly told about what was to come.

Besides on one of the pictures of the airfield after the strike an upturned Pantsyr was spotted. So the conclusion is that Russia/Syria did have something to counter the strike with, the question is why they didn't - either they didn't dare or the weapons weren't up to the task (despite the eulogies which had been voiced before).



If I was Ukrainian, I would be deeply worried about Trump's wording (national interest).


Perhaps I missed something, so I'm not worried a bit. If you give details I might start to.

[Brenus]

Perhaps I missed something, so I'm not worried a bit. If you give details I might start to.
USA just attack a country which was not a direct danger to them under a vague pretext of national interest not to see a kind of behavior. When you see how Putin did use Kosovo precedent for his own goal...
But if you don't, don't mind me...

[Gilrandir]

USA just attack a country which was not a direct danger to them under a vague pretext of national interest not to see a kind of behavior. When you see how Putin did use Kosovo precedent for his own goal...
But if you don't, don't mind me...

Putin did it too, three years ago. Russian artillery repeatedly shelled Ukrainian soldiers (especially border guards) across the border. So nothing new is gonna happen now.

[Brenus]

Putin did it too, three years ago. Russian artillery repeatedly shelled Ukrainian soldiers (especially border guards) across the border. So nothing new is gonna happen now.

There you go...

[Sarmatian]

No reply indeed? What about the fabled Russian Pantsyr and C-300? Having being warned beforehand, they could have at least intercepted the Tomahawks.

USA and Russia like to use proxies to fight. Fighting it out with no intermediaries is so 1940's.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

USA and Russia like to use proxies to fight. Fighting it out with no intermediaries is so 1940's.

Proxies were a reasonable choice for both. USA casualty tolerance has always been lower than many, and the USSR lost 1/8 of its population between 1938 and 1946. I've heard some argue that the Russian population has still not truly recovered from that culling.

[Gilrandir]

Proxies were a reasonable choice for both. USA casualty tolerance has always been lower than many, and the USSR lost 1/8 of its population between 1938 and 1946. I've heard some argue that the Russian population has still not truly recovered from that culling.

USSR population =/= Russian population

[Seamus Fermanagh]

USSR population =/= Russian population

No, but ethnic Russians under the USSR during that period were NOT spared much. Yes, Ukraine had it worse per capita and some of the 'stans also, but it is NOT like the Russians were way better. Stalin fed everyone into the grinder to win.

[rory_20_uk]

Trump briefly looks "Presidential" and "strong" and it is something he can do to stand up to Russia that is superficially good but meaningless. Russia can continue to do what it wants. Hell, if hypothetically if every runway was destroyed Russian planes would still be enough. Until every runway is levelled along with infrastructure and the Rebels are given SAMs it will at best impede.

Putin can even get all shouty and both sides can look great to their admirers - a strong man standoff.

The USA will struggle to have a follow up that will sort out the quagmire - Russia is lucky as all they want is warm water ports and specific influence with no interest in the locals. The West has such high standards they are all but impossible since most of the locals are unclear what a resolution looks like.

~:smoking:

[Montmorency]

The West has such high standards they are all but impossible since most of the locals are unclear what a resolution looks like.


To make like Abbe Sieyès in the Terror.

[Beskar]

Remove Assad + ??? = Problem solved?

[AE Bravo]

Remove Assad + ??? = Problem solved?
Dysfunctional democracy or caliphate.

[HopAlongBunny]

Bringing Hitler into the mix is generally a losing proposition.
Sanitizing Hitler is not usually the choice of reasonable people.
Sean Spicer hits it out of the park:

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/04/sean-spicer-hitler-chemical-weapons-237116

[Strike For The South]

Oh Sean.

Tillersons odds this week in Russia
2-1 remove Assad and remove Russian sanctions
10-1 status quo and a bunch of hot air about "open communication"
15-1 total breakdown, further entrenchment of ideas
25-1 polonium sandwhich.

[Brenus]

Oh Sean.
Tillersons odds this week in Russia
25-1 polonium sandwhich.

Not a chance. More like him and Putin is sure that no one will listen the USA and allies have to say...

[Greyblades]

Sean spicer denys the holocaust, even though it's obvious he was referring to hitler's reluctance to use poison gas on the battlefield and he mentions the holocaust in the same speech.

Sean spicer is set upon by journalists out for blood, part 182: this time he caves.

Trump needs to relieve this guy, he's clearly traumatized. Find someone who is better suited to surviving the shark tank.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbyPRM36brU

In before husar screeches "sauron of akkad! Uh muh Gawd!"


Trump briefly looks "Presidential" and "strong" and it is something he can do to stand up to Russia that is superficially good but meaningless.

I disagree this is a big loud statement to the world that the Obama era's constant retreat is over and those small nations that provoke the USA are no longer safe. To have little ultimate impact on the syrian war effort is in america's favour as it is not to thier benefit for assad to lose, but having assad run screaming to putin to beg for more russian entanglement is. It wil be interesting to see how trump tries to capitalize on this shock to the system.

[rory_20_uk]

I disagree this is a big loud statement to the world that the Obama era's constant retreat is over and those small nations that provoke the USA are no longer safe. To have little ultimate impact on the syrian war effort is in america's favour as it is not to thier benefit for assad to lose, but having assad run screaming to putin to beg for more russian entanglement is. It wil be interesting to see how trump tries to capitalize on this shock to the system.

Yet Trump was saying the exact opposite as of a few days ago and throughout the campaign about how he was going to get the USA out of NATO / the Middle East and so on.

Obama's "retreat" included attacks in Lybia, and sending black hawks into Pakistan on an illegal assassination mission.

Trump sent in a small attack that managed to damage one of the 22 airbases in Syria. And then... silence. As there is no real strategy.

Russian entanglement? Apart from the planes, helicopters and ships? Oh I see - it is a ploy to cunningly get Russia to take control of the assets they want and now seem to be helping against an illegal act by the USA. That is such a cunning plan...

~:smoking:

[Greyblades]

Yet Trump was saying the exact opposite as of a few days ago and throughout the campaign about how he was going to get the USA out of NATO / the Middle East and so on. Which is why this was a strike and not an invasion. A smack on the jaw to dispell the idea that US will ignore the use of chemical weapons, without having to set foot in the quagmire.


Obama's "retreat" included attacks in Lybia, and sending black hawks into Pakistan on an illegal assassination mission.
Obama's retreat was talking tough on chemical weapons and then doing nothing when ghouta was gassed. It compromised america's credibility.


Russian entanglement? Apart from the planes, helicopters and ships? Oh I see - it is a ploy to cunningly get Russia to take control of the assets they want and now seem to be helping against an illegal act by the USA. That is such a cunning plan... Planes, helicopters and ships, but no tanks or front line infantry. Russia like us doesnt want syria to turn into another afghanistan and is using Assad's men as a proxy while supporting them from a point of relative safety.

Putin does not want to have to invade properly and every strike against assad makes it more likely he will have to eventually if he wants to secure his naval bases.

[rory_20_uk]

Which is why this was a strike and not an invasion. A smack on the jaw to dispell the idea that US will ignore the use of chemical weapons without setting a foot into the quagmire.

Obama's retreat was talking tough on chemical weapons and then doing nothing when ghouta was gassed. It compromised america's credibility.

Planes, helicopters and ships, but no tanks or front line infantry. Russia like us doesnt want syria to turn into another afghanistan and is using Assad's men as a proxy while supporting them from a point of relative safety.

Putin does not want to have to invade properly and every strike against assad makes it more likely he will have to if he wants to secure his naval bases.

I do find it odd how the red line is one method of indiscriminate killing.

Smack to the jaw? Making Assad closer to Iran and Russia is smacking who in the jaw? Assad was killing civilians within a day or so - but thank goodness with conventional munitions. Surely Vietnam showed if nothing else that dropping vast amounts of ordinance by itself doesn't win a war. Yes, the bombs these days are more powerful and targeted, but so few in number.

Obama shouldn't have mentioned red lines as he was outplayed by Russia.

Troops on the ground are courtesy of Assad, Iran and Hezbollah. They are doing a decent job of crushing the rebels in all the main centres whilst Russia bombs any things that are too tough. Given they have few qualms about overuse of force it'll probably continue to work.

A few cruise missiles made a very small local difference tactically - planes now have to use other bases until they rebuild. Russia might even give some some army surplus to help get it all up and running.

If Russia has troops in the ports they want, why need they go further? America has a base in Cuba that the locals didn't allow them to have.

~:smoking:

[Greyblades]

I do find it odd how the red line is one method of indiscriminate killing.

Smack to the jaw? Making Assad closer to Iran and Russia is smacking who in the jaw? Assad was killing civilians within a day or so - but thank goodness with conventional munitions. Surely Vietnam showed if nothing else that dropping vast amounts of ordinance by itself doesn't win a war. Yes, the bombs these days are more powerful and targeted, but so few in number. I'm not going to talk the morality of being selective in which methods of killing is allowed; it's rather unimportant, the point is to show that america's promises and threats are worth something again.

Assad being driven closer to the russians and iran is also unimportant as it's too late for that; he's there already, bridge burned.


Obama shouldn't have mentioned red lines as he was outplayed by Russia. Agreed.


Troops on the ground are courtesy of Assad, Iran and Hezbollah. They are doing a decent job of crushing the rebels in all the main centres whilst Russia bombs any things that are too tough. Given they have few qualms about overuse of force it'll probably continue to work.

A few cruise missiles made a very small local difference tactically - planes now have to use other bases until they rebuild. Russia might even give some some army surplus to help get it all up and running.Which is good, the US doesnt want another somalia and the rebels are long past the point of being desireable puppets.


If Russia has troops in the ports they want, why need they go further? America has a base in Cuba that the locals didn't allow them to have.
They need to go further because the rebels wont let him keep the bases, Russia would have to either keep fighting off attempts to dislodge them for decades to come, or set up another proxy, in which case they might as well have kept assad.

[rory_20_uk]

I'm not going to talk the morality of being selective in which methods of killing is allowed; it's rather unimportant, the point is to show that america's promises and threats are worth something again.

Which is good, the US doesnt want another somalia and the rebels are long past the point of being desireable puppets.


They need to go further because the rebels wont let him keep the bases, Russia would have to either keep fighting off attempts to dislodge them for decades to come, or set up another proxy, in which case they might as well have kept assad.

That's the point - America's promise was they were not going to get involved in the Middle East. There was no threat, just action without warning. And now, no follow up or strategy. Amateur hour.

If the rebels are almost as bad as Assad then what is the point? Unless this is purely about the methodology of the killing. Nonsensical to me.

I am sure Russia can manage to protect bases if they want them. Rather like the Israelis have managed to keep the Golan Heights, Russia in Crimea and so on. Give some weapons to the nearby warlords to kill their enemies usually works.

Russia will back whichever puppet looks like winning in the areas of the country they wish to control, as will Iran. I doubt Russia has any loyalty more than a chess grandmaster does.

~:smoking:

[Husar]

Sean spicer is set upon by journalists out for blood, part 182: this time he caves.

Trump needs to relieve this guy, he's clearly traumatized. Find someone who is better suited to surviving the shark tank.

Fascist alt-right, anti-press propaganda garbage from Trumpblades! Uh muh guhd!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111111111111111111

Sean Spicer says stupid things all the time and this wasn't even an exception since the point he did want to make was just as idiotic as any possible misinterpretation. Cry me a blathering, bloody river for cheeese sake!!!!!!!!!11111111111111

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-39585029

Trump now backs NATO - against "Terrorists" rather than Russia.

Uh huh.

[Greyblades]

That's the point - America's promise was they were not going to get involved in the Middle East. There was no threat, just action without warning. And now, no follow up or strategy. Amateur hour.
That promise is likely why there is no follow up. As to strategy it looks to me like trump's going back to business as usual bombing isis. Which is good.


If the rebels are almost as bad as Assad then what is the point? Unless this is purely about the methodology of the killing. Nonsensical to me.The point is that america made a promise to retaliate against syria if they use chemicals and trump unlike obama isnt too timid to fulfill it.


I am sure Russia can manage to protect bases if they want them. Rather like the Israelis have managed to keep the Golan Heights, Russia in Crimea and so on. Give some weapons to the nearby warlords to kill their enemies usually works. Manage to, yes, want to, no.

It's cheaper to have a buffer that is allready friendly to you than hope the nearby warlords who replaces him isnt a raving islamic lunatic who cant be bought.


Russia will back whichever puppet looks like winning in the areas of the country they wish to control, as will Iran. I doubt Russia has any loyalty more than a chess grandmaster does.

No, russia will back whichever puppet will play ball with them, which right now is only Assad.


Sean Spicer says stupid things all the time and this wasn't even an exception since the point he did want to make was just as idiotic as any possible misinterpretation.

A boring response by all metrics, and one that ignores the point, he screwed up repeatedly but the anti trump brigade comes along and piles on crap, turning "Assad is worse than hitler" into "hitler did nothing wrong!!"

[Fragony]

Trump absolutily did something wrong, no way he could have known who is who and who did what and why who nobody knows why anybody did anything at all, a strike after one day?

[Husar]

A boring response by all metrics, and one that ignores the point, he screwed up repeatedly but the anti trump brigade comes along and piles on crap, turning "Assad is worse than hitler" into "hitler did nothing wrong!!"

