smjjames

It's too early to see where the political debate would go, but yeah, it's guaranteed to spark some political debate. Though the Republicans are trying to focus on so called tax reform atm.

Speaking of Podesta, his brother Tony Podesta quit the Podesta Group lobbying firm this morning in light of the new information. Take it as you will I guess. http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/business-a-lobbying/357836-dem-lobbyist-podesta-steps-down-amid-mueller-scrutiny Whether it somehow leads to the Clinton corporation and the campaign remains to be seen. No indication that he has started down that trail yet. Also, it's Manafort.

"Children look! I've created violet beer!" Heh, yeah, I wasn't sure either whether that was a lantern or a beer mug with a rather large lid on it. Decided on lantern.

Something this morning, a bunch of children (mostly Aumaua, a few Humans, and at least one Elf, I think), and two who seem to be late teens or young adults, around who might be Xloti https://twitter.com/jesawyer/status/925044394775871489 Maybe a gang in Neketaka?

Personally I dont think Trump knew anything about the indictments around the criminal activities like money laundering and I also dont think Trump knew many Russians or directly colluded with Putin but key people in his campaign did work with the Russians and thats what I want to know I'll concede that it's entirely possible that he got played by bad actors and/or got played by the Russians, but that doesn't explain his behavior towards Russia, which had been going on for a long time before the campaign.

The question though is, "Why were they trying to set up a secret meeting with Putin?". Also, "Who told them to set up a meeting with Putin and the other stuff?" Trump doesn't do email, so, that's going to be harder to connect, but if their apparent incompetence in covering their tracks is indicative of anything, there could very well be an email saying that Trump speciically told them to do so. This is hypothetical of course, such evidence hasn't appeared yet.

I think he dived (and sank) into the deepest, darkest, murkiest, stickiest, dankest part of the swamp long ago and has yet to resurface for air.

Why would you associate Manaford with Trump only? Of all the people? He was chairman for Trump campaign for like 3 months March - June 2016. He worked closely with Podesta group for much much longer and other politicians for years. Not to mention that none of the charges are from the time he worked with Trump campaign. So how could Trump knew about his mischief's if the FBI only now pressed charges against him? I think it's completely dishonest to blame Trump for Manafort. The stuff extended through his time with the Trump campaign. However, a former Federal prosecutor says that Muellers real goal is to try and flip Manafort, most likely against other individuals rather than Trump. Why would you associate Manaford with Trump only? Of all the people? He was chairman for Trump campaign for like 3 months March - June 2016.He worked closely with Podesta group for much much longer and other politicians for years. Not to mention that none of the charges are from the time he worked with Trump campaign. So how could Trump knew about his mischief's if the FBI only now pressed charges against him? I think it's completely dishonest to blame Trump for Manafort. Except for Manafort just turning himself in upon being investigated with treason against the USA as part of a larger investigation by the US intelligence against the Trump election campaigners. Feel free to translate http://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/trump-mueller-103.html Um, he's not being charged or investigated with treason, he's being charged with conspiracy to commit crimes against the US. The translated article doesn't mention treason.

Well since it's a way that Christ was killed it isn't news for like... everybody. I know, it's just funny in a way. Not the cross itself, just the past use of it.

Funnily enough, the cross is derived from a Roman method of execution.

That 'white lives matter' and 'all lives matter' stuff has been going on since the 'black lives matter' movement started. Personally, I prefer the term 'all wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum lives matter', which is a sarcastic rebuke of the 'white lives matter' and 'all lives matter'.

Regardless of whether one views it in a libertarian or republican or democrat way, it IS a fact that our forces are spread pretty thinly. Some might say too thinly. That's kind of the problem with counterterrorism, there's always going to be some terrorist group somewhere, so, you have to decide which ones are the threat. The Green Berets are also supposedly a branch that trains foreign militaries, not go on intel gathering missions, so, I'm wondering about that as well. Another thing, this unit was also apparently fresh to the area, deployed a week before, so, tons of questions and few answwers.

Regrettably this is incorrect. There have been a number of attempts to end what Barbra Lee has correctly called a blank check to wage debate free war forever. Including one earlier this year that was quietly scuttled by the rules committee. We have had Democrat led Congresses and Republican led Congresses along with Democrat Administrations and Republican Administrations. But the same story, in every one. More money, men, hardware and escalations. And all of it in secret until someone gets killed. And even then there is far more angst expended over how condolences are offered than why the hell it happened to begin with. Oh and Ben, that uranium and the private companies that are mining it are all French. To my thinking that equals "Not Our Problem". There is nothing, not one goddamned thing in Niger that was worth the lives of those four men. Again, that's not even why they were there, they were doing counterterrorism intel gathering. Maybe some of them are there to guard the uranium, but that's not what that unit was doing. Regardless of why they were there, you're a former marine, right (saw someone mention that you are)? Even you would want to know what happened that led to, in military parlance, the massive Charlie Foxtrot.

'Guarding the uranium' wasn't even this particular units mission though, they were on an intel gathering mission when they got ambushed.

He's libertarian don't ya know?

@Guard Dog: It can all (the stuff since George W. Bush anyway) be traced back to the vague AUMF that was made in 2001 or 2002 which hasn't been renewed since.

Putting Obsidian devs and other crew on the ship crew is definetly a neat way of inserting themselves into the game.

I'm intrigued by the one in the lower right with the hood (literally the only one with a hood), the green face looks a heck of a lot like it's a mask of some kind. Real mysterious. I wonder if they'll have preassigned roles that we can't change or we can assign them to any role. edit: You'd think there would be more Aumaua crew available, given that they're one of the larger population groups in the Deadfire, if not the largest. Edooooottttt!: Dwarves! I don't see any! Heavily scarred/wrinkled dude next to Steward might be dwarven, but nobody else seems to be, that I can tell.

The West does? Really? Here I tought we were too busy fellating the Sultan of Turkey, the grand Erdogan to actually give a flying f*ck about the Kurds (as long as they're not useful idiots). Yes, Israel for one was very happy with the Kurdish independence referendum. There are parts of the Greater Kurdistan in Iran for instance, not to mention how much some Kurdish Iranians cheered when they simply heard about the referendum. You think that at this point, the west or more specifically, America and its allies aren't interested in a civil war in Iran? