smjjames

It's also not the first time we made that mistake, the Taliban have their roots in the muhajeen (sp?) that we supported during the Cold War. While that one has a longer timespan between the roots and the group and thus the connection isn't as direct, the parallels are there.

'VICTORY! BOOM! Lets go home!' would still be an accurate summary of the so called plan.

I thought the second Iraq war had a goal, topple Saddam? Still, the big problem was that it did lack an endgame* (or exit plan, if you will) and so, mission creep took over. Course though, both had the same problem that Vietnam ran into, that of politics getting in the way. *Or rather the 'endgame' was 'VICTORY! BOOM! Lets go home!', then Iraqis: 'Oh no you don't!', to paraphrase.

I'm gonna disagree with that to a point. I know you mean intervening militarily, but what about intervening in other ways? Take WWII, what would have happened if we didn't intervene militarily (and I'm invoking WWII as a whole, not just the European theatre)? 200 or even 100 years ago, 'leaving it alone' would be easier, but in todays globalized world, it's not so easy or simple an answer to 'just ignore it'. Don't get me wrong, I agree that there are things that we could have avoided doing militarily, like Iraq, but there are other situations where things could be made worse by ignoring diplomatically or otherwise non-militarily. Anyhow, Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee joins the race: https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/01/politics/inslee-2020-presidential-campaign/index.html I don't know much about him, but he seems to be pretty clearly a career politician, was in the state legislature, then US Rep., then Governor.

Lets go for 30 more pages! WOO!

OK, there is a little bit to unpack here so bear with me. That was not a short list of bad Presidents, it was a short list of bad people who were President. Taylor is not there because he was a bad executive. He was a drunk, opium addict, and was physically abusive of his wife and staff. Franklin Pierce was a drunk and a womanizer. Harding... well... Trump may even be his spiritual successor. When you start making moral judgments on people from the past it's not productive to apply modern mores to them. Being slave owners during a time when slavery was legal and commonplace (although not moral you could certainly argue) does not make them bad people necessarily. Just people of the time they were living in. That some people rose above those times and fought against immorality like slavery is more a credit to them than a detriment to the ones who did not. That we find that kind of thing reprehensible now says more about us than about them. 100 years from now people might look back on us as evil savages because we eat meat or something. That doesn't make us bad people, that's just how we rolled in the early 21st century. Being a drunk, or corrupt, or physically abusive of those who can't fight back has never been OK. So you CAN take those facts and form a judgement about people doing wrong, knowing it was wrong, and doing it anyway. To take your example Hoover was a very intelligent, religious, and morally upright man. He was just unlucky to have been in office when a crisis happened he did not know how to deal with. You could argue he was a bad President but not a bad person. We've had more than a few like that. In fact I'd say that kind outnumbers the rest. Oh hey Jimmy Carter! When did you get here? I didn't know that about Taylor, which reinforces my point actually in looking at all the facets. I may also have misunderstood (as you seem to have figured out) it as being a list of bad Presidents rather than bad people who were Presidents. LBJ might go on that list, he was a notoriously mean guy and a mean prankster or something, not sure where that ranks among the rest.

@GD: I don't remember anything about that speculation. I was definetly aware of the scandal happening, but I didn't pay much attention to politics stuff at the time. As for where Trump lands in comparison to Taylor* Harding, and others, theres those who were good people (YES, I know some of them were slaveholders and had views that would be profoundly racist today) and just handled it poorly or got shafted through no fault of their own (Hoover particularily, ouch) and others who were terrible POSs, you have to look at all facets. *IMO, the terrible rating of Taylor is somewhat unfair because he died in office after barely more than a year. Whether he handled things well during his time is something that can be debated, but he doesn't have as much as most Presidents

Yeah, as racist and terrible as Johnson was, the Johnson one was partisan as all hell, but what if the President is a real dirty piece of **** that needs impeaching? That's the problem with the system. Not neccesarily saying impeachment should be made easy, but the President shouldn't be above the law, as civillian or politician. On Al Gore, I get the feeling that the Republicans at the time either didn't care or definetly didn't take that into account as they just wanted their piece of meat, so to speak.

