Trump Thread

[Graphic]

Grope, molestation, gilded age? Back in the day, it was called romance. Don't let these bitches fool you. They use their vaginas much like someone uses a credit card. Any females on here take offence? Good! You liked out having a vagina which is nothing more than a ATM. Empires rise and fall because of vagina. And those with vaginas DESTROY civilizations because of their vaginas (see Merkel, Hillary, May). But thankfully, Kek granted we in the United States Emperor Trump who shall deliver us from these filthy one world sluts who bring foreign rapists and murderers from 3rd century hell holes in order to destroy their own culture and civilizations. Guys, stop being cucks. Find your nads Euroweenies before all your women are in burkas and you live in desolate slums.... Praise Emperor Trump and his wisdom! MAGA!

Poe's law.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

What is the difference between wealth envy and greed? And people pay more because they get more and they still get more after paying more.
At some point it will be that you get more and then you get even more....rope or bullets, your choice...


Make America Communist Again!

The Middle Class/professional Class is too robust in the USA and the potential for socio-economic mobility is frequent enough to undercut any real threat of a communist uprising. If the "1%" ends up going too far, it will be taxed back. These things ebb and flow in the USA.

In Western Europe, Communism never quite took hold because of the presence of a middle class and political systems that allowed for reform. Perhaps Germany cam the closest in the 20's, but that threat paled (becoming more a foil for the NSDAP than a true takeover threat by the 30's. Italy marginalized the communist threat even sooner. The rest of Central Europe and the Balkans became communist only because of the presence of Soviet armies.

Communist takeovers have succeeded in China, Cuba, Russia, and Vietnam. None of those would have succeeded if anything RESEMBLING decent institutions existed and/or any government that wasn't utter kleptocracy.

[Gilrandir]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[HopAlongBunny]

Hurray!
With any luck, the withering away of the state under Trump will free you to choose your poison:

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_a...s_broader.html

Not only will pretty much any form of snake oil be available, but you will be free to purchase it :)
The market is self-regulating, and if you have the money you might live long enough to see the cream rise to the top

[rory_20_uk]

The Middle Class/professional Class is too robust in the USA and the potential for socio-economic mobility is frequent enough to undercut any real threat of a communist uprising. If the "1%" ends up going too far, it will be taxed back. These things ebb and flow in the USA.

In Western Europe, Communism never quite took hold because of the presence of a middle class and political systems that allowed for reform. Perhaps Germany cam the closest in the 20's, but that threat paled (becoming more a foil for the NSDAP than a true takeover threat by the 30's. Italy marginalized the communist threat even sooner. The rest of Central Europe and the Balkans became communist only because of the presence of Soviet armies.

Communist takeovers have succeeded in China, Cuba, Russia, and Vietnam. None of those would have succeeded if anything RESEMBLING decent institutions existed and/or any government that wasn't utter kleptocracy.

Italy had a threat of communists after WW2, but luckily(?) the CIA could afford to buy the elections.

You can't "tax back" when the methods of offshoring money is easier than ever. Americans have a wonderful / imbecilic belief that they too will be successful in the near future and continue to strive to do so.

[Montmorency]

Excerpts from the next big Trump book:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...-michael-wolff

The meeting was revealed by the New York Times in July last year, prompting Trump Jr to say no consequential material was produced. Soon after, Wolff writes, [Steve] Bannon remarked mockingly: “The three senior guys in the campaign thought it was a good idea to meet with a foreign government inside Trump Tower in the conference room on the 25th floor – with no lawyers. They didn’t have any lawyers.

“Even if you thought that this was not treasonous, or unpatriotic, or bad shit, and I happen to think it’s all of that, you should have called the FBI immediately.”

Bannon went on, Wolff writes, to say that if any such meeting had to take place, it should have been set up “in a Holiday Inn in Manchester, New Hampshire, with your lawyers who meet with these people”. Any information, he said, could then be “dump[ed] … down to Breitbart or something like that, or maybe some other more legitimate publication”.