Yeah, Assad should have dropped the gas in a shower instead of a container to score more humanism points. :rolleyes:

Or maybe the distinction was that Hitler "didn't use it on his own people" in the sense that communists, jews, gypsies and the disabled were not "his people", but then we've just reached a new level of despicable and racist. Or maybe he meant "Hitler didn't use it on the frontlines but only at home", to clarify this, Spicer said "Assad dropped it on innocent...", so what is his real point? Hitler didn't gas innocent people? It's better to use it at home than on the frontlines? Or just that the use was technically different, in which case I wonder why exactly Assad is worse then? Why does it even matter?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Trump absolutily did something wrong, no way he could have known who is who and who did what and why who nobody knows why anybody did anything at all, a strike after one day?

Do not dismiss the ability of national technical means and good image/technical record evaluators to quickly piece together what happened. The planes doing the strike were likely visible on satellite. The facilities used to load those planes were probably readily discernible. Any use of satellite phones, GPS signals, even cellular phone traffic can be monitored. The monitoring of that region of the world is near constant at the present time given the issues with Turkey, the Civil War itself, and the conflict with ISIS/DASH.

It is harder to presume that they were able to secure information on the "why" of it, but I suspect that the rest was pretty well evaluated.

As to the correctness of Trump's chosen response, that is a separate argument.

[Beskar]

Did anyone see the Interview? Trump was having a really big chocolate cake, most beautiful chocolate ever, then the generals came up to him saying the missles were locked and loaded. So he tells them to fire away! 59 missiles, all unmanned, from hundreds of miles away, hitting their target in Iraq... "Do you mean Syria?"... yes, hitting their target in Syria. It was beautiful.

[Husar]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/national/trump-tells-fox-how-he-ordered-strikes-on-syria-over-dessert-with-xi/2017/04/12/bcec620e-1f8d-11e7-bb59-a74ccaf1d02f_video.html

There's the relevant part of the video.

[Idaho]

And now the BIGGEST BOMB EVARRRRRRRR!

Cue news editors and general public nutjobs becoming instantly tumescent.

Who could have predicted that Trump would quickly reach for the "enemy out there"?

You know what the next enemy needs to be if this one proves too expensive or complex? Yep. One closer to home.

[HopAlongBunny]

In a shameless plug for his book: Wag the Dog the author gives a little oversight of familiar events; how they fit the model, and the very short memory of media and its consumers (all of us Katy!:)

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2017/04/bombs-wag-dog-170412081501253.html

[Fragony]

Dropping a justnotbomb and sending fleet to NK, kinda makes you doubt why you (well me) were glad Trump won instead of the borderline stephard wife

[Seamus Fermanagh]

The media is focused on size, not on effect. All phallologocentric humor aside, it was a reasonable choice.



The enemy is in a canyon region, dug into tunnels 40m deep in rocky terrain. You can do the following:

1) drop conventional dumb bombs ($3,100 per) until enough 7-10 meter deep craters stacked on top of each other vertically until they breach or collapse the tunnels. You will have to use multiple strikes per 100 cubic meter area and those targeted will probably have a modest amount of time to vacate the area before they are actually killed.

2) drop guided conventional bombs (c. $27,500 per or $66,500 for laser precision) to create the same effect as in 1). Still requires multiple strikes albeit slightly more rapidly and with fewer misses to decrease the effect. Will not probably reduce the chance of the targets evacuating before they can be killed but will up the cost significantly.

3) drop guided deep penetrators ( to instantly breach and collapse the tunnels. The only munition we have that can do this, the MOP, costs $3M a bomb, can only by dropped by the B2, and we have fewer than 30 in our weapons stock. A large bunker complex connected by tunnels could well require ALL of those weapons to take it out.

4) MOAB ($16m per) uses massive fuel-air blast to create a huge blast wave and concussion effect. The explosion consumes so much oxygen that it depletes the local area of breathable air while creating it's little mushroom cloud explosion. It works on the deep tunnels by inducing a shockwave that mimics an earthquake locally while sucking all of the air out of any tunnels in the confined canyon region. It is deployed by being dumped out the back of a C-130 (among the lowest tech things in our arsenal). It is a costly bomb, but cheaper than any of the 3 previous options. This is why the military was labeling it the right bomb for the right target.

5) Use a nuclear bomb (c. $2M per) air-burst. Massive shockwave and heat will immolate the surface and collapse many of the tunnels. The deepest may survive both blast and radiation. The use of a nuclear weapon carries a number of political consequences along with a notable dose of fallout (though US weapons are comparatively 'clean' ones).

6) Use a nuclear weapon ground-burst. This will obliterate the target (the only option to do so with an essentially 100% effectiveness chance), wreck the local terrain for a generation, and pump a ridiculous amount of fallout into the atmosphere when compared to an air burst weapon. Political consequences will be as bad, possibly worse, than in option 5).

7) Use ground troops to eliminate the enemy forces after cordoning them into their valley. This would involve hunting the enemy in the tunnels after fighting up to and breaching the entrances. Since even a muj* can shoot effectively in a narrow tunnel, this would be a knacker's yard for all involved and would generate boatloads of casualties. As cheap or cheaper than 1) if you ignore the blood cost.

8) Leave them alone and let them go about their business.


Since 8) was not politically acceptable, 4) actually became a fairly reasonable choice. Please note that the cost of delivery systems, operational costs, and training costs were ignored in this listing as they are all "sunk" costs for choosing to execute any of the plans.


*Apparently, a sizeable proportion of the mujahedeen foot-soldiers take the view that it is their job to shoot at the enemies of the faith but that whether the bullet hits the target is in the hands of Allah. Literally a 'spray and pray' attitude.

[Idaho]

Just because you can weave together a reasonable post hoc justification based on the scraps of unreliable evidence we have, doesn't mean that it's not a stupid thing to do.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Just because you can weave together a reasonable post hoc justification based on the scraps of unreliable evidence we have, doesn't mean that it's not a stupid thing to do.

True, and just because Trump ordered it doesn't make it dumb.

There were a lot of liberals last Friday nodding along after Trump took out that air-base, by Saturday they were back to lambasting him for ever entertaining support for Assad.

[HopAlongBunny]

It pretty much fits with American doctrine.
Weaken any regional strongman; exploit...assist the weakened remains => profit!
It also fits America's lack of a long-term strategy: flashy, successful with 0 end goal in sight.

[Montmorency]

Seamus, as we've already noted here strategic or even financial damage to the airbase was not the object of the strike. It wasn't meant to disable the target to a serious extent, or hamper the wider Syrian military.

Missiles, in that case, have the advantage of being unmanned when flying over hostile territory.

[Idaho]

True, and just because Trump ordered it doesn't make it dumb.

There were a lot of liberals last Friday nodding along after Trump took out that air-base, by Saturday they were back to lambasting him for ever entertaining support for Assad.

The mainstream media and politico rejoicing on resumption of bombing is very disturbing.

[Husar]

Just because you can weave together a reasonable post hoc justification based on the scraps of unreliable evidence we have, doesn't mean that it's not a stupid thing to do.

Well, I think Seamus laid out the military options very well, he just didn't provide a long-term answer to end these shenanigans. In the long-term view it may indeed have been a dumb move, but as HAB says, the USA don't seem to have any long-term strategy. In good modern capitalist fashion they go for instant gratification and short-term maximization of the ROI. Whether it all backfires in 10 years is irrelevant if all strategy is dedicated towards the next "financial statement" at the end of the year...

The beauty is that the voters have similarly short memories and a disdain for complex chains of events. So when the 36 dead ISIS fighters today lead to 5 terror attacks planned by 360 people who only joined ISIS to take revenge in ten years, the voters will only blame muslims and demand more bombings. It all works out in the end though because more bombings is a good effort in job creation and everyone can have some patriotic feelings. Also think of the people employed to make the movies... :rolleyes:


Seamus, as we've already noted here strategic or even financial damage to the airbase was not the object of the strike. It wasn't meant to disable the target to a serious extent, or hamper the wider Syrian military.

Missiles, in that case, have the advantage of being unmanned when flying over hostile territory.

It would seem you are replying to Seamus' last post, but he was talking about the big bomb dropped in Afghanistan and you about the missiles launched at a Syrian air base. Am I missing something?

[Montmorency]

It would seem you are replying to Seamus' last post, but he was talking about the big bomb dropped in Afghanistan and you about the missiles launched at a Syrian air base. Am I missing something?

My bad then.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Just because you can weave together a reasonable post hoc justification based on the scraps of unreliable evidence we have, doesn't mean that it's not a stupid thing to do.

I wasn't addressing the "whether we ought to be taking military action at all" question. If the action was "stupid," it would have been so on THAT level. My response touched on the more tactical considerations once than choice had been made.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

My bad then.

No sweat, but I was referencing the MOAB drop.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

It pretty much fits with American doctrine.
Weaken any regional strongman; exploit...assist the weakened remains => profit!
It also fits America's lack of a long-term strategy: flashy, successful with 0 end goal in sight.

Again, my response was on a tactical level. You are addressing a strategic concern. While I am not quite so jingoistic in my dismissal of American strategy in these things, your basic premise -- that we tend to skimp on the long term thinking in favor of the short term -- is a valid criticism. Bit of a weakness in our system really, the consistency in foreign policy thing.

[Fragony]

They trapped themselves nicely no, why throw a big bomb unless for a wargasm. They don't need to be immediatly dead, think medieval siege tactics. Starve the fuckers, they need food and water after all and will start killing eachother (and give it to them when they come out unarmed)

[Tristuskhan]

They trapped themselves nicely no, why throw a big bomb unless for a wargasm. They don't need to be immediatly dead, think medieval siege tactics. Starve the fuckers, they need food and water after all and will start killing eachother (and give it to them when they come out unarmed)

Just like the Soviet did 1979-1987?

Proceed, then. Come back and tell us when you're successful. Looks that you're as bright as Brejnev, at least...

[Gilrandir]

The media is focused on size, not on effect. All phallologocentric humor aside, it was a reasonable choice.



The enemy is in a canyon region, dug into tunnels 40m deep in rocky terrain. You can do the following:

1) drop conventional dumb bombs ($3,100 per) until enough 7-10 meter deep craters stacked on top of each other vertically until they breach or collapse the tunnels. You will have to use multiple strikes per 100 cubic meter area and those targeted will probably have a modest amount of time to vacate the area before they are actually killed.

2) drop guided conventional bombs (c. $27,500 per or $66,500 for laser precision) to create the same effect as in 1). Still requires multiple strikes albeit slightly more rapidly and with fewer misses to decrease the effect. Will not probably reduce the chance of the targets evacuating before they can be killed but will up the cost significantly.

3) drop guided deep penetrators ( to instantly breach and collapse the tunnels. The only munition we have that can do this, the MOP, costs $3M a bomb, can only by dropped by the B2, and we have fewer than 30 in our weapons stock. A large bunker complex connected by tunnels could well require ALL of those weapons to take it out.

4) MOAB ($16m per) uses massive fuel-air blast to create a huge blast wave and concussion effect. The explosion consumes so much oxygen that it depletes the local area of breathable air while creating it's little mushroom cloud explosion. It works on the deep tunnels by inducing a shockwave that mimics an earthquake locally while sucking all of the air out of any tunnels in the confined canyon region. It is deployed by being dumped out the back of a C-130 (among the lowest tech things in our arsenal). It is a costly bomb, but cheaper than any of the 3 previous options. This is why the military was labeling it the right bomb for the right target.

5) Use a nuclear bomb (c. $2M per) air-burst. Massive shockwave and heat will immolate the surface and collapse many of the tunnels. The deepest may survive both blast and radiation. The use of a nuclear weapon carries a number of political consequences along with a notable dose of fallout (though US weapons are comparatively 'clean' ones).

6) Use a nuclear weapon ground-burst. This will obliterate the target (the only option to do so with an essentially 100% effectiveness chance), wreck the local terrain for a generation, and pump a ridiculous amount of fallout into the atmosphere when compared to an air burst weapon. Political consequences will be as bad, possibly worse, than in option 5).

7) Use ground troops to eliminate the enemy forces after cordoning them into their valley. This would involve hunting the enemy in the tunnels after fighting up to and breaching the entrances. Since even a muj* can shoot effectively in a narrow tunnel, this would be a knacker's yard for all involved and would generate boatloads of casualties. As cheap or cheaper than 1) if you ignore the blood cost.

8) Leave them alone and let them go about their business.


Since 8) was not politically acceptable, 4) actually became a fairly reasonable choice. Please note that the cost of delivery systems, operational costs, and training costs were ignored in this listing as they are all "sunk" costs for choosing to execute any of the plans.


*Apparently, a sizeable proportion of the mujahedeen foot-soldiers take the view that it is their job to shoot at the enemies of the faith but that whether the bullet hits the target is in the hands of Allah. Literally a 'spray and pray' attitude.

One more option forgotten: smoke'em out with sarin.

[Strike For The South]

Lately, a great malaise has overtaken me. I have tried to resign myself to the fact that the United States will use force as a matter of course. A superpowers sheer inertia almost demands some kind of intervention occasionally. By virtue of being an American citizen I am in some fashion complicit in this. The blood soaks all of our hands, from the top down. I understand that when I am committed to the earth, I will have to answer for this.

However, I find it totally unconscionable that millions of South Koreans may die because some fat, micrococked, hedionsit shit stain wanted to start his "Easter" weekend early. If Korea launches a nuke, they will fizzile out somewhere over the pacific in a testament to delusion. What won't fail is the millions of pounds of ordinance pointed at Seoul. Those are the people I feel for. The people who's lives will be vaporized because America had a midlife crisis and elected a man whom couldn't be bothered.

