smjjames

The bacteria would be a much bigger and more immediate concern though. Anyways, on the earlier discussion about the debt, Trump (assuming he wins in 2020) looks set to baloon the deficit through 2021. Though it's not a done deal until he actually signs it. https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/22/white-house-congress-budget-deal-1425192 https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/22/deficit-don-budget-red-ink-trump-1426696 https://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook-pm/2019/07/22/how-the-budget-deal-could-sail-or-sink-460507

Well yeah, it can go bad, but not rot in the absolute sense. Anyways, quibble quibble definition definition.

Water doesn't rot.... Still, even if you hire 100,000 volunteers, it does no good unless you tell them where to go and deliver the supplies. Mismanagement and mis-logisticing was the problem behind it, not a lack of volunteers.

I think you're missing the sarcasm and/or humor here at least by a bit. I agree here, tribalism all the way down. Usually, but they were gnawing at each other just recently until Trump tried to join in.

I thought you meant prepare for/take advantage of as in doing or planning on doing shady corrupt stuff to take advantage of the situation corruptly.

@GD I'm fully aware of the debt being sky high. It does frustrate me that they keep kicking the debt ceiling can (I prefer oil barrel for the metaphor instead of can) down the road, not because I want a debt default, but because the reason they keep doing it is because they aren't dealing with the problem. Regarding 2), I seriously doubt most politicians have any plans that far ahead, that is jumping right into the conspiracy theory rabbit hole. Will there be some who profit off of or take advantage of the situation? definetly, but they aren't telepathic cithulhuoids which can see into the future precisely when a collapse will happen. On top of that, I'd like to introduce 3) 'they don't understand the problem.' This, along with the fact that some think we can go further on the debt (due to erroneous economic theory or whatever) and the general behavior of politicians fits occams razor MUCH better than explaination 2.

I may have been too... blunt or something with adding the 'war' part in there, but yes, it was intended as a 'as opposed to what alternate situation?' sort of question. I haven't personally heard or read anything about liberals massively taxing our way out of this, but some sort of tax increase on the wealthy or something would likely be part of the overall solution. As for cutting spending, it would definetly be beneficial to 'trim the fat', as it were, and cut out inefficient or useless things or things that are no longer functioning and things that don't need to be funded as much (all of which, TBH, mostly vary from politician to politician). Then theres stuff which really DO need more funding than they actually get (cuts elsewhere would offset some of this). Only problem is that the Republicans would rather take a battleaxe to things rather than doing it in a way that doesn't make things worse.

I thought I'd read something about them letting it go or letting it go soon. Irans actions make sense in that context. As for the British actions, it does seem odd to have the law suddenly be enforced where it wasn't being for years by Spain, or anybody else for that matter. So, the Iranians being more than indigniant is certainly understandable as they'd be like 'WTF? Why are you enforcing it NOW?' regardless of whether they were actually complying from the start or not. Also, I wonder, if war breaks out between US and Iran and the UK gets dragged into it one way or another, would that be reason enough to cancel Brexit or at least for the EU to delay it further? Going to war just as you enter economic turmoil is a pretty dumb idea, unless of course the point of the war is to fix the turmoil. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/20/boris-johnson-iran-gulf-crisis-admiral-lord-west https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/20/new-pm-take-note-iran-crisis-could-escalate-into-war

As opposed to what, war? I thought the British had already released the ship that they had detained at Gibraltar? It could be a 'How do YOU like it now, huh??" sort of thing, but yeah, it's an unneccesary provocation.

I was gonna respond to skarpen whether he'd be willing to test that hypothesis by coming over here with some personal drugs and get caught with it, but your response is more reasonable. I'm confused, how does getting what he deserves make the Hague a tool of the west? In one breath you basically say it's all political and seemingly imply that he doesn't deserve it, then the next you say he deserves it. I think I read somewhere that the high burn rates, especially for those polling around 1%, is that they're pushing hard to meet the debate requirements, thus they have to burn more than they'd probably like in order to get there.

Iran does seem rather calm for having one of it's drones shot down. If that's the case, *insert Trump double facepalm pic* Also, if it's really the case of having one of our drones shot down, that'd be a bad case of combined friendly fire and possibly confirmation bias on the part of the crew. Also2, it may also be possible that it belongs to some third actor, but the proof is now at the bottom of the Strait.