“You realise where this is going,” he is quoted as saying. “This is all about money laundering. Mueller chose [senior prosecutor Andrew] Weissmann first and he is a money-laundering guy. Their path to fucking Trump goes right through Paul Manafort, Don Jr and Jared Kushner … It’s as plain as a hair on your face.”

Last month it was reported that federal prosecutors had subpoenaed records from Deutsche Bank, the German financial institution that has lent hundreds of millions of dollars to the Kushner property empire. Bannon continues: “It goes through Deutsche Bank and all the Kushner shit. The Kushner shit is greasy. They’re going to go right through that. They’re going to roll those two guys up and say play me or trade me.”

Scorning apparent White House insouciance, Bannon reaches for a hurricane metaphor: “They’re sitting on a beach trying to stop a Category Five.”

Don't know whether to take this as funny or scary.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

...Don't know whether to take this as funny or scary.

Both. Definitely both.

Of course, I have always found gallows humor entertaining....

[spmetla]

The new book at the least seems to show that Bannon thinks the Trump presidency is sunk and he wants to be seen as the guy who could have saved MAGA (make america great again) but was pushed aside by Don Jr, Kushner, and Ivanka.

Here's the Trump website Inaugural Year Approval Poll:
https://action.donaldjtrump.com/inau...approval-poll/

1. How would you rate President Trump’s first year in office (2017)?
Great
Good
Okay
Other
2. How would you rate President Obama’s first year in office (2009)?
Great
Good
Okay
Poor
Other
3. Do you believe the Fake News Media will fairly cover President Trump’s first year approval rating?
Yes
No
Other
4. Are there any other thoughts you’d like to share with the team? (Optional)

And here is their Presidential Approval Poll:
https://action.donaldjtrump.com/pres...oval-poll-nov/

1. How would you rate President Trump’s job in office so far?
Great
Good
Okay
Other, please specify:

2. (Optional) Do you have any feedback to add?

You can't submit your entry without entering you last name, email and zip code though. Not a lot of options or angles they are looking at though. The options don't allow my more negative opinion which I guess will be classified as Other. Funny that the poll question for Obama's first year has 'poor' as an option but not for Trump's first year.

[Husar]

Don't know whether to take this as funny or scary.

Hilarious, especially when he calls his own (former?) news outlet less legitimate than others.

[HopAlongBunny]

The Trump team are beginning to look like a ship, stuck in the ice.
The alternative to gracefully shedding this mortal coil, is to eat your own.
Bannon goes "buffet style" - with extra helpings of Jared:

https://www.politico.com/magazine/st...kushner-216166

I do hope for a Congressional Committee report about all this some day

[Hooahguy]

You can't submit your entry without entering you last name, email and zip code though. Not a lot of options or angles they are looking at though. The options don't allow my more negative opinion which I guess will be classified as Other. Funny that the poll question for Obama's first year has 'poor' as an option but not for Trump's first year.

Why is this a surprise at all? His ego is so fragile that he needs these manufactured polling numbers to inflate his self esteem. Sad.

Meanwhile I am wondering how much longer it is until he tweets us into a war.

[rory_20_uk]

He's the first proper Reality President. In his world, there is no more real war than one fought via Twitter / the Cable Networks and the Internet.

Proper wars are so long, boring and complex. He'd not have the patience for one.

[Husar]

The Trump team are beginning to look like a ship, stuck in the ice.
The alternative to gracefully shedding this mortal coil, is to eat your own.
Bannon goes "buffet style" - with extra helpings of Jared:

Would it go too far to think that maybe Bannon always thought of the Trumps as idiots, but ones he could manipulate well enough to further his own agenda?

[rory_20_uk]

Would it go too far to think that maybe Bannon always thought of the Trumps as idiots, but ones he could manipulate well enough to further his own agenda?