[Husar]

Lately, a great malaise has overtaken me. I have tried to resign myself to the fact that the United States will use force as a matter of course. A superpowers sheer inertia almost demands some kind of intervention occasionally. By virtue of being an American citizen I am in some fashion complicit in this. The blood soaks all of our hands, from the top down. I understand that when I am committed to the earth, I will have to answer for this.

However, I find it totally unconscionable that millions of South Koreans may die because some fat, micrococked, hedionsit shit stain wanted to start his "Easter" weekend early. If Korea launches a nuke, they will fizzile out somewhere over the pacific in a testament to delusion. What won't fail is the millions of pounds of ordinance pointed at Seoul. Those are the people I feel for. The people who's lives will be vaporized because America had a midlife crisis and elected a man whom couldn't be bothered.

IIRC in the last discussion some people ensured me that the artillery is too old and will mostly fail anyway. It really sounds like a win-win-win situation where you can happily massacre millions of poor, brainwashed North Koreans and feel all righteous when you go to sleep. Of course there might be some collateral damage but that will be overshadowed by all the glory and righteousness to be had. :2thumbsup:

[HopAlongBunny]

Dropping the "beautiful bomb": https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-is-the-mother-of-all-bombs-that-the-u-s-just-dropped-on-afghanistan/; helps fulfill the only 2 larger goals the USA ever seems interested in:

1) off load/expend munitions to keep the domestic warmachine churning;
2) demonstration that these touted weapons do in fact work

[Fragony]

Lately, a great malaise has overtaken me. I have tried to resign myself to the fact that the United States will use force as a matter of course. A superpowers sheer inertia almost demands some kind of intervention occasionally. By virtue of being an American citizen I am in some fashion complicit in this. The blood soaks all of our hands, from the top down. I understand that when I am committed to the earth, I will have to answer for this.

However, I find it totally unconscionable that millions of South Koreans may die because some fat, micrococked, hedionsit shit stain wanted to start his "Easter" weekend early. If Korea launches a nuke, they will fizzile out somewhere over the pacific in a testament to delusion. What won't fail is the millions of pounds of ordinance pointed at Seoul. Those are the people I feel for. The people who's lives will be vaporized because America had a midlife crisis and elected a man whom couldn't be bothered.

I kinda wonder if they would do something as atrocious as shelling Seoul. Small diplomatic public secret, French nukes are directed at all major European cities. Ours probably as well. We are teh EU right

[Tristuskhan]

Small diplomatic public secret, French nukes are directed at all major European cities. Ours probably as well. We are teh EU right

:crazy: Alternative facts... Bigger diplomatic secret: those nukes are so unreliable they are aimed at villages around Brest, no more than 30 kms from the sub base. And we keep our subs because the crews once retired make good, smooth, glowing public lighting.

[Fragony]

:crazy: Alternative facts... Bigger diplomatic secret: those nukes are so unreliable they are aimed at villages around Brest, no more than 30 kms from the sub base. And we keep our subs because the crews once retired make good, smooth, glowing public lighting.

Why redicule something something someone isn't even sure about, bite that belly if you want I already rolled over

[Tristuskhan]

Why redicule something something someone isn't even sure about, bite that belly if you want I already rolled over

Because I just discovered that the nukes I pay for with my own taxes are not properly aimed at Stockholm just as I thought but at Loperhet and Plougastel-Daoulas (where we make such good strawberries). Ushant beeing out of range, local sheep and bees should be nice. You're not the only one who knows about small diplomatic public secrets and who is eager to share.

[Fragony]

Because I just discovered that the nukes I pay for with my own taxes are not properly aimed at Stockholm just as I thought but at Loperhet and Plougastel-Daoulas (where we make such good strawberries). Ushant beeing out of range, local sheep and bees should be nice. You're not the only one who knows about small diplomatic public secrets and who is eager to share.

So you found out they are actually aimed at you in the meantime?

France does that, so does the Netherlands, always

The EU, such a joke

[Tristuskhan]

So you found out they are actually aimed at you in the meantime?

That's the point exactly. Talk about diplomatic public secrets! France is putting pressure on her allies by threatening to vaporize her own people. And it works. And we're gonna make YOU pay for it soon enough.

Trump thread, so let's go alternative.

[Fragony]

That's the point exactly. Talk about diplomatic public secrets! France is putting pressure on her allies by threatening to vaporize her own people. And it works. And we're gonna make YOU pay for it soon enough.

Trump thread, so let's go alternative.

France is always kinda mean ;)

[HopAlongBunny]

G.B. Trudeau illustrates our new reality:

https://s13.postimg.org/qz2ow1rib/db170416.jpg (https://postimg.org/image/qz2ow1rib/)

[rory_20_uk]

G.B. Trudeau illustrates our new reality:

https://s13.postimg.org/qz2ow1rib/db170416.jpg (https://postimg.org/image/qz2ow1rib/)

"New reality"? Always been this way - as WW1 kicked off, in Britain, the German Royal Family went to the Queen to be rebranded and when America joined in, the history of Germans in America was airbrushed out and has never been returned.

Gerry Adams, criminal terrorist or Peace Prize winner?

Is it Alexander the Great, or Alexander the Devil?

~:smoking:

[Seamus Fermanagh]

One more option forgotten: smoke'em out with sarin.

Didn't address this because the USA doesn't have bioweapons and is actively destroying the last portion of our chemical weapons stockpile. While we have the knowledge and skills to produce either, we have abjured the use of these weapons while making clear our stance that any type NBC attack on the US might provoke a nuclear weapon response.

Sarin, as with most gas attack weapons, would be of limited utility in the cave/cavern scenario noted above anyway. All such defensive complexes are baffled and constructed so as to impede those kind of attacks anyway.

[Gilrandir]

Didn't address this because the USA doesn't have bioweapons and is actively destroying the last portion of our chemical weapons stockpile. While we have the knowledge and skills to produce either, we have abjured the use of these weapons while making clear our stance that any type NBC attack on the US might provoke a nuclear weapon response.

Sarin, as with most gas attack weapons, would be of limited utility in the cave/cavern scenario noted above anyway. All such defensive complexes are baffled and constructed so as to impede those kind of attacks anyway.

Ok. Then just smoke them out with whatever can burn to let out smoke.

[Shaka_Khan]

It also fits America's lack of a long-term strategy: flashy, successful with 0 end goal in sight.
That's my main concern. I remember how Iraq turned out.

[Greyblades]

Yeah, Assad should have dropped the gas in a shower instead of a container to score more humanism points. :rolleyes:

Or maybe the distinction was that Hitler "didn't use it on his own people" in the sense that communists, jews, gypsies and the disabled were not "his people", but then we've just reached a new level of despicable and racist. Or maybe he meant "Hitler didn't use it on the frontlines but only at home", to clarify this, Spicer said "Assad dropped it on innocent...", so what is his real point? Hitler didn't gas innocent people? It's better to use it at home than on the frontlines? Or just that the use was technically different, in which case I wonder why exactly Assad is worse then? Why does it even matter?

I havent defended his words, I've said that when presented with such an easy victory the left wing media ruined it by lying, as they seem compulsed to do.

I've heard people say Trump is a master of giving his opponents enough rope to hang themselves, I see it more that his opponants thus far could suffocate themselves on the very idea of a rope.


G.B. Trudeau illustrates our new reality:

https://s13.postimg.org/qz2ow1rib/db170416.jpg (https://postimg.org/image/qz2ow1rib/)

And husar calls me the propagandist. This post is sublime; a true masterpiece.

An idol for glass-housed stone-throwers everywhere.

[Husar]

I havent defended his words, I've said that when presented with such an easy victory the left wing media ruined it by lying, as they seem compulsed to do.

I've heard people say Trump is a master of giving his opponents enough rope to hang themselves, I see it more that his opponants thus far could suffocate themselves on the very idea of a rope.

Good to know, I'm sure the rope part is not so relevant because Trump doesn't even know what a rope is. (that is a joke! please do not think that I actually believe this, please! I know you knew that I was going to claim it is a joke, but it really is, please! Also, please!)
If you think people go too far with wild accusations, how do you rate Trump having been on the forefront of the birther thing for years?
Didn't he then even deny it during the campaign? http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/09/16/trump-clinton-trade-barbs-over-obama-birther-movement.html
Why didn't he hang on that rope from the birther craziness?

What I see here is a double standard, and I'm not even denying that the democrats have crazies who believe Trump eats babies or so. I'm asking where were you when Alex Jones cried about the Feds under Obama stealing peoples' children at the airport?


And husar calls me the propagandist. This post is sublime; a true masterpiece.

You know, you can both be propagandists! :2thumbsup:
I don't quite get the point of the comic unless it's just the obvious joke about Trump's lies in a way I don't find very funny.
I don't even disagree with you that Trump's opponents often go too far, but then again that's something they have in common with his supporters. If you really want to compare everyone who doesn't like Trump with the craziest leftist shills you can find, I'm going to call you AlexJonesBlades from now on. :rolleyes:

[HopAlongBunny]

"New reality"? Always been this way
~:smoking:

Balloons for rory!:balloon2::balloon3::balloon:

[HopAlongBunny]

The Trump administration apparently mis-placed a carrier group: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/04/how-did-the-trump-administration-lose-an-aircraft-carrier/523458/
Fortunately, when it comes to a punitive strike against N.Korea it will probably come from Missouri:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/04/19/world-s-biggest-baddest-non-nuke-bomb-designed-just-to-hit-n-korea.html

[HopAlongBunny]

A good look at Americas' fascination with things that go BOOM!; preferably somewhere else and if at all possible on brown people:

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2017/04/america-addiction-war-170416074829028.html

[Strike For The South]

Americas addiction to war? As opposed to whom? The grandstanding western nations who generally approve, publicly or tacitly?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Americas addiction to war? As opposed to whom? The grandstanding western nations who generally approve, publicly or tacitly?

Fair point Strike. I'm imagining a large 12-step meeting with damn few sponsors. Should be good coffee though.

[Elmetiacos]

So, has Donald's decision to start playing MTW and send a princess to Germany made any difference?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

So, has Donald's decision to start playing MTW and send a princess to Germany made any difference?

Kind of you to consider Donald as the player faction and not an AI faction.

[Shaka_Khan]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/26/us/politics/nafta-executive-order-trump.html?_r=0

Trump Tells Foreign Leaders That Nafta Can Stay for Now

By MARK LANDLER and BINYAMIN APPELBAUM - APRIL 26, 2017

WASHINGTON — President Trump told the leaders of Mexico and Canada on Wednesday that he would not immediately move to terminate the North American Free Trade Agreement, only hours after an administration official said he was likely to sign an order that would begin the process of pulling the United States out of the deal.

In what the White House described as “pleasant and productive” evening phone calls with President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada, Mr. Trump said he would quickly start the process of renegotiating Nafta — not abandon it, as he said he would do during the 2016 presidential campaign if he could not rework the deal to his satisfaction.

“It is my privilege to bring NAFTA up-to-date through renegotiation,” Mr. Trump said in a statement issued by the White House at 10:33 p.m. “I believe that the end result will make all three countries stronger and better.”

The announcement appeared to be an example of Mr. Trump’s deal-making in real time. It followed a day in which officials signaled that he was laying the groundwork to pull out of Nafta — a move intended to increase pressure on Congress to authorize new negotiations, and on Canada and Mexico to accede to American demands.

It was not clear whether the president would still sign an executive action to authorize renegotiation of Nafta, which he once called the worst trade deal ever signed by the United States. Washington must give Canada and Mexico six months’ notice before exiting the trade agreement, which came into force in 1994. Any action to that effect would start the clock........


So, has Donald's decision to start playing MTW and send a princess to Germany made any difference?
Theodore Roosevelt did similar things with his daughter, Alice Roosevelt Longworth.

[Greyblades]

Trump Tells Foreign Leaders That Nafta Can Stay for Now
http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/559/963/385.gif


Good to know, I'm sure the rope part is not so relevant because Trump doesn't even know what a rope is. (that is a joke! please do not think that I actually believe this, please! I know you knew that I was going to claim it is a joke, but it really is, please! Also, please!)
If you think people go too far with wild accusations, how do you rate Trump having been on the forefront of the birther thing for years?
Didn't he then even deny it during the campaign? http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/09/16/trump-clinton-trade-barbs-over-obama-birther-movement.html
Why didn't he hang on that rope from the birther craziness? He did. Trump was the left's punching bag for a couple of years over the birther routine. I dare say it is what inspired him to play hard to get with his tax returns despite turning out to have no more to hide than Obama did.

Thing is though he relented instead of clinging to the fantasy into insanity. Trump has spent 40 years building a solid brand so being wrong on something wasnt going to take him down and was forgotten after he massacred the repiblican hopefuls and started butting heads with Clinton.


What I see here is a double standard, and I'm not even denying that the democrats have crazies who believe Trump eats babies or so. I'm asking where were you when Alex Jones cried about the Feds under Obama stealing peoples' children at the airport? I was alongside you mocking them, remember? Pissing on Fox news and nodding to daily show and john oliver skits was my bread and butter up until they turned on my demographic in 2014.

Getting a taste of my own medicine made me realize what a blind jackass I was being molded into. I still find myself slipping into the habit of disingenuity at times.