So, the debate draw pretty soon, and the information explaining how they're doing it at the bottom two posts of the liveblog https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/cnn-democratic-debate-draw/index.html

If you're referring to my optimism, it's a bit more 'never say never' since most of the usual conventions and assumptions don't seem to apply anymore. If he can win the way he did (minus the vitriol), what's stopping the Democrats from winning that way? It's still the Democrats race to lose though. Also, for the record, I haven't settled on any particular favorite yet.

You seem to be missing the point (or at least not indicating that you do get the point) that KaineParker is making. There were people saying that Trump is too extreme and will never be elected, then he got elected. Friedman is saying the exact same kind of thing here, that the Democrats are being too extreme and won't be elected. So, is Friedman right? We don't know as Trump has thrown all the usual norms into question.

Yeah, that's what I meant earlier when I told GD to not underestimate the left and that anything could happen since Trumps election has thrown the usual rules into doubt.

Of the three you mention, I assume you mean Biden (elderly, yeah, buffoon? Come on. Though his debate performance doesn't bode well despite Trump being scared ****less of him. Gonna give him the benefit of the doubt that he's just rusty (though he really SHOULD have at least anticipated that broadside from someone and Harris had apparently been telegraphing it as incoming for months) and there is plenty of time to improve) and probably Tulsi Gabbard as you've mentioned number of times that you'd possibly vote for her given the chance, but who's the third? Theres a buttload of them polling at 1%. Also, it's still early, one of the 1% pollings could still pull away, not hugely likely, but still. edit: Why is sh it a bleeped out thing? I mean, really?

Call* me when it actually breaks out into a brouhaha of fisticuffs.... *Not literally, obviously. Ursula Von der Leyen officially becomes the head of the EU. At least I think the position is supposed to be the head of the EU? Also, she's replacing Donald Tusk I think, right? Not sure if Donald Tusk was actually in the same postion or not, but he was definetly the face of EU parliamentary leadership. Also, I thought Trump would totally be for an EU army given how he's all 'Others need to take up the slack!'.

Fair enough then. lol

Not sure why you guys are still creating a new one when it gets around 30-40 pages, you don't need to do that anymore.

They'd probably be more puzzled by it than repelled if anything. Sure, there will be some that go 'NO HERETICS!', but the candidate-is-Hindu thing is uncharted waters politically, so, theres the whole unfamiliarity factor to deal with. Religion hasn't come up much (which isn't surprising given the Democrats) and the only criticism of her that I've heard of is her visit with Syrias leader and some anti-LGBTQ stuff when she was younger. Whether the is-Hindu thing is getting tossed around negatively in conservative circles, I don't know. Hinduism isn't too different from Christianity in some ways, but it'd still be a massive exotic factor for most people. I know most won't see it that way, but when it comes down to it, faith is still faith, right? Incidentially, Kamala Harris is also part Indian (India that is), wouldn't be surprised if is-secret-hindu was attempted as an attack line or some conspiracy theory at some point.

It's certainly enough of a maxim that it likely is, or Napoleon just popularized it or something. As for 'one of the raging leftists', given how Trump is a 'raging rightist' (though he is rather moderate in some areas) and how people dismissed him as not going to win, I wouldn't underestimate that side or dismiss the possibility. @ graham: You keep using that word (the C word), but I don't think it means what you think it means.

The only link I can find with any definite date of it being said: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/07/06/never-interfere/#more-875 has it being said a decade before Waterloo. Though given that it's a maxim of/in war, I wouldn't be surprised if Sun Tzu and Clausewitz have things with the same meaning. Still, as much as the Democrats would like Trump to stew in his own tweet-fluids and let him self destruct, not fighting back is not an option here.

If the Democrats don't get their act together, yes the possibility is there.

Nah, he should keep it up. At this rate, the Democrats will win by a LANDSLIDE! Really though, he has done the metaphorical shooting in the foot (whether it's stragetically, tactically, or just plain old getting out of ones own way) so much that he doesn't even have metaphorical legs to shoot into at this point.

Yes it puts the rest of the protestors in a bad light, but seriously though, you can't expect to not have a few bad actors/apples out of millions of protestors. Re BruceVC on flag vandalizing: It's the Blue Lives matter flag, not the US flag. I don't know what the laws are in South Africa, but flag burning (to use a slightly more extreme example) is protected free speech here. Doesn't mean that there aren't people who want to ban that practice and make it equivalent to treason.