With a background of the Navy and Goldman Sachs, I imagine he is of the view that anything that furthers the desired agenda is an ally / tool and anything that doesn't is an enemy. Trump, more than anything else, does things that enrich himself and make him look good (often the two are linked). This attack goes after both of them in a not-exactly-subtle way. But "fixing" the problem is as easy as moving the agenda back to something Bannon wants. Everything will be quickly blamed on "deep government" and the shadowy forces that are at play - if that is even required since the new cycle is so quick who will even remember?

Bannon doesn't have the money to buy nor the clout to quietly manipulate. So he's doing the only route he has (and truth be told, probably his favourite) which is the aggressive, public attacks.

I personally think Bannon's idealism is as deeply flawed as most ideals are, and he'll never be happy since what he wants can never work: the USA will never be the manufacturing exporter of the 1950s again with a surplus of well paid blue collar workers until the rest of the world obliges by destroying themselves... and even then it probably won't happen.

Good thing he seems to like being the maverick outsider back by fellow idealists with very deep pockets.

[Montmorency]

There have been various optimistic articles published lately about 2017 events, despite the damage sustained by our institutions, being testament to the enduring strength of those institutions in the face of Trump's weak, low-energy fumbling.

The Lawfare blog published a bunch, of which one:

One of most remarkable stories of 2017 was the extent to which President Donald Trump was prevented from executing his many pledges—both on the campaign trail and in office—to violate the law. As predicted, courts, the press, the bureaucracy, civil society, and even Congress were aggressive and successful in stopping or deterring Trump from acting unlawfully.*

[...]

In short, the political appointees in the Justice Department who are connected to the Mueller investigation have shown that they follow the rules and norms of the department despite the president’s wishes otherwise. This is all an amazing (though widely unappreciated) testament to DOJ’s independence and the rule of law. I think the mechanisms that worked so well in 2017 will keep working to see the investigation through, no matter what steps Trump takes to stop it.

The state is bigger than Trump, but Trump isn't the only 'enemy of the state'; let's not start counting our dicks and sucking our chickens.

[Agent Miles]

Megyn Kelly supposedly gives Trump a hard time at the debates and boom...she has her own TV show. Amarosa does a year at the WH and now she's writing a book after being "let go". Bannon "the Maverick" is going to do a tell-all about his time as a staffer (flunky) describing how Trump is betraying his base. Have any of you actually ever watched a reality show? Everyone is being played by Trump and his pals. They're laughing all the way to the bank.

Trump is the most liberal Republican that ever lived. He contributed to both Clintons' earlier campaigns. He won't start a war because he's having too much fun.

Look, his base are tired of liberal's trying to create the America in Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron. They want the government to stop handicapping our businesses, our workers and our country. Dems say MAGA means a return to Jim Crow, segregation and slavery. They want to forget that these were institutions the Democrats created. The Republicans had nothing to do with those. That's why MAGA works for the Reps. Republicans are not ashamed of the Civil War, or the Emancipation Proclamation or working with free African Americans.

We now know as a scientific fact that 75,000 years ago, only a few thousand people were left alive after Mount Toba exploded in the Pacific. They all lived in Africa. Every human alive today is descended from an African and only one race, the human, exists. Reps don't wallow in 19th century fears and ignorance about race. More people are working now and I hope that more people vote, one way or the other, in 2018 than ever before.

[Husar]

Megyn Kelly supposedly gives Trump a hard time at the debates and boom...she has her own TV show. Amarosa does a year at the WH and now she's writing a book after being "let go". Bannon "the Maverick" is going to do a tell-all about his time as a staffer (flunky) describing how Trump is betraying his base. Have any of you actually ever watched a reality show? Everyone is being played by Trump and his pals. They're laughing all the way to the bank.

Trump is the most liberal Republican that ever lived. He contributed to both Clintons' earlier campaigns. He won't start a war because he's having too much fun.

Look, his base are tired of liberal's trying to create the America in Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron. They want the government to stop handicapping our businesses, our workers and our country. Dems say MAGA means a return to Jim Crow, segregation and slavery. They want to forget that these were institutions the Democrats created. The Republicans had nothing to do with those. That's why MAGA works for the Reps. Republicans are not ashamed of the Civil War, or the Emancipation Proclamation or working with free African Americans.