You know, you can both be propagandists! :2thumbsup:
Putting effort into my disagreement with your position doesnt make me a propagandist. When I care enough to dedicate time in debate I actively avoid parroting other people's arguments and try to use evidence from sources that arent right wing, just to avoid remotely proving the accusation.

Then it comes anyway and I wonder why I bother.

I don't quite get the point of the comic unless it's just the obvious joke about Trump's lies in a way I don't find very funny.It's a dig on people for parroting propaganda outlets instead of forming thier own ideas, which is exquisitely rich coming from a man who's primary post format is a a snide comment and a link to a trashy left wing blog like salon or thedailybeast and actual national propaganda outlets like al jazeera.

I don't even disagree with you that Trump's opponents often go too far, but then again that's something they have in common with his supporters. If you really want to compare everyone who doesn't like Trump with the craziest leftist shills you can find, I'm going to call you AlexJonesBlades from now on. :rolleyes: Craziest but loud and far reaching, you dont ignore the glen becks you mock them and admonish fox for entertaining his lies.

The guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/11/sean-spicers-hitler-holocaust-speak-volumes) and cnn (http://edition.cnn.com/2017/04/12/opinions/sean-spicer-holocaust-remarks-ben-ghiat/) are the epitome of the left wing media and entertained the lie without contesting it and I admonish them accordingly.

[Husar]

He did. Trump was the left's punching bag for a couple of years over the birther routine. I dare say it is what inspired him to play hard to get with his tax returns despite turning out to have no more to hide than Obama did.

When did that turn out? Did I miss something? AFAIK he only released some old tax returns from long before his campaign.


Thing is though he relented instead of clinging to the fantasy into insanity. Trump has spent 40 years building a solid brand so being wrong on something wasnt going to take him down and was forgotten after he massacred the repiblican hopefuls and started butting heads with Clinton.

A fake university scam makes a solid brand now? Perhaps in a world of gullible, badly-educated people...Which is really more sad than funny.


I was alongside you mocking them, remember? Pissing on Fox news and nodding to daily show and john oliver skits was my bread and butter up until they turned on my demographic in 2014.

How exactly did they turn on your demographic? What is your demographic anyway?


Putting effort into my disagreement with your position doesnt make me a propagandist. When I care enough to dedicate time in debate I actively avoid parroting other people's arguments and try to use evidence from sources that arent right wing, just to avoid remotely proving the accusation.

I called you a propagandist due to the way in which you sometimes write very questionable statements that reeks of the way propaganda is written. You know, writes like a propagandist, sounds like a propagandist, reads like a propagandist, must be a propagandist. ~;)
The good old gut-feeling that Trump voters used when they voted. As long as it feels right, I know it is right. :2thumbsup:


It's a dig on people for parroting propaganda outlets instead of forming thier own ideas, which is exquisitely rich coming from a man who's primary post format is a a snide comment and a link to a trashy left wing blog like salon or thedailybeast and actual national propaganda outlets like al jazeera.

Al Jazeera was agreed upon this board to be a reliable news source by both the left and right wing members around the time of the Arab Spring movement. What happened that it has to be called something else now? Were they too nice to refugees?


Craziest but loud and far reaching, you dont ignore the glen becks you mock them and admonish fox for entertaining his lies.

The guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/11/sean-spicers-hitler-holocaust-speak-volumes) and cnn (http://edition.cnn.com/2017/04/12/opinions/sean-spicer-holocaust-remarks-ben-ghiat/) are the epitome of the left wing media and entertained the lie without contesting it and I admonish them accordingly.

I don't watch CNN, so can you show me something where they reach Glenn Beck levels of crazy? The news I find on their website usually read relatively neutral to me. I don't even think all of FoxNews is super crazy, even O'Reilly could sound like a reasonable human being outside of his show there.
So I question that Glenn Beck, Alex Jones and CNN are on the same level of crazy and assume you're exaggerating here for effect.

The Sean Spicer thing you linked is a terrible example because what Sean Spicer said was dumb even if you know what he meant. The only person who would think Hitler wasn't as bad as Assad just because he didn't gas German aryans in allied-occupied territory is a racist idiot. The comparison of two dictators based on what you find to be the more horrible way of killing humans is somewhat childish and relativist anyway.
These arguments tend to never go anywhere.

[Gilrandir]

Simpsons do Trump again:
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/video/2017/apr/27/watch-the-simpsons-take-on-trumps-first-100-days-in-office-video

[HopAlongBunny]

The press might have "got it wrong" on Trump initially; are they any better now that he's king? Apparently not:

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/04/28/what-the-press-still-doesnt-get-about-trump-215049

[HopAlongBunny]

The 1st 100 days:

http://www.npr.org/2017/04/29/525810758/the-first-100-days-a-standard-that-not-even-roosevelt-achieved

Arbitrary? yes. The first 100 days is often meaningless when looking at what a president is remembered for; but he did set the bar...

[HopAlongBunny]

I like this article because it shifts focus from painting "red" zones as cultural backwaters, to the easier to understand "seekers of value".
Perhaps not moral Neanderthals, rather people looking for a satisfying, realistic and attainable way of getting by.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/04/30/the-arrogance-of-blue-america.html

Is the "blue" dream really only for those who have already arrived?

[Montmorency]

I like this article because it shifts focus from painting "red" zones as cultural backwaters, to the easier to understand "seekers of value".
Perhaps not moral Neanderthals, rather people looking for a satisfying, realistic and attainable way of getting by.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/04/30/the-arrogance-of-blue-america.html

Is the "blue" dream really only for those who have already arrived?

In other words, urban integration into national and international chains of supply, work, and transit leads affluent city governments to treat local funding beyond metropolitan lines like aid to third-world regimes.

Urban government need to be closely-integrated with surrounding land of political relevance, and for more than just the sake of locavore-ism.

[Shaka_Khan]

http://in.reuters.com/article/northkorea-usa-thaad-idINKBN17W03H

World News | Sun Apr 30, 2017 | 5:36pm EDT

South Korea says U.S. reaffirms it will pay THAAD costs; Trump calls Asia allies

By Ju-min Park and James Pearson | SEOUL

South Korea said the United States had reaffirmed it would shoulder the cost of deploying the THAAD anti-missile system, days after President Donald Trump said Seoul should pay for the $1-billion battery designed to defend against North Korea.

In a telephone call on Sunday, Trump's national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, reassured his South Korean counterpart, Kim Kwan-jin, that the U.S. alliance with South Korea was its top priority in the Asia-Pacific region, the South's presidential office said.

The conversation followed another North Korean missile test-launch on Saturday which Washington and Seoul said was unsuccessful, but which drew widespread international condemnation.

Trump, asked about his message to North Korea after the latest missile test, told reporters: "You'll soon find out", but did not elaborate on what the U.S. response would be.

Trump is stepping up outreach to allies in Asia to discuss the North Korean nuclear threat and make sure all are "on the same page" if action was needed, a top White House official said. The U.S. president will discuss North Korea with the leaders of Thailand and Singapore on Sunday after speaking with the Philippines' president on Saturday.

"There is nothing right now facing this country and facing the region that is a bigger threat than what is happening in North Korea," White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus told ABC's "This Week."

Trump's comments in an interview with Reuters on Thursday that he wanted Seoul to pay for the THAAD deployment perplexed South Koreans and raised questions about his commitment to the two countries' alliance.

South Korean officials responded that the cost was for Washington to bear, under the bilateral agreement.

"National security adviser H.R. McMaster explained that the recent statements by President Trump were made in a general context, in line with the U.S. public expectations on defense cost burden-sharing with allies," South Korea's Blue House said in a statement, adding that McMaster requested the call.

Major elements of the advanced Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system were moved into the planned site in Seonjgu, in the south of the country, this week.

The deployment has drawn protests from China, which says the powerful radar which can penetrate its territory will undermine regional security, and from local residents worried they will be a target for North Korean missiles.

About 300 residents rallied on Sunday as two U.S. Army trucks tried to enter the THAAD deployment site. Video provided by villagers showed protesters blocking the road with a car and chanting slogans such as “Don’t lie to us! Go back to your country!”

Police said they had sent about 800 officers to the site and two residents were injured during clashes with them.

South Korea and the United States say the sole purpose of THAAD is to guard against North Korean missiles.

Vice President Mike Pence reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to South Korea's security but said on NBC that Trump would "continue to call on the prosperous nations that the United States provides security and protection for to do more in their own defense.”

The United States is seeking more help from China, the North's major ally, to rein in Pyongyang's nuclear and missile development. Trump, in the Reuters interview, praised Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping as a "good man".

TENSIONS HIGH

The North has been conducting missile and nuclear weapons related activities at an unprecedented rate and is believed to have made progress in developing intermediate-range and submarine-launched missiles.

Tension on the Korean peninsula has been high for weeks over fears the North may conduct a long-range missile test, or its sixth nuclear test, around the time of the April 15 anniversary of its state founder's birth.

In excerpts of an interview with CBS News released on Saturday, Trump said the United States and China would "not be happy" with a nuclear test but gave no other details.

Trump discussed the threat posed by North Korea in a telephone call with Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, the White House said.

In an address to a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations on Saturday, Duterte urged the United States to show restraint after North Korea's latest missile test and to avoid playing into the hands of leader Kim Jong Un, who "wants to end the world".

Two-month long U.S.-South Korean joint military drills were due to conclude on Sunday, U.S. and South Korean officials said.

The exercise, called Foal Eagle, was repeatedly denounced by North Korea, which saw it as a rehearsal for war.

In a further show of force, the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier group arrived in waters near the Korean peninsula and began exercises with the South Korean navy late on Saturday. The South Korean navy declined to say when the exercises would be completed.

The dispatch of the Carl Vinson was a "reckless action of the war maniacs aimed at an extremely dangerous nuclear war," the Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of North Korea's ruling Workers' Party, said in a commentary on Saturday.

The carrier group has just completed drills with the Japanese navy.

Japanese Defence Minister Tomomi Inada, in an apparent show of solidarity with Washington, has ordered the Izumo, Japan's biggest warship, to protect a U.S. navy ship that might be going to help supply the USS Carl Vinson, the Asahi newspaper said.

(Additional reporting by Yuna Kim and Minwoo Park in SEOUL, Nobuhiro Kubo, Linda Sieg in TOKYO and Jason Lange and Doina Chiacu in WASHINGTON; Editing by Andrew Hay and Mary Milliken)

[HopAlongBunny]

Get ready to party!
Makers win over Moochers with House passage of Trumpcare.
Rushing it through before any annoying analysis made sure this Bill is free from downside (publicly...anyhow)
Rejoice!:http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/05/04/heartless-house-republicans-scorn-the-sick

[HopAlongBunny]

The "adjustment" to health care is a little hard to assess. Few people (including members of Congress) have received it and read it.
The bits that we know range from bad to catastrophic, depending on pre-existing conditions. Fortunately, included in the bill is $8 billion over 5years to help with that (the real short fall estimated to be at least $25 billion per year)
Here are a few overviews:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2017/05/05/seth_meyers_responds_to_the_republicans_passage_of_trumpcare_video.html

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/u-s-house-passes-republican-health-bill-a-step-toward-obamacare-repeal/

I wonder if the results of this will make any difference, anyhow best (I could find so far) on what the bill does:

http://www.politifact.com/florida/article/2017/may/05/whats-house-health-care-bill/

[AE Bravo]

Thoughts on Comey getting terminated?

[Montmorency]

IDK, but I'm just a poor boy, I need no sympathy, because I'm easy Comey, easy go.

[Hooahguy]

A lot of people are comparing this to what Nixon did about a year before he resigned during his investigation, but I think the comparisons are kinda shaky. Unless there really is something bad that Trump is trying to hide. Whats interesting is that Jeff Sessions, the attorney general, had to recuse himself about the investigation into the Trump campaign. And he was one of the people to recommend firing firing Comey. So this might get interesting.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Comparing it Archibald Cox is silly. Cox was a special prosecutor investigating administration corruption having been specifically appointed by the Justice department to do so and was fired when he persisted in requesting tapes of conversations in the White House which may very well have been valid evidence in that investigation. It felt, at the time, as though the President were firing the prosecutor in his own trial because the chap was prosecuting too well. Cost Nixon a lot of political "points" among his own party at the time.


Comey moved into the political game and ended up in a situation where anything he was saying was evaluated politically first. Not good for the FBI.

[Montmorency]

Comey moved into the political game and ended up in a situation where anything he was saying was evaluated politically first. Not good for the FBI.

How about the timing? This wasn't untrue in the past half year. Aside from speculation on the Russian investigation, there ought to be some other association that makes it convenient to make this decision now. The administration could also have been planning for Comey's dismissal since at least March, but then it's still the same question. Depoliticizing FBI leadership isn't a good account on its own when firing Comey clearly enflames that issue.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

How about the timing? This wasn't untrue in the past half year. Aside from speculation on the Russian investigation, there ought to be some other association that makes it convenient to make this decision now. The administration could also have been planning for Comey's dismissal since at least March, but then it's still the same question. Depoliticizing FBI leadership isn't a good account on its own when firing Comey clearly enflames that issue.

Any issue would inflame. If no issue, then the flames would be fanned on the "do nothing don" theme. The major media loathe him, the political left loathes him and their rank and file truly believe him to be dangerously unstable. Plenty of main stream establishment GOP think little better of him than the Dems. The criticism will end when he leaves office.