I did, heh. On the no mentioning holograms, how about better holograms.

@GD's joke chart thing: Heh. That list is also sexist for leaving out the other women candidates Also maybe homophobe for leaving out Buttigeig. am not democrat, so we got no involvement in primaries, but am finding warren and bloomberg most intriguing, if for different reasons. 'course bloomberg is older than biden and almost as old as sanders. call us ageist. harris is seeming like the current candidate-to-beat for the democrats as she has adopted the goldilocks zone for most issues and doesn't have any eyebrow raising questions regarding her background or campaign. HA! Good Fun! The only one of them I find even somewhat tolerable is Gabbard. She does have a few redeeming qualities. As you already know I am predisposed against the Democrat Party for a number of very good reasons. Hell will freeze solid before I ever cast a vote for one. Of course I'm predisposed against the Republican Party for pretty much the same set of reasons. And I used to be one of their biggest supporters. Heck I worked for a Republican candidate when he ran for Congress back in florida in '94. But as Reagan once said, I didn't leave them, they left me. John McCain was the last Republican I voted for and I strongly suspect we will be the last one I will ever vote for. Isn't Klobuchar more moderate than Gillibrand? Klobuchars apparent management style though.... I think I'll wait for the truth or perhaps more facts on that to come out before making an absolute judgement on that.

I disagree with you on that count. I don't think the idea of free social benefits or new "rights" to healthcare etc is all that good an idea. That isn't freedom. Freedom isn't an endlessly expanding list of rights -- the "right" to education, the "right" to food and housing. That's not freedom, that's dependency. What they are promising us are the rations of slavery -- hay and a barn for human cattle. Freedom is summed up in only one basic human right: the right to do as you damn well please. Take care of your own business with minimal intrusion from the government or each other so long as you don't intrude on everyone else's one basic right. THEN the government has a job to do. Not before. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences. Good or bad. When I look at the Presidential candidates of 2020 I am reminded of a quote from Daniel Webster: "There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters" Regardless of whether it's a good idea or not, they still have to figure out how to pay for it, that was my point. 'Ideas and all' are good in the sense in that it's fine to have ideas and debate the merits of them, but when it comes time to actually apply them as policy.... see stuff like Trumps insistence that Mexico will pay for the wall and trickle down theory.

Exactly how is that going to make me panic? Even if that goes exactly as you hope were trading one set of problems for a slightly different version of the same problems. You're telling me instead of being stung by a scorpion I get to be bitten by a snake. Hooray for us. Let me tell you a secret ktchong. The left wing and the right wing? They are both part of the same ugly bird. Here is another little secret... no matter who wins in '20 this gets worse: http://www.usdebtclock.org/ Tick tock tick tock tick tock..... I think ktchong is messing with you a bit GD Also @ktchong, there are roughly three months (I know the first debate is in June, don't know the specific date) until the first Democratic debates, a bit less than a year before the first primaries and over a year before the final primaries. A LOT can change in that amount of time and as we've seen in 2016, the term 'frontrunner' is quite ephemeral in a crowded primary. He may be the frontrunner now, but how long will he stay there? On free college and whatever, ideas and all are good, but the candidates will still have to figure out how to pay for it. @ the commie/socialist whatever, did you know that two of the most cherished things by conservatives were once bashed as being communist/socialist? https://static.politico.com/dims4/default/08a57a3/2147483647/resize/1160x%3E/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstatic.politico.com%2Fd2%2F26%2F8f8eb9b243b591dcf1fe2504df19%2F6-bill-bramhall-new-york-daily-news.jpg heh (I wanted to link the image directly to here, but forum software won't let me. )

I agree but tbh they need to jail Dowless jr as well. I doubt anything will happen to them since if it does, it opens up the door for something to happen to the democrats and past candidates on both sides as well since they used the same tactics as Dowless did as well. Funny thing was that he even complained about the democrats because he was doing "less" ballets because the democrats were doing what he was doing in areas before he could get to them, cutting down the extra money he woulda made. Sadly both parties have quite a bit of history of "open" corruption here in NC It's also a very safe seat, so, there is no practical point to even doing so in the first place.