We now know as a scientific fact that 75,000 years ago, only a few thousand people were left alive after Mount Toba exploded in the Pacific. They all lived in Africa. Every human alive today is descended from an African and only one race, the human, exists. Reps don't wallow in 19th century fears and ignorance about race. More people are working now and I hope that more people vote, one way or the other, in 2018 than ever before.

Are you trying to get a job with actual fake news outlets?

[spmetla]

Trump is the most liberal Republican that ever lived. He contributed to both Clintons' earlier campaigns. He won't start a war because he's having too much fun.

Look, his base are tired of liberal's trying to create the America in Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron. They want the government to stop handicapping our businesses, our workers and our country. Dems say MAGA means a return to Jim Crow, segregation and slavery. They want to forget that these were institutions the Democrats created. The Republicans had nothing to do with those. That's why MAGA works for the Reps. Republicans are not ashamed of the Civil War, or the Emancipation Proclamation or working with free African Americans.

We now know as a scientific fact that 75,000 years ago, only a few thousand people were left alive after Mount Toba exploded in the Pacific. They all lived in Africa. Every human alive today is descended from an African and only one race, the human, exists. Reps don't wallow in 19th century fears and ignorance about race. More people are working now and I hope that more people vote, one way or the other, in 2018 than ever before.

Trump's contributions don't make him liberal, it just makes him a rich guy buying political favors, he's said so himself.

I don't know why you bring up that the Democrats were the party of the south in the past. How is that relevant to now? After Kennedy and Johnson the Democrats lost the south and those voters have been republican supporters since. Yes, the Democrats have a past with shame in it, so do the Republicans but both parties now are not at all like they were 20 or 30 years ago much less 150 years ago.

The whole mantra of MAGA seems to be wallowing in dreams of an ivory towered past. America is great now, lets make it better. America in the '50s wasn't like leave it to beaver and I love Lucy for most Americans, why pretend that it was. We were at our height because all our competitors had been completed destroyed and bankrupted in WW2 while our industrial and financial base was untouched and therefore without any real competition left until the mid 60s into the 70s. That's not going to happen again unless Europe and East Asia into in a WW3 without our interfering for the first few years again.
Additionally for the MAGA idea that advocates isolationism, that worked for us when the Pax Britannia allowed us to piggy back on their world wide security and creation of an English speaking world market. For us to revert now with no one to play global policeman would be to go without the anglo-sphere world order that has allowed the rise of the USA since the 18th century. Being a globalist power is in our interest.

[Agent Miles]

Husar, you did not demonstrate how any of my post was fake. Thanks for trying to shoot the messenger. I'm told that is the major tactic in "The losers guide to intellectual cowardice."

Spmetla, I can't prevent some racist jerk from voting Republican any more than a Democrat can stop a marxist, anarchist thug from pretending to be a champion of anti-fascism. Nonetheless, 150 years ago my Republican ancestors were indeed at war with Democrats that thought they owned African Americans, could think for them and tell them what to do. We're still working on that one. When LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act, he was heard to say, "Now the (n-word)s will vote for us for the next 200 years."

After WW2, the USA was not destroyed by the conflict. However, we used open markets to rebuild our allies and former enemies both. Yes, we profited, but we knew that we were doing the right thing. Our new competitors profited from our open markets too and grew their economies. However, free trade does not mean you can sell us everything and we can't sell you our best paying products. It doesn't mean that the PRC can sell us cheap crap and we must give them the blueprints and intellectual property to anything we sell in China. That's not free trade. It's also not an open border for imports when what we really get are drugs, foreign gangs and human trafficking. If you control what your children watch on the internet it's not tyranny. When we control what crosses our borders it's not isolationism.