[Montmorency]

So again we're left to ask, why this change, and now? One scenario is that removing Comey is one step in AG Sessions reshuffling the Justice Department and federal law enforcement to be more in line with his ideology and policy prescriptions. Another is that the shock factor is part of an intended misdirection by the administration to diffuse criticism of unpopular policies in the making. Focusing on Comey seems to lead us into the trap of assuming the administration is (still) erraticly feckless and has only got around to replacing Comey as an afterthought, after all this time, and with no special consideration.

[Strike For The South]

It's a panic move by criminals. He won't last the year.

25 possible subpoenas. I'm harder than a diamond in an ice storm right now.

[Greyblades]

"This will be the end of Trump's presidency." Says increasingly nervous man for 6th time this year.

[Strike For The South]

"Trump's presidency is over." Says increasingly nervous man for 6th time this year.

I didn't say it was over, I said he wouldn't last the year.

[Greyblades]

http://i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/053/599/bc9.jpg

[Strike For The South]

I am aware of the article

[Greyblades]

And you are aware of the comparison I am making?

The Dems have been pushing the russsia angle for half a year and have come up with nothing save suspicion and the claims of "He's going to be impeached" are the same exhibit of desperation. I can tell you with 99% certainty that it wont be this that ends his premirship early, if anything. The most I see coming fo this is that they just might get Sessions to step down.

As for Comey, before this the dems hated him for reopening the hillary investigations, the republicans hate him for not doing anything with it and his stunt of admitting hillary was grossly negligent as secretary of state but refusing to prosecute put a bullet in the claims of impartiality.

The only question is why he wasnt out earlier.

[HopAlongBunny]

A little light reading:

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/10/teflon-don-trump-james-comey-test-238225

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/10/james-comey-wanted-more-resources-russia-investigation-238216

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/10/comey-firing-congress-agenda-238229

Sure, maybe it is nothing; the optics however...

[Shaka_Khan]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/05/09/all-of-trumps-campaign-statements-just-vanished-from-his-website-so-lets-remember-them/?utm_term=.7deb775e8019

All of Trump’s campaign statements just vanished from his website. So let’s remember them.

By Avi Selk May 9 at 6:09 PM

The Trump campaign website got an upgrade this week. According to a news release from the president's reelection campaign (yes, already), it's now a one-stop shop for “fact-based information” that the mainstream media doesn't want you to know about.

On donaldjtrump.com, you can check out never-before-seen rally photos, buy merchandise and get the real, unfiltered scoop on what your president is up to.

Sounds pretty handy. One problem: The website revamp also appears to have vanished every single news release and public statement issued during President Trump's first campaign.....

[Fragony]

Trump is a bit of a joke but he might be remembered otherwise, see Reagan, who knows he's new to this. But anything that isn't Hillary Clinton had to do and I can totally understand that, there weren't any good options in France lately either

[Strike For The South]

So is the white house being contradictory out of stupidity or malice? Is the end game here simply to entrench enough republicans to obstruct any serious investigation?

[drone]

So is the white house being contradictory out of stupidity or malice? Is the end game here simply to entrench enough republicans to obstruct any serious investigation?

From what I can tell, this just follows the usual pattern: Trump gets it in his head to do something, does it without telling people, and then they try to clean up the mess as best they can. Any other president would at least have a PR plan in place, and a cover story that doesn't look like swiss cheese.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Trump really ticked them off by failing to leak the decision far enough in advance. Unforgiveable sin by the standards of inside-the-beltway media.

[Strike For The South]

do you really think that is all that this is?

[Shaka_Khan]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YnupTif-dk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Km61zguhFI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q47sFg_WFus

[Idaho]

Trump desperately needs a war to fill the 24 hour news networks with lots of great footage of buildings being blown up and "bad guys" being shot. Then internal opposition can be branded traitors... So really he needs the trigger to be a domestic terrorist attack. ABC stuff.

[Greyblades]

I get that FOX is a joke, but that doesn't mean that using comedy shows as your primary source of political commentary is any less stupid.

[Husar]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X9QGqbE3gs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9Vvmjv__VQ

https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/entertainthis/2017/05/11/late-night-hosts-james-comey-firing/101541914/

[Beskar]

Trump is going to cancel all Press Briefings in response to White House unable to get their story straight and evil media.
http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/12/media/trump-press-briefings/index.html

[drone]

Trump is going to cancel all Press Briefings in response to White House unable to get their story straight and evil media.
http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/12/media/trump-press-briefings/index.html

The briefings are only for comedic relief. If you want the real truth, you only need a reporter to ask the Donald himself. He will blurt it out, consequences be damned.

[Greyblades]

Truly the real crime here is denying us another session with spicer.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

do you really think that is all that this is?

All? Of course not. But petulance over such things has always played a role inside the beltway. There is a tendency among many of us, especially politics junkies and policy wonks, to emphasize the rational and downplay the human and irrational -- if for no better reason that the human and the irrational are so much harder to predict and evaluate. But we should remember that all of those involved are very human individuals -- for good and for ill.

[drone]

Truly the real crime here is denying us another session with spicer.
:yes: I haven't seen any footage of him hiding behind the hedge. Please tell me someone got footage...


It's a panic move by criminals. He won't last the year.
I think you underestimate how beholden House Republicans are to Trump, also how stubborn and narcissistic Trump is. Unless we see actual photos of Putin handing Trump comically large bags with dollar signs on them, the House will not vote for impeachment. They need the Trump voters, they are to far in it themselves, and they just don't have the balls. That will have to wait for 2019. And Trump isn't going to resign, they will have to drag him kicking and screaming out of the White House in chains.

If they were smart, the congressional GOP would set up an independent investigator, and fund the FBI extra to extract the truth. Get him impeached and convicted, and "make do" with a President Pence, who would be much easier to work with on their agenda.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

:yes: I haven't seen any footage of him hiding behind the hedge. Please tell me someone got footage...


I think you underestimate how beholden House Republicans are to Trump, also how stubborn and narcissistic Trump is. Unless we see actual photos of Putin handing Trump comically large bags with dollar signs on them, the House will not vote for impeachment. They need the Trump voters, they are to far in it themselves, and they just don't have the balls. That will have to wait for 2019. And Trump isn't going to resign, they will have to drag him kicking and screaming out of the White House in chains.

If they were smart, the congressional GOP would set up an independent investigator, and fund the FBI extra to extract the truth. Get him impeached and convicted, and "make do" with a President Pence, who would be much easier to work with on their agenda.

You are correct. Absent some blinkingly unlikely behavior or collusion coming to light (and I doubt such exists), Trump's transgressions do not rise to impeachability. Being narcissistic and by some accounts a bit asinine are not impeachable. Even if the House were to vote impeachment on some trumped up basis -- pardon the pun -- then Senate would not convict. As you say, the Reps have to go back to their home districts every two years, and a goodly number of those districts truly liked Trump's shoot from the hip style.

However, I think Strike For The South was not suggesting impeachment so much as resignation. That scenario involves Trump's efforts to do anything being stymied at every turn by the Courts and Congressional gridlock, thus neutering his ability to do anything, coupled with a media hounding of administration officials and media/opposition groups pouncing on any little miscue as a way to constantly lambast Trump. Under that scenario, Trump decides that he cannot accomplish anything and resigns, opting out of the whole thing as being an excrement sandwich from which he does not choose to sup further.

[drone]

You are correct. Absent some blinkingly unlikely behavior or collusion coming to light (and I doubt such exists), Trump's transgressions do not rise to impeachability. Being narcissistic and by some accounts a bit asinine are not impeachable. Even if the House were to vote impeachment on some trumped up basis -- pardon the pun -- then Senate would not convict. As you say, the Reps have to go back to their home districts every two years, and a goodly number of those districts truly liked Trump's shoot from the hip style.
He basically just told Lester Holt that he fired Comey because of the Russian investigation. Obstruction of justice is what got Clinton impeached. Remember, it's not the crime, but the cover up. And as much as he lies, the best way to get Trump to tell the truth is to question his authority and/or give credit to someone else. If the Dems take the House in 2018, by that time there will be plenty to choose from for the articles of impeachment. And if the evidence is serious enough, the Senate will convict. The 2020 election cycle will hit 22 Republican senators, so they cannot look like complete stooges during the trial, and many may decide at that point that Pence would more suitable.

Trump was planning a visit to the Hoover building within the week, that has now been cancelled (http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/trump-not-planning-visit-fbi-headquarters-after-comey-firing-spokesperson-n757771). The Bureau is not amused.


However, I think Strike For The South was not suggesting impeachment so much as resignation. That scenario involves Trump's efforts to do anything being stymied at every turn by the Courts and Congressional gridlock, thus neutering his ability to do anything, coupled with a media hounding of administration officials and media/opposition groups pouncing on any little miscue as a way to constantly lambast Trump. Under that scenario, Trump decides that he cannot accomplish anything and resigns, opting out of the whole thing as being an excrement sandwich from which he does not choose to sup further.
Not gonna happen. Resigning would not only be an admission of failure, but he couldn't continue enriching himself through the Treasury. :tongue:

[Montmorency]

Article on the subject (https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/05/11/us/politics/obstruction-of-justice-fbi.html): Technically it could be considered obstruction if one could legally prove the action was taken with corrupt intent - but that's the hard part itself.


It is not enough to show that a defendant knew the act would have a side consequence of impeding an investigation; achieving that obstruction has to have been the specific intention.

“To prove that he did it not because Comey was grandstanding or showboating or all the other excuses he has given, but because he wanted to impede the investigation, that would be awfully hard to prove

As for impeachment, there are any number of things to construe as impeachable under Trump, but


the Constitution’s standards for impeachment and removal of a president — if he has committed “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors” — are met by anything that a majority of the House and two-thirds of the Senate are willing to vote for. That makes prognostication an exercise in vote counting, not legal analysis. Because Mr. Trump’s fellow Republicans control both chambers of Congress, as things stand, he is exceedingly unlikely to be impeached for firing Mr. Comey.

while the threshold may have been met for Democrats, it has clearly not been met for Republicans.

Possibly if Trump were to do something to personally dishonor or threaten influential Republican Congresspersons - on top of the putative venality.

[Montmorency]

Hey old dudes, I hear tell that Ari Fleischer (first press secretary of GW Bush) was a skilled one. Comment?

[HopAlongBunny]

https://youtu.be/u9bk2MrMGaA


https://youtu.be/2Z2RzVhw4rE

My two favourite songs while reading political discussions.

[Greyblades]

Another coin to the "insult setups I refused" jar.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

https://youtu.be/u9bk2MrMGaA


https://youtu.be/2Z2RzVhw4rE

My two favourite songs while reading political discussions.

I have loved these lads for nearly 40 years. Ian Anderson is a genius.

[HopAlongBunny]

So where did the Russia investigation come from?
Trump: it's the Democrats
Facts: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2017/may/12/donald-trump/trump-calls-trump-russia-story-made-/

[Greyblades]

Contention:
Trump said, "This Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story. It's an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should've won."
Counter:

Democrats did not create the story, nor do they control the agenda of the House and Senate committees which are conducting their own investigations.
Note how it defends the democrats from an accusation Trump didnt make but they read into (that it was the democrats that made it up) and ignores the validity of the actual accusation (that the Democrats are using it as an excuse for losing).

The cherry on top is they rate this pants on fire despite not actually proving that the allegations arent made up! Merely that:

The American intelligence community expressed with confidence that Russia aimed to interfere in the election to harm Clinton and help Trump.

Why do people still think politifact is unbiased when it churns out this level of inanity?

A better question is why does hopalong keep producing these sources when there are thousands of actually credible sources of Trump criticism he could be using?

[a completely inoffensive name]

Greyblades, why are you still posting in here. I would have thought you would be spending this week blaming Corbyn and the left for WannaCry.

[Greyblades]

Do I look like pannonian to you?

[Strike For The South]

Hey remember that time the president obstructed justice?

[Greyblades]

Remember when we knew what eachother was talking about by reading thier posts instead of thier thoughts?

Man those were some wierd times.

[Xiahou]

Notes made by former FBI director Comey say Trump pressured him to end Flynn probe (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/notes-made-by-former-fbi-director-comey-say-trump-pressured-him-to-end-flynn-probe/2017/05/16/52351a38-3a80-11e7-9e48-c4f199710b69_story.html)
Now this could finally amount to something.

In recent weeks, Trump was been an increasingly embarrassing buffoon, but if Comey is called to testify before Congress under oath and supports this story...... things could get very bad for Trump. :yes:

[Greyblades]

BBC says "asked" (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-39944520)


Mr Comey reportedly wrote a memo following a meeting with the president on 14 February that revealed Mr Trump had asked him to close an investigation into Mr Flynn's actions.

He reportedly shared the memo with top FBI associates.

"I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go," the president told Mr Comey, according to the memo. "He is a good guy."

Mr Comey did not respond to his request, according to the memo, but replied: "I agree he is a good guy."

Looks like another partisan overreaction to me, even the WaPo points out the problem in any potential case:


“There’s definitely a case to be made for obstruction,” said Barak Cohen, a former federal prosecutor who now does white-collar-defense work at the Perkins Coie law firm in the District. “But, on the other hand, you have to realize that — as with any other sort of criminal law — intent is key, and intent here can be difficult to prove.”

Seems like they would have more luck pushing with the recent screw up with the russians.

[Xiahou]

The Russian intel-sharing idiocy is a intel/diplomatic snafu, but it's not going to have the impact of Trump firing his FBI director after he tried to lean on him to end an investigation (should the reports prove true).