Wolfenstein: The New Order isn't Diesel-Punk though, neither is Sky Captain and the World Of Tomorrow or Rocket-Man. Star-Trek isn't Ray-Punk. Wild Wild West is what Coal-Punk Lol Cassette Futurism.... I don't see Star Trek in there. Star Trek and its franchise doesn't fit neatly into any of the "punk" categories anyway. Ray-punk kind of overlaps with Atom-punk in the 50's and 60's because of the science fiction in that era. Never heard of 'casette futurism'. Kind of looks like 'near future' cyberpunk if you're going from the 70's and 80's though, so, maybe it's a subset of cyberpunk? Or maybe just a precursor to it. I think you fell for the bait. Bait for what?

I think he has lost it, considering that last time he worked on CBS show was 1993 (Alex Haley's Queen), when he was 11. I think GD meant Fox Entertainment, not CBS. Doesn't make Smolett's choice any less stupid though.

I've seen reports saying that there will be food shortages within days, if not hours, but regardless of the speculation, we'll see what actually does happen as Brexit is not much more than a month away and theres no sign of any sort of last second deal going through. I've read that there is a slim chance of the EU postponing the cutoff date by a couple months because EU elections, so.... who knows.

Months? From what I've read, the real economic problems are going to start appearing within 24 hours. We're talking hard Brexit crash through, not some agreement that eases things through. Ripple effects would definetly be expected though, given the shock that it gives to the global economy.

Wrong. To be honest, I didn't know which predictions you were talking about. I thought you were talking about the gloom and doom over the effects of a hard crash through Brexit. Number 5 there is being partially self-fulfilling at the moment, but it's extremely unlikely it'll spread much further. As for the recession and job loss stuff, while I guess those were warning of the pre-brexit proccess, we'll see what happens after Brexit crashes through. Myself though, I think they're being a bit TOO doom and gloom about the effects of Brexit. There will be problems, yes, but riots and stuff?

The only reason why their doom and gloom predictions are 'so far false' is because Brexit hasn't happened yet, the doom and gloom they predicted is stuff as a result of Brexit, not stuff that would happen before Brexit. After Brexit, we'll see how much of their doom and gloom is accurate.

Wolfenstein: The New Order isn't Diesel-Punk though, neither is Sky Captain and the World Of Tomorrow or Rocket-Man. Star-Trek isn't Ray-Punk. Wild Wild West is what Coal-Punk Lol Cassette Futurism.... I don't see Star Trek in there. Star Trek and its franchise doesn't fit neatly into any of the "punk" categories anyway. Ray-punk kind of overlaps with Atom-punk in the 50's and 60's because of the science fiction in that era. Never heard of 'casette futurism'. Kind of looks like 'near future' cyberpunk if you're going from the 70's and 80's though, so, maybe it's a subset of cyberpunk? Or maybe just a precursor to it.

Maybe he was going to use it as pretext to demand a raise, but even that is no guarantee. ' What do you guys think of this mess?' It's a terrible sad mess.

Word is that Mueller could be giving his report to the AG as early as next week. https://www.vox.com/2019/2/20/18233483/mueller-report-trump-russia-next-week CNN has a somewhat deeper detail into it: https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/20/politics/special-counsel-conclusion-announcement/index.html I thought it would maybe have a few more months in it, but we're going to have to cross the bridge of the Mueller investigation concluding at some point anyways. Hopefully the report comes out publicly with minimal redactions.

He does own a a rural homestead sort of plot of land, though whether it's arable, I don't know. Don't get the hint that he grows crops or anything. edit: Ninja'd. Wouldn't be surprised at this point if GD has a small garden or something though.

You should mine your own gold :D Theres only so much of that to go around though.

He did threaten the Republicans into submission by threatening to run as independent, though this was when he was already in a position to make Republicans quake in fear at the thought. Anyways, while the ‘unspecific’ (which are definitely sepecific, if not well understood by politicians) ill will is present on both sides of the aisle, there is a different current undergoing the Democratic race than there was in 2016, so, there is no guarantee that it’ll look closely like 2016 on the Republican side.