The PRC leaders believe that they have 3 times the population of the US, so eventually they will have 3 times our GDP. That would of course equate to a military 3 times ours as well. I shudder at what you may mean by "anglo-sphere world order", but we need to fix the economy that 8 years of socialism has gutted in order to compete. That's what Trump is already doing.

[rory_20_uk]

After WW2, the USA was not destroyed by the conflict. However, we used open markets to rebuild our allies and former enemies both. Yes, we profited, but we knew that we were doing the right thing. Our new competitors profited from our open markets too and grew their economies. However, free trade does not mean you can sell us everything and we can't sell you our best paying products. It doesn't mean that the PRC can sell us cheap crap and we must give them the blueprints and intellectual property to anything we sell in China. That's not free trade. It's also not an open border for imports when what we really get are drugs, foreign gangs and human trafficking. If you control what your children watch on the internet it's not tyranny. When we control what crosses our borders it's not isolationism.

The PRC leaders believe that they have 3 times the population of the US, so eventually they will have 3 times our GDP. That would of course equate to a military 3 times ours as well. I shudder at what you may mean by "anglo-sphere world order", but we need to fix the economy that 8 years of socialism has gutted in order to compete. That's what Trump is already doing.

Right thing? Giving up Eastern Europe was the "Right Thing"? This was done on moral grounds?

The USA took a vast amount of IP and property after both WW1 and WW2 never big on giving this back. So yes, the markets were open... after they'd ensured they were as biased in their own direction as humanly possible. Right up there with The British Empire wanting "free Markets" with China - absolutely fine since the rules are massively fixed.

The USA continues to have vast amount of their own rules about how one can work and play in the USA.

You appear to have overlooked the vast amount of weaponry that leaves the USA, both to support the gangs that would not exist without the USA's "war on drugs" as well as sold to dictators around the world.

8 years of problems that the Root Cause was Socialism. Not unregulated Capitalism that led to the massive crash...? Oh, and the National Debt went up massively under Bush II. But these things hardly fit the narrative, do they? Trump might "Sort Everything Out". Time will tell. So far... not much to show. I know, I know... Deep State right?

[Agent Miles]

Churchill and FDR (a socialist Democrat by the way) gave up Eastern Europe, not Trump or a Republican.

Here's a site from your own UK that credits post war Free Trade to your favorite empire:

http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/22351/1/wp78.pdf

Actually, all of the countries originally lowered their tariffs to near zero and the US suffered industry adjustments to cheaper imports. So unless you have proof to your posts, then thank you soooo much.

The Obama (a democratic Socialist BTW) program "Fast and Furious" to sell guns to Mexican Drug lords is not on Trump's list of things to continue. As to dictators buying our weapons, will someone please explain the part about how adults should only do business with the really nice people in the world? Before everyone jumps at the chance, remember that you then take responsibility for the millions of people that will perish at the hands of their neighbors who were not armed by the US.

The "crash" was indisputably caused when Democrats (really, really nice people BTW) passed a law that banks absolutely had to give home owner mortgages to people who could not afford to pay them. When they actually could no longer pay the fees, the banks, who could not allow default by law, added the deficit to the mortgage until the sum was unbearable. The capitalism, i.e. basic math, wasn't unregulated. Ever. Also, Bush II didn't double the national debt as Obama did. I suppose over five trillion dollars invested in the economy and the lowest unemployment for Blacks in 17 years and Hispanics in the entire history of the records isn't much to show for it...yet.

[rory_20_uk]

It takes a... "special" type of person to in a system of government with two chambers and a president to manage to blame everything on "the other lot" regardless of when an event happened and who is in power. Clearly you fall into that category. I have little interest in whether Democrats or Republicans are responsible.

The USA gave up Eastern Europe. Britain was all but defeated in 1941 if the USA had not joined since Germany declared war. The USA has undertaken almost every intervention on grounds that are miles away from a "moral" standpoint.