From CNN (http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/16/politics/trump-james-comey-memo/index.html?sr=twtsr0516trumprussia):

Comey was in the Oval Office briefing the President along with the vice president and attorney general on February 14, according to a source close to Comey who has a copy of the memo. After the briefing, Trump "asked Sessions and Pence to leave," the source told CNN.
According to a memo, Comey wrote about the encounter and shared with confidantes, the President said: "I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go."
He told Comey that Flynn hadn't done anything wrong.
Comey was "concerned" that the President was trying to "stop the investigation," the source told CNN. "He wrote a number of memos, a great many if not all were about contacts with Trump -- particularly the ones that made him feel uneasy."

Again, if these memos do exist and Comey testifies before Congress that Trump, after making Sessions and Pence leave the room, leaned on him to let Flynn off the hook... we might be looking at President Pence soon.

If the memos aren't produced and Comey doesn't testify in support of the allegations... then it's just your standard Trump scandal nothing-burger. We'll see.

[Greyblades]

They are overreaching, even if a memo emerges they cannot actually turn this into an intimidation charge as the wording alone is not indicative of it; you could just as easily say it was an honest plea for comey to stop wasting thier time, which Trump is well within the law to do and without any account from an unbiased source noone can say it was otherwise.

[Strike For The South]

He asked so it's not obstruction. I forget about that loophole

lololololololololololol

l
o
l

[spmetla]

They are overreaching, even if a memo emerges they cannot actually turn this into an intimidation charge as the wording alone is not indicative of it; you could just as easily say it was an honest plea for comey to stop wasting thier time, which Trump is well within the law to do and without any account from an unbiased source noone can say it was otherwise.

Whether or not Trump thinks the investigation is a waste of time asking the head of the FBI to stop an investigation of the former head of national security for his ties with our number one geo-political enemy since the end of WWII is obstruction, "nice guy" or not. The only one overreaching is Trump and the unbiased source is the man he just fired and complemented for being so 'brave' in his Hillary emails announcement despite working for Obama at the time.

Unfortunately until the readers of FoxNews and Breitbart see the truth that Trump is a embarrassing buffoon who's doing more to harm the interests of America instead of making it 'great again' their respective representatives won't see a threat to their reelection next year and opt to do little to nothing hoping it'll blow over.

[Xiahou]

Whether or not Trump thinks the investigation is a waste of time asking the head of the FBI to stop an investigation of the former head of national security for his ties with our number one geo-political enemy since the end of WWII is obstruction, "nice guy" or not.
The 1980s called, and they want their foreign policy back.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bowhUWl6rxQ

Sorry, couldn't help myself.... :creep:

[spmetla]

I was never a fan of Obama or his wimpy foreign policy but certainly prefer it to our current foreign policy of sheer incompetence.

[drone]

I was never a fan of Obama or his wimpy foreign policy but certainly prefer it to our current foreign policy of sheer incompetence.

Just wait until next week's trip to the middle east. Who knew the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could be so hard to resolve? :shrug:

[spmetla]

Just wait until next week's trip to the middle east. Who knew the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could be so hard to resolve? :shrug:

His methods are like the opinions of my non-current events following friends, to them it's too easy to fix things. "Why don't they just do..." or "this could be fixed if so and so didn't just ...."
Needless to say these are my friends that also tend to doubt the moon landing, think 9/11 was an inside job, and are sure that vaccines and fluoride are socialist plots against us. Great to hand out with, work on cars or help on bigger projects on my farm but not ones to discuss books or news with.

Wonder if his son in law and daughter can prod him to not say anything too crazy though at this point I don't think that's possible. Anyone who can rail against china his whole campaign and then after a 10 minute conversation with their president be swayed to their opinion won't fair well in the muddle of the middle east.

Funny how he loves saying how he's working harder than any president before him, thing is he probably believes it. I'm certain that this is the hardest he's ever had to work in his life except that this time he can't wrap himself in a bubble of yes-men that his quality of work is the greatest. So many meetings and complex issues he probably never considered possible, far more difficult and complex than just a line of businesses using the branding of his hotel/casino chain and now failure/bankruptcy isn't really an option.

[HopAlongBunny]

Special Counsel Robert Mueller named by DOJ.
Comey's predecessor as FBI director will apparently oversee the investigation into Russian meddling.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/17/us/politics/robert-mueller-special-counsel-russia-investigation.html?_r=0

Calls for impeachment might be premature as Trump's frequent mouthing of "who knew" and "I just didn't know" are probably accurate.

[Greyblades]

You scholars of legalism do know the charge of obstruction of justice requires him to actually obstruct justice right?

Nixon bribed people into silence, Lewis Libby and Barry Bonds lied under oath, Conrad Black confiscated evidence. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obstruction_of_justice)

If the democrats, or god forbid the FBI, try to charge him with obstruction over saying "I hope you let this go" to the investigator they'd be laughed out of every court east of the nutty ninth.

[Montmorency]

Deep Throat stamped his foot. 'A conspiracy like this...a conspiracy investigation...the rope has to tighten slowly around everyone's neck. You build convincingly from the outer edges in, you get ten times the evidence you need against the Hunts and the Liddys. They feel hopelessly finished - they may not talk right away, but the grip is on them. Then you move up and do the same thing at the next level. If you shoot too high and miss, then everyone feels more secure. Lawyers work this way. I'm sure smart reporters must, too.'

Tee hee

[AE Bravo]

Goddamn your references are ancient as hell all the time.

Dusty old posts you got there. ;)

[Seamus Fermanagh]

You scholars of legalism do know the charge of obstruction of justice requires him to actually obstruct justice right?

Nixon bribed people into silence, Lewis Libby and Barry Bonds lied under oath, Conrad Black confiscated evidence. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obstruction_of_justice)

If the democrats, or god forbid the FBI, try to charge him with obstruction over saying "I hope you let this go" to the investigator they'd be laughed out of every court east of the nutty ninth.

Why not? His executive orders on refugees have been fought by the courts, in part, because of his campaign rhetoric -- why bother with content when you can KNOW in your heart that Trump is evil?

[Strike For The South]

Why not? His executive orders on refugees have been fought by the courts, in part, because of his campaign rhetoric -- why bother with content when you can KNOW in your heart that Trump is evil? Why are you dying on this hill? Of all them men to defend, you choose the one setting fire to our institutions.

Greyblades, you are a Polemic to the point of being Hitchens without the wit or coherency.

[Greyblades]

Your only contribution to this debate have been insults and ridicule, yet you would call me an incoherant polemic?

[Strike For The South]

Your only contribution to this debate have been insults and ridicule, yet you would call me an incoherant polemic?

Correct.

[Greyblades]

Then I name you an unreliable judge of character who has become accustomed to letting his news outlet do his thinking for him, with all the folly that entails.

Are we done?

[Fragony]

Am I watching Deadwood lol, please don't stop bickering

[Gilrandir]

An investigation on Trump's Russian connections:
https://twitter.com/lheron/status/864864026282659840

[Xiahou]

Why are you dying on this hill? Of all them men to defend, you choose the one setting fire to our institutions.I'll defend Trump if he's in the right.... He just often isn't. :sweatdrop:

As for setting fire to our institutions, I think that's a bit hyperbolic. An incompetent like Trump is more likely to set his own hair on fire. The only "good move" of Trump's that I can readily point to was nominating Gorsuch to the SCOTUS.




Just wait until next week's trip to the middle east. Who knew the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could be so hard to resolve? :shrug:Trump is grandiose, even in his self-pity (http://hotair.com/archives/2017/05/17/trump-coast-guard-grads-lets-face-no-politician-history-treated-worse-unfairly/).
"He’s a rich kid turned billionaire playboy turned president whining about how unfair life is" :laugh4:

[Strike For The South]

Then I name you an unreliable judge of character who has become accustomed to letting his news outlet do his thinking for him, with all the folly that entails.
Taking the contrarian view is not always a sign of wisdom or intelligence.



Are we done?

I have yet to begun to defile myself.


I'll defend Trump if he's in the right.... He just often isn't. :sweatdrop:

As for setting fire to our institutions, I think that's a bit hyperbolic. An incompetent like Trump is more likely to set his own hair on fire. The only "good move" of Trump's that I can readily point to was nominating Gorsuch to the SCOTUS.
He is the logical endgame of wedge issues and Reagan republicans. I like Gorsuch, Democrats folded when the turtle didn't.

I am just growing tired of people defending the man. He is totally unfit to hold office. The country screwed up and in a few months there will be evidence he sold out his republic to the yellow bellied reds. Hell he may not even realize he did it because of his pig headed myopia.

[Strike For The South]

So among the terrible things the Trump Junta has done since being inaugurated is Betsy Devoss. Betsy got rich because of her Fathers pyramid scheme. Betsy used these riches to curry favor with Donald. But instead of doing the respectable thing and giving her a cushy ambassadorship, he made her Secretary of Education. Betsys qualifications being she once attended school. Betsys brother also has a merry band of mercenaries for hire. It is not really relevant here beyond my desire to further assail her character.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/01/19/school-choice-is-great-betsy-devoss-vision-for-school-choice-is-not/?utm_term=.97b7a0e05f11

School choice is a term with many different meanings. Betsy meaning is "dismantle the school system"

The public education system in America is where children learn to be Americans. We are an extremely diverse country, we need a touchstone, the school system is at least part of that touchstone. Betsy is part of a capitalist class that feeds off of division, infighting, and weak civic institutions. Gutting the public school system furthers an agenda for a very tiny minority of people.

[Pannonian]

So among the terrible things the Trump Junta has done since being inaugurated is Betsy Devoss. Betsy got rich because of her Fathers pyramid scheme. Betsy used these riches to curry favor with Donald. But instead of doing the respectable thing and giving her a cushy ambassadorship, he made her Secretary of Education. Betsys qualifications being she once attended school. Betsys brother also has a merry band of mercenaries for hire. It is not really relevant here beyond my desire to further assail her character.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/01/19/school-choice-is-great-betsy-devoss-vision-for-school-choice-is-not/?utm_term=.97b7a0e05f11

School choice is a term with many different meanings. Betsy meaning is "dismantle the school system"

The public education system in America is where children learn to be Americans. We are an extremely diverse country, we need a touchstone, the school system is at least part of that touchstone. Betsy is part of a capitalist class that feeds off of division, infighting, and weak civic institutions. Gutting the public school system furthers an agenda for a very tiny minority of people.

Funnily enough, the British PM is further to the right on this than the majority of the Tory party, this being one of her pet issues. May is pretty much on the same page as Devoss, while most of the Tory party at least pay some respect to what you talk of.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Why are you dying on this hill? Of all them men to defend, you choose the one setting fire to our institutions.

Not dying on that hill. Just pointing out the irrationality of that stuff as well. Trump's FoPo is reactive and full of grandstanding. His DoPo is stalled and much of his power neutered. He will spend more time defending his admin from self-inflicted wounds of the tongue than he will governing. I doubt impeachment, but the looming threat of it will also stifle his actions. The Dems lost both houses AND the White House, but THEY will drive what few policy advances are made, not the GOP.

But the activist judge stuff does get old. The first version of that order should have been bounced -- special treatment of Christians? -- but the second version was actually within the scope of exec authority.

[Strike For The South]

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/18/chaffetz-to-announce-early-departure-from-congress-238550

How interesting.

[a completely inoffensive name]

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/18/chaffetz-to-announce-early-departure-from-congress-238550

How interesting.

Most of the GOP leadership is probably dirty with Russian money, either directly or indirectly (looking away while others did it).

Chaffez is leaving less than a year after being re-elected only a few weeks after stating he would not run again...someone is in a hurry to get the hell out.

[Xiahou]

School choice is a term with many different meanings. Betsy meaning is "dismantle the school system"

The public education system in America is where children learn to be Americans. We are an extremely diverse country, we need a touchstone, the school system is at least part of that touchstone. Betsy is part of a capitalist class that feeds off of division, infighting, and weak civic institutions. Gutting the public school system furthers an agenda for a very tiny minority of people.

I agree with much of what you said in this post and the last, so I won't quote it or respond to it- that'd be boring. :shame:

But, I disagree here. Our public school system is a shambles and it needs disrupted. School districts everywhere are rife with corruption and waste. Teacher's unions prioritize protecting bad employees over teaching children and rewarding excellence. We spend near the top of the list per student for public schooling, yet consistently perform near the bottom. I'm ok with dismantling that system. :yes:

[Xiahou]

Most of the GOP our political leadership is probably dirty with Russian money, either directly or indirectly (looking away while others did it).
FIFY (http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2017/02/18/no-one-mentions-that-the-russian-trail-leads-to-democratic-lobbyists/)
Both sides are filthy with Russian money. I don't think there's anything uniquely Russian about it either. If someone, somewhere is willing to spread cash around, there's politicians that will line up to sell favors. Sad, but true.

[Montmorency]

I agree with much of what you said in this post and the last, so I won't quote it or respond to it- that'd be boring. :shame:

But, I disagree here. Our public school system is a shambles and it needs disrupted. School districts everywhere are rife with corruption and waste. Teacher's unions prioritize protecting bad employees over teaching children and rewarding excellence. We spend near the top of the list per student for public schooling, yet consistently perform near the bottom. I'm ok with dismantling that system. :yes:

On the other hand, that spending is very unevenly distributed. This is exacerbated when so much of public school funding is linked to local property tax collections: money out = money in.