The paper itself states the author disagrees with others. So you've found someone with a point of view. Well done. Given it is a view that disagrees with me, I should be calling it "Fake News!". As it is I'll just say it is a viewpoint and apparently one that is not shared by many others in the

Industry adjustments. Wow, that must have been a tough period. Meanwhile most empires in Europe had fallen; Germany was partially occupied by France and had a currency collapse. America, meanwhile had to deal with some changes to imports! Then WW2 where everything in Europe was almost flattened. Yes, clearly everyone suffered.

Proof how this could benefit the USA:

The territory USA annexed from the Germans post-WW1; from Japan post WW2
The patents USA took post WW1 - such as the company Merck. Oh, and a bit more: Half a billion taken
A reference that Europe was damaged by the war. You seriously need a reference that industry was damaged?

The USA is still selling guns. They have done under Republicans and under Democrats. And I LOVE how selling guns doesn't need to be moral (or sort of is since it is more good old moral relativism) yet invading (sorry - saving) Libya should be.

But don't forget - it can all be dismissed as Fake News.

[Hooahguy]

The Obama (a democratic Socialist BTW)

program "Fast and Furious" to sell guns to Mexican Drug lords is not on Trump's list of things to continue.

Program started in 2006 but ok. Not going to argue the morality of the program as the whole drug war is a farce but it was hardly a program started by Obama.

The "crash" was indisputably caused when Democrats (really, really nice people BTW) passed a law that banks absolutely had to give home owner mortgages to people who could not afford to pay them. When they actually could no longer pay the fees, the banks, who could not allow default by law, added the deficit to the mortgage until the sum was unbearable. The capitalism, i.e. basic math, wasn't unregulated. Ever.

Pointing to one single action as the cause of the 2008 crash shows a major misunderstanding of what actually caused the crash, which was caused by an amalgamation of issues within the financial and housing markets.

Also, Bush II didn't double the national debt as Obama did.

No but he did get us into two wars, one of which is still going on today and the other was under false pretenses and destabilized the Middle East even further.

[Agent Miles]

In case you missed it, I clearly blamed exactly the people who actually caused those incidents and when. I'll use smaller words...the Dems.

The Dems sold out East Europe (2 syllables, sorry).

You do not seem to have a view. "Site cynic" is not a view.

Free trade good! We lost low wage jobs to trade. We got new jobs though.

Men from GE in US in WW1: 1,000,000s. Men in camps: 2300. Ooooh.

So we should have saved east Europe, but not Libya? Got it.

[Montmorency]

In case you missed it, I clearly blamed exactly the people who actually caused those incidents and when. I'll use smaller words...the Dems.

The Dems sold out East Europe (2 syllables, sorry).

You do not seem to have a view. "Site cynic" is not a view.

Free trade good! We lost low wage jobs to trade. We got new jobs though.

Men from GE in US in WW1: 1,000,000s. Men in camps: 2300. Ooooh.

So we should have saved east Europe, but not Libya? Got it.

I doubt that it's possible for reasoned discourse to go on when individuals have such dramatically different understandings of even the most basic facts, but I will start here:

Eastern Europe was not the Democrats' to sell out, and at the time a large contingent of the Republicans was still oriented towards selling out Western Europe in the post-war order.

[Agent Miles]

The executive branch decides foreign policy. Congress votes to ratify most decisions. FDR decided not to nuke Moscow to save Eastern Europe. A decision not to do something doesn't get ratified by anyone. So no Republican involvement in the decision.

[Hooahguy]

How could FDR decide to not nuke Moscow? The first atom bomb test was in July 1945. FDR passed away in April 1945.

You must mean Truman, who at the time erroneously thought that the Soviets wouldnt get the bomb so why nuke Moscow which by the way probably wouldnt have done much since the USSR is so vast and if we learn anything from Napoleon, taking Moscow wont subjugate the Russians.

[Montmorency]

The executive branch decides foreign policy. Congress votes to ratify most decisions. FDR decided not to nuke Moscow to save Eastern Europe. A decision not to do something doesn't get ratified by anyone. So no Republican involvement in the decision.

Can you try to see why this statement (leaving aside the FDR anachronism pointed out by Hooah) is so astonishing to sober minds?

First, the assumption that nuking Moscow would even be possible. Numerous aspects to address here, including technical (specifications of bombs and planes) and operational (where in the world could America launch this suicide mission from, and how would this force survive traversing hundreds of kilometers of Soviet territory to reach Moscow?).

Second, the premise that accomplishing a nuclear strike on Moscow in, say, 1946, would not be a great evil, whether relative to the aim or not. You must be familar with the debate on the legality and morality of the original nuclear attacks; a covert countervalue attack on the political capital of the Soviet Union in a time of peace would unarguably be the single greatest crime against humanity in the history of the United States of America.

Third, the argument that simply bombing Moscow and killing thousands of civilians would end the Soviet presence in Eastern Europe and magically bring about a democratic revival, rather than shattering the role of the United States in shaping the post-war peace in the eyes of the nations - instigating World War 3, a Soviet wave across Central Europe, millions more dead worldwide, and the collapse of the United States government and armed forces.

I must very strongly impress upon you my belief that only a dangerous lunatic on the scale of 10 Curtis LeMays could seriously endorse the above position.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Can you try to see why this statement (leaving aside the FDR anachronism pointed out by Hooah) is so astonishing to sober minds?

First, the assumption that nuking Moscow would even be possible. Numerous aspects to address here, including technical (specifications of bombs and planes) and operational (where in the world could America launch this suicide mission from, and how would this force survive traversing hundreds of kilometers of Soviet territory to reach Moscow?).

Second, the premise that accomplishing a nuclear strike on Moscow in, say, 1946, would not be a great evil, whether relative to the aim or not. You must be familar with the debate on the legality and morality of the original nuclear attacks; a covert countervalue attack on the political capital of the Soviet Union in a time of peace would unarguably be the single greatest crime against humanity in the history of the United States of America.

Third, the argument that simply bombing Moscow and killing thousands of civilians would end the Soviet presence in Eastern Europe and magically bring about a democratic revival, rather than shattering the role of the United States in shaping the post-war peace in the eyes of the nations - instigating World War 3, a Soviet wave across Central Europe, millions more dead worldwide, and the collapse of the United States government and armed forces.

I must very strongly impress upon you my belief that only a dangerous lunatic on the scale of 10 Curtis LeMays could seriously endorse the above position.

While it would have been a crime against humanity with little or no fig leaf at all, and while it is arguable whether it would have destabilized the Soviets enough (my bet is not), an atomic strike on Moscow was doable in 1946, B-29 Silverplates and P-51Ds both had operational altitudes that would have made interception almost impossible by the Soviet air forces. This is only true of 1946 and part of 1947 however, as the Russians were aware of the problem and rapidly developing planes that could intercept and fight above 35k feet. By 1947/1948 that window had been closed.

[Kralizec]

The "crash" was indisputably caused when Democrats (really, really nice people BTW) passed a law that banks absolutely had to give home owner mortgages to people who could not afford to pay them. When they actually could no longer pay the fees, the banks, who could not allow default by law, added the deficit to the mortgage until the sum was unbearable. The capitalism, i.e. basic math, wasn't unregulated. Ever. Also, Bush II didn't double the national debt as Obama did. I suppose over five trillion dollars invested in the economy and the lowest unemployment for Blacks in 17 years and Hispanics in the entire history of the records isn't much to show for it...yet.

Banks were not obliged to give anyone a loan. Ever. You are peddling fantasies.
Before you mention Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the fact is that the mortgages they gave out actually turned out better on average than those of private companies who also dealt in subprime mortgages. Private banks, which obscured the risks of subprime loans with sophisticated securitization schemes, had a much larger hand in the crisis.

It's undeniable that the USA's national debt exploded in the Obama years, but when he took office the economy had imploded. Most countries in the world took refuge in deficit spending after the crises. Also, some of the bigger budget busting expenditures, such as TARP, were actually approved in the last year of the Bush administration.