[a completely inoffensive name]

FIFY (http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2017/02/18/no-one-mentions-that-the-russian-trail-leads-to-democratic-lobbyists/)
Both sides are filthy with Russian money. I don't think there's anything uniquely Russian about it either. If someone, somewhere is willing to spread cash around, there's politicians that will line up to sell favors. Sad, but true.

I think both left and right agrees that Hillary and Putin were not good friends. I doubt she was getting any of those payouts, directly or indirectly.

[HopAlongBunny]

So, will Trump be sticking to prepared speeches or are we going to get Foreign Policy on the Fly from his world tour.
No hot spots here, just Saudi Arabia, Israel, Italy, the Vatican, Belgium.
What could possibly go wrong? :clown:

[Greyblades]

Taking the contrarian view is not always a sign of wisdom or intelligence. Taking the conformist view is not always a sign of wisdom or intelligence.


I am just growing tired of people defending the man. He is totally unfit to hold office. The country screwed up and in a few months there will be evidence he sold out his republic to the yellow bellied reds. Hell he may not even realize he did it because of his pig headed myopia.
I, on the other hand, am long tired of people who demonizing the man, despite the glut of legitimate criticism they should be satisfied airing, and I am becoming despairing of people swallowing that demonization as god's truth.

We have heard nothing but assertations and claims from sources that are notorious for misdirection and fabrication, yet no less than two of our once distunguishing regulars are now emulating Mcarthy!


http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/18/chaffetz-to-announce-early-departure-from-congress-238550

How interesting.
A link and a remark. Have you become Hopalong now?

[AE Bravo]

So, will Trump be sticking to prepared speeches or are we going to get Foreign Policy on the Fly from his world tour.
No hot spots here, just Saudi Arabia, Israel, Italy, the Vatican, Belgium.
What could possibly go wrong? :clown:
I don't get the widespread drama about this. You can expect fluff, the man is on the oil payroll.

[Gilrandir]

So, will Trump be sticking to prepared speeches or are we going to get Foreign Policy on the Fly from his world tour.
No hot spots here, just Saudi Arabia, Israel, Italy, the Vatican, Belgium.
What could possibly go wrong? :clown:

Israel is always a hot spot. And SA is the key player in the region and arguably a generator of hot spots.

[Husar]

Israel is always a hot spot. And SA is the key player in the region and arguably a generator of hot spots.

I recommend yet another readjustment of your sarcasm detector. ~;)

[Gilrandir]

I recommend yet another readjustment of your sarcasm detector. ~;)

Any upgrades or patches you would recommend?

[HopAlongBunny]

So far Trump is on script with no major changes to speak of.
The "Trump budget" is being sent to Congress; its 800 billion in cuts seems to be a wish list, what Congress can actually pass should be quite different.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-budget-idUSKBN18I26X

[Seamus Fermanagh]

So far Trump is on script with no major changes to speak of.
The "Trump budget" is being sent to Congress; its 800 billion in cuts seems to be a wish list, what Congress can actually pass should be quite different.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-budget-idUSKBN18I26X

You do know that that is SOP for Washington DC budgets, yes? That is true regardless of who the current occupant of the White House is.

[Sarmatian]

Watching the news coverage of the Russia/Flynn/Comey scandal, I have a feeling that Trump is actually going to come out of this stronger than he was.

Flynn is the only real issue, but as he was fired, it's hardly an impeachable offense, and even that is a stretch. The idea that Trump is a Russian puppet is ludicrous and firing Comey is well within his authority, whether people agree with it or not.

He will then appear as a man who survived the "fake media" witch hunt. And the liberal media, that is actually guilty of getting on the bandwagon of comedy shows and viral social network stories will need to take a long, hard look in the mirror. They helped him win the presidency and now they're gonna help him solidify his position. It's all about ratings and clicks, who cares that there's a spoiled brat in the Oval Office.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Watching the news coverage of the Russia/Flynn/Comey scandal, I have a feeling that Trump is actually going to come out of this stronger than he was.

Flynn is the only real issue, but as he was fired, it's hardly an impeachable offense, and even that is a stretch. The idea that Trump is a Russian puppet is ludicrous and firing Comey is well within his authority, whether people agree with it or not.

He will then appear as a man who survived the "fake media" witch hunt. And the liberal media, that is actually guilty of getting on the bandwagon of comedy shows and viral social network stories will need to take a long, hard look in the mirror. They helped him win the presidency and now they're gonna help him solidify his position. It's all about ratings and clicks, who cares that there's a spoiled brat in the Oval Office.

At 70, the label "brat" really doesn't apply anymore. Childish or Child-like behaviors, perhaps...

Agree with you on the impeachment effort fizzle. Somewhat to mostly agree on the media witch hunt stuff creating a "boomerang" of support among his core supporters. However, his ability to get meaningful legislation through is and will likely remain limited. This will undercut his ability to fulfill promises to his core support group. Since he was elected on the basis of doing those thing despite Washington intransigence, when he has to face his votes and note that he was not able to overcome that intransigence, he will inevitably lose some of that thin edge of support that elected him.

[Pannonian]

At 70, the label "brat" really doesn't apply anymore. Childish or Child-like behaviors, perhaps...

Agree with you on the impeachment effort fizzle. Somewhat to mostly agree on the media witch hunt stuff creating a "boomerang" of support among his core supporters. However, his ability to get meaningful legislation through is and will likely remain limited. This will undercut his ability to fulfill promises to his core support group. Since he was elected on the basis of doing those thing despite Washington intransigence, when he has to face his votes and note that he was not able to overcome that intransigence, he will inevitably lose some of that thin edge of support that elected him.

Why is ability to pass legislation limited when his party rules all three branches of government?

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Why is ability to pass legislation limited when his party rules all three branches of government?

Well, because he's secretly a Democrat stalking horse designed to get Clinton elected, remember?

That went well.

[Beskar]

Why is ability to pass legislation limited when his party rules all three branches of government?

If I remember correctly, Obama was attacked repeatedly for this when he had a Democrat majority due to the "Blue Dogs".

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Why is ability to pass legislation limited when his party rules all three branches of government?

Remember, our "parties" have less cohesiveness then yours by a good bit and individual pols routinely ignore the party platform if it suits their political agenda. This is more true of the current GOP than of the Dems.

The "establishment" GOP has only moderately less use than mainline Dems for Trump. They do not want the emphatic changes that Trump seeks, especially on the border and with international trade.

[HopAlongBunny]

I think right now the GOP appreciates the cover Trump gives them.
They can finesse it so that the draconian budget proposal should allow them to pass something more moderate and appear in command. How moderate? Absent Democratic support they will likely have to mollify the Freedom Caucus.
Some form of tax breaks seem to be a given.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I think right now the GOP appreciates the cover Trump gives them.
They can finesse it so that the draconian budget proposal should allow them to pass something more moderate and appear in command. How moderate? Absent Democratic support they will likely have to mollify the Freedom Caucus.
Some form of tax breaks seem to be a given.

Some form of tax break or reorganization was more or less ubiquitous among GOP campaigners. And YES, all such presidential budget proposals are no more than an opening bid. Of course, as with most government budgets I expect, the whole thing is designed around distributive bargaining and is horribly short-sighted.

[HopAlongBunny]

Some well-meaning trolling from Mexico:


https://youtu.be/sWlrauHGAbY

[Shaka_Khan]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVe532scddA

[HopAlongBunny]

The Trump team needed a secure line to Russia!?
Sure, why not; alternative facts or alternative reality?:

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/05/jared-kushner-sought-secret-line-russia-report-170527034037268.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/russian-ambassador-told-moscow-that-kushner-wanted-secret-communications-channel-with-kremlin/2017/05/26/520a14b4-422d-11e7-9869-bac8b446820a_story.html

[Gilrandir]

The Trump team needed a secure line to Russia!?
Sure, why not; alternative facts or alternative reality?:

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/05/jared-kushner-sought-secret-line-russia-report-170527034037268.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/russian-ambassador-told-moscow-that-kushner-wanted-secret-communications-channel-with-kremlin/2017/05/26/520a14b4-422d-11e7-9869-bac8b446820a_story.html

What about a Russian oligarch ready to testify in exchange for immunity?
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/26/us/politics/oleg-deripaska-paul-manafort.html?_r=1

[Greyblades]

Which law are the investigators expecting to be able to charge trump with breaking?

[HopAlongBunny]

A look at the Trump proposed budget, from Canada.
Take away, with low interest rates not much money heads to those who will spend it on necessities, keeping consumer inflation in check; note: low interest rates do not make it to people living on pay-day loans.
The money goes to those who increasingly look for somewhere to "park" it; thus asset inflation largely stocks and real estate. Bubble and bust? Perhaps, but not now (hopefully) and policy may even extend it indefinitely (lol)
Part of the idea being even a bust leaves you with something that you can afford to sit on.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/trump-budget-poloz-inflation-1.4127880

[spmetla]

Which law are the investigators expecting to be able to charge trump with breaking?

https://www.vox.com/2017/5/16/15650208/donald-trump-obstruction-justice-comey-flynn-investigation-fbi
According to Jimmy Gurulé, a professor of law at the University of Notre Dame who served as assistant attorney general for George H.W. Bush and undersecretary of the Treasury for enforcement under George W. Bush

If President Trump asked then-FBI Director James Comey to drop the criminal investigation of General Michael Flynn, this would constitute obstruction of justice under 18 U.S.C. section 1505. Section 1505 makes it a crime to "endeavor to influence, obstruct, or impede" "any pending proceeding … before any department or agency of the United States." Obviously, Trump had knowledge that Flynn was the target of an FBI investigation. The FBI investigation was a "pending proceeding . . . before [a] department or agency of the United States." Further, if Trump had knowledge of a pending grand jury investigation targeting Flynn, his conduct would constitute an attempt to influence or obstruct a grand jury investigation. The FBI was an active participant in the grand jury investigation.

Also, 18 U.S.C. 1512(c)(2) punishes "Whoever corruptly . . . obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so." A violation of section 1512 imposes a maximum sentence of 20 years

The prevailing view of constitutional law scholars is that the US president cannot be criminally charged by normal prosecutors, and any charges must be brought by Congress through the impeachment process. Unless Republicans in Congress change their minds, it is doubtful that the president will face any consequences if he is guilty of obstruction of justice.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/5/19/15658246/trump-russia-fbi-investigation

Legally, it all depends on the findings. If Mueller finds enough evidence, he could try to indict and convict anyone in the Trump campaign. That may include Trump, although there’s generally a consensus among legal experts that Trump could not be prosecuted until after he’s out of office — with a big caveat that this has never actually been tested in court, so the underlying assumption could be wrong.

“It’d be hard for him to go after Trump directly for all sorts of reasons,” Josh Chafetz, who studies the intersection of law and politics at Cornell Law School, told me. “But he could do an awful lot of damage to Trump without ever filing charges against Trump. Remember: In Watergate, [President Richard] Nixon was named as an unindicted co-conspirator, but none of the special prosecutors actually tried to indict Nixon.”

[Greyblades]

I was referring to the russian connections, the obsruction of justice charge has allready been established as completely unuseable due to the ongoing investigation being in no way impeded by the firing of comey.

[Gilrandir]

For all you Simpsons' fans out there:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21lhiKfc1p4

[Husar]

I was referring to the russian connections, the obsruction of justice charge has allready been established as completely unuseable due to the ongoing investigation being in no way impeded by the firing of comey.

Apparently you didn't read the post:

If President Trump asked then-FBI Director James Comey to drop the criminal investigation of General Michael Flynn, this would constitute obstruction of justice under 18 U.S.C. section 1505.

It's not about him firing Comey, but whether he asked Comey to end the investigation before he fired him.

[spmetla]

I was referring to the russian connections, the obsruction of justice charge has allready been established as completely unuseable due to the ongoing investigation being in no way impeded by the firing of comey.

For the Russian connections it's once again the same thing as with the obstruction, the President himself will not be charged with anything. His advisers and circle of friends/partners however can and possibly will be charged, be it like General Flynn and the charge of conducting diplomacy as an individual and not disclosing his foreign connections. Kushner may be in the same boat as Flynn and a whole host of other members of his white house staff, that's what the multiple investigations will determine.
Though none of these will probably be able to directly implicate Trump, the fact that he surrounds himself with possibly compromised persons will weaken his role as one to 'make America Great.' All these investigations however may reveal that he was trying to obstruct any look into to his associates which could be grounds for impeachment though at this moment that's highly unlikely. In a year's time though the damage of these investigations to himself and his party may make him such dead-weight that the Republicans may feel compelled to get rid of him in favor of having Pence as president.

Remember that just as it was with Nixon and Clinton, it's not the crime itself that ultimately hurt them it was the cover-up/lying.

Having many friends (in law enforcement and military) that are adamantly pro-Trump I know that right now they aren't swayed by anything that's happened. They see him as under attack by the the 'liberal' media and the 'deep state bureaucrats' and stand by him 100%. They think the Russian charges as BS and just an attempt by the left to subvert the election results. The empty gestures such as having the white house illuminated blue to support the police someone gain great traction.

I can't imagine however that they'll stand by him if his closest associates start going to jail (unless he pardons them). Unfortunately politics are so partisan and everyone is so wrapped in their echo chamber of self-righteousness that they refuse to acknowledge the faults of their side because the other is the enemy.

[Greyblades]

Apparently you didn't read the post:

It's not about him firing Comey, but whether he asked Comey to end the investigation before he fired him.

No, it isnt.

A request to stop without the authority of an order or the use of intimidation is not obstruction of justice and I cannot find any example of it being used as a basis for the charge.

In this case the wording of his statement was such that it cannot even reliably determined as request or expression of opinion.


For the Russian connections it's once again the same thing as with the obstruction, the President himself will not be charged with anything. His advisers and circle of friends/partners however can and possibly will be charged, be it like General Flynn and the charge of conducting diplomacy as an individual and not disclosing his foreign connections. Kushner may be in the same boat as Flynn and a whole host of other members of his white house staff, that's what the multiple investigations will determine.

I've heard arguments stating it is common incoming president's staff to be in contact with foreign nations in preparation for the transfer. Is this true and could it be applied to this situation?


Though none of these will probably be able to directly implicate Trump, the fact that he surrounds himself with possibly compromised persons will weaken his role as one to 'make America Great.' All these investigations however may reveal that he was trying to obstruct any look into to his associates which could be grounds for impeachment though at this moment that's highly unlikely. In a year's time though the damage of these investigations to himself and his party may make him such dead-weight that the Republicans may feel compelled to get rid of him in favor of having Pence as president.

I disagree with the idea that the republicans will just get rid of Trump just for being a dead weight. The republican establishment have wanted him out since day one and his continuing position is entirely predicated upon his base popularity. If they try to remove him without a undeniable reason, such as an actual obstruction of justice, a significant portion of thier electorate will revolt against the party.

They could have Pence now if they wanted, but they'd forfiet the next few elections and risk a schism.


Having many friends (in law enforcement and military) that are adamantly pro-Trump I know that right now they aren't swayed by anything that's happened. They see him as under attack by the the 'liberal' media and the 'deep state bureaucrats' and stand by him 100%. They think the Russian charges as BS and just an attempt by the left to subvert the election results.

I do not think their viewpoint are invalid, considering the devolution of some of left wing's media platforms to the level of disinformation previously dominated by Fox news and the frequent leaks from inside the government, many of which that werent in the public's interest to be revealed and only served to undermine Trump.


I can't imagine however that they'll stand by him if his closest associates start going to jail (unless he pardons them). Unfortunately politics are so partisan and everyone is so wrapped in their echo chamber of self-righteousness that they refuse to acknowledge the faults of their side because the other is the enemy.

I wish I could disagree with that.

A problem in both our contries over the last few decades is that the ruling partys have too often been able to survive as a ruling party despite so much incompetence only due to the even worse performance of the opposition.

Sometimes it seems as if self improvement has just gone out of style.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Self improvement has never gone out of style. It has been redefined.

The current definition trends towards marketing and name recognition. Brand loyalty is also valued. Content is immaterial.

[Gilrandir]

Remember that just as it was with Nixon and Clinton, it's not the crime itself that ultimately hurt them it was the cover-up/lying.


Was there any crime in Clinton's case?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Was there any crime in Clinton's case?

Probably perjury during a deposition, though he "fig-leafed" it a bit, using language that could be viewed as equivocal. As it was a private lawsuit, if I recall, the impeachability of it was in question from the outset.

[Gilrandir]

Probably perjury during a deposition, though he "fig-leafed" it a bit, using language that could be viewed as equivocal. As it was a private lawsuit, if I recall, the impeachability of it was in question from the outset.

But this was lying/cover-up Spmetla spoke about. Charges of adultery which he tried to hide can't be qualified as a crime.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

But this was lying/cover-up Spmetla spoke about. Charges of adultery which he tried to hide can't be qualified as a crime.

Nor did I suggest they were. It was the 'trying to hide' part during an sworn legal inquiry that constituted perjury (at least in the eyes of some). His peccadillos, however crass or glorious, were never the legal issue. That was just the tawdry bit all the media and comics had fun with the most.

[a completely inoffensive name]

A request to stop without the authority of an order or the use of intimidation is not obstruction of justice and I cannot find any example of it being used as a basis for the charge.

In this case the wording of his statement was such that it cannot even reliably determined as request or expression of opinion.

Distinction without a difference.

[Greyblades]

No difference as neither are impeachable.

[a completely inoffensive name]

No difference as neither are impeachable.

Anything is impeachable. Impeachment is a political trial, not a criminal one.

[spmetla]

I do not think their viewpoint are invalid, considering the devolution of some of left wing's media platforms to the level of disinformation previously dominated by Fox news and the frequent leaks from inside the government, many of which that werent in the public's interest to be revealed and only served to undermine Trump19685

Is this a fair view of how you see Trump then? Where do you get your news from, what to you is the best news source? The extreme faith that so many have in Trump absolutely boggles my mind. He lies, he whines, he bullies, he's refuses any transparencies in his finances, he's got zero tact and his methods and loyalties seem opposed to all the values that the US have tried to maintain for a president since our rise to superpower status.

As someone who supported Bush Jr, has never voted for Obama, and would have voted for McCain if he hadn't put looney Palin on his ticket I just don't understand how so many 'Republicans' can support such a man. What role do you want for the US in the world? Because if it's a as a responsible and respected superpower he's doing a great job at destroying our role in the international order.

[Greyblades]

Anything is impeachable. Impeachment is a political trial, not a criminal one.
Article two of the United States constitution, Section 4: The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

Sure, they could convict based on politics, but to impeach on either request or opinion would be to render the constitution worthless and set a hell of precident.

You really think there are enough senators in this or any congress that would cross that rubicon?

[Greyblades]

19685

Is this a fair view of how you see Trump then?
No.

Do you deny that he is often attacked by a array of news outlets who are frequently overeager to attack him?
Do you deny his administration is riddled by leaks of less than virtuous intent?


Where do you get your news from, what to you is the best news source?

BBC, Daily Mail, Reuters, Fox, the Guardian, the Express, various political commentators and this (https://world.liveuamap.com/).

Where do you get your news from?


The extreme faith that so many have in Trump absolutely boggles my mind. He lies, he whines, he bullies, he's refuses any transparencies in his finances, he's got zero tact and his methods and loyalties seem opposed to all the values that the US have tried to maintain for a president since our rise to superpower status.
Your presidents have lied and bullied since your rise, ther tact was selective at best, the only difference was a crafted appearance. I can assure your thier methods were only different in thier public exposure.

The finances are reporter bait, letting them ruin their credibility with hysteria over a innocent, ala Obama's birth certificate. As for loyalties, you did see what he did to Putin's pet syrian, correct?


As someone who supported Bush Jr, has never voted for Obama, and would have voted for McCain if he hadn't put looney Palin on his ticket I just don't understand how so many 'Republicans' can support such a man. What role do you want for the US in the world? Because if it's a as a responsible and respected superpower he's doing a great job at destroying our role in the international order.
Your role in the international order is set by your overwhelming strength and willingness to use it, your president's eloquence is but an optional extra.You havent been responsible since Bush Sr and you havent been respected since Junior. Trump is a symptom, not a cause of your recent decline.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Article two of the United States constitution, Section 4: The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

Sure, they could convict based on politics, but to impeach on either request or opinion would be to render the constitution worthless and set a hell of precident.

You really think there are enough senators in this or any congress that would cross that rubicon?

Both historical impeachments were politically motivated and failed when put to the vote in the Senate. The only one who WOULD have been impeached and convicted resigned before the articles of impeachment were introduced on the floor of the house.

[Greyblades]

Aye they were, but my understanding is that they were based upon actual crimes, this would be extending the definition of obstruction of justice past it's definition, essentially making a new crime. One that could make any number of officials criminals.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Aye they were, but my understanding is that they were based upon actual crimes, this would be extending the definition of obstruction of justice past it's definition, essentially making a new crime. One that could make any number of officials criminals.

Technically, all the impeachment and conviction does is to remove the person in question from office. Their removal from office leaves them open to subsequent criminal prosecution, which is not possible while in office. That is why Ford pardoned Nixon. Absent that pardon we would all have had to endure the spectacle of a former President being put on trial and probably found guilty. Ford chose to think being the first to resign and being tarnished in history was punishment enough.

Because all it does is remove them from office, it would not be redefining the law in any way.

However, you are partially correct in that it was the Senate's consideration in each case that the "crimes and misdemeanors" cited in the articles of impeachment were not sufficiently criminal (or maybe of concern/valid at all) to warrant removal from office. Johnson was retained in office by one vote; Clinton's margin was larger.

[Greyblades]

Because all it does is remove them from office, it would not be redefining the law in any way. Yes but wouldnt such an impeachment leave precident that could be used to put weight behind the removal of other officials for similar non crimes?

Maybe the american justice system is more napoleonic than common law than I understand it is, but I was under the impression that precident was still a force there.

[spmetla]

Do you deny that he is often attacked by a array of news outlets who are frequently overeager to attack him?
Do you deny his administration is riddled by leaks of less than virtuous intent?

He is often attacked but no more so than other any previous president. Obama's citizenship was doubted, Bush Jr was deemed a moron...

The leaks from his administration are worrying but right now they seem (to me at least) the symptoms of an administration that rewards sycophants and punishes/ostracizes anyone who doesn't toe the line or who offers too strong an opposing opinion. These leakers may think themselves whisteblowers with no normal avenue to avert what they consider poor decision making or worse case a manchurian candidate situation.


Where do you get your news from?
BBC, France 24, Deutsche Welle, CNN, PBS Newshour, CNBC Power Lunch. I'll check the foxnews site to read up on a different viewpoint of domestic issues. Occasionally I'll check NHK, China Daily, or ITAR TASS to see other international perspectives.

I asked because you're no fool but like I've said, the people I know here (USA) that share your opinions aren't exactly news readers. They seem to get their news from many far right facebook feeds which I follow but don't trust at all: Turning Point USA, Prager U, Trump Fan Network


Your presidents have lied and bullied since your rise, ther tact was selective at best, the only difference was a crafted appearance. I can assure your thier methods were only different in thier public exposure.
I'm aware of that, that's why people like Johnson bullied his advisors into supporting his polices leading into us bumbling into Vietnam despite all the professionals of the military and intelligence advising otherwise unless we were ready for total war with China too.

The veneer of civility is importance though, the office of president merits it. Tact is vital and most of president's have used it, we've never had such a brazen bully use his office so. At least not since 1800s


The finances are reporter bait, letting them ruin their credibility with hysteria over a innocent, ala Obama's birth certificate. As for loyalties, you did see what he did to Putin's pet syrian, correct?
He fired off a salvo of missiles and then nothing else. It's not like he's started a no fly zone or killed Assad. If Putin and Erdogan can be good buddies after one of Turkey's fighters shot down some Russians I'm sure that Putin doesn't mind too much if Assad is used as a punching bag to boost his American 'friend.'


Your role in the international order is set by your overwhelming strength and willingness to use it, your president's eloquence is but an optional extra.You havent been responsible since Bush Sr and you havent been respected since Junior. Trump is a symptom, not a cause of your recent decline.
The president's eloquence is the difference between being an international bully or the arsenal of democracy. The president is commander in chief and also our number one diplomat. If he's one without being the other we're in a lot of trouble. That's why our soft power has been so important and why Trumps apparent agenda of undermining/cutting the State Department worry me so much. I'm very much a hawk but the use of force must be done smartly, with clear military and political goals, not endless open-ended conflicts or limited strikes that alienate neutrals but don't destroy our enemies.

I agree wholeheartedly about the second sentence. Bush Sr would likely have managed crises like Somalia, the Balkans, Rwanda far better than Clinton. Like I've admitted elsewhere in the backroom I supported Jr far longer than I should have. I had hoped that he was half the man his father was, he had the same network of people around him but without the intellect, experience, or respect to use them effectively.

[Fragony]

Amiricans should be happy, you had the chose between two psychopats, The lesser evil will soon be gone probably.

[Strike For The South]

I am at the point where I don't believe anything I read anymore. His vanity and myopia concern me more than ever. The American presidency is very much an imperial position and those are not good traits

[Fragony]

You are late, I never take anything I read for granted

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Yes but wouldnt such an impeachment leave precident that could be used to put weight behind the removal of other officials for similar non crimes?

Maybe the american justice system is more napoleonic than common law than I understand it is, but I was under the impression that precident was still a force there.


Precedent is still of great import in the US legal system. 49 of our 50 states are based, for the most part, on common law.

Remember, though, that the impeachment of federal office-holders is a constitutional provision, not a legal one. Just as those serving are immune from prosecution while serving, so as to not be assailable in their duties while serving; the founders deemed it necessary to have a process for removing office holders from office. This was and is a political tool of governance and not of the legal system.

As a guideline, and since many of them are attorneys anyway, most reps deciding to vote for impeachment or not ARE considering the legal definitions of the grounds being used to move for impeachment. The Senate, upon trying an impeached officer holder, is almost certainly considering such standards as well. This is, however, a result of their training/orientation toward these issues and their decisions would NOT constitute legal precedent.

Previous decisions COULD also serve as influence to those voting to impeach or to convict, though that sense of precedence would not be part of the law in the way that legal precedence is held to be. Nevertheless, I recall myself that, when they were voting articles of impeachment against Clinton, that I thought it was of greater importance that they voted one article for obstruction of justice (essentially the same grounds that would have seen Nixon impeached) than for the perjury charge in a civil case. However, their failure to vote for "abuse of power" (the likely second would-have-been article against Nixon) signaled to me that the Senate would not vote to remove him from office. So, since I do NOT think my musings unique or that original, I suspect there were a number of folks in the Congress who were thinking of such 'precedents.'

In that sense, you may be correct that one decision can serve to guide/encourage future efforts against similar office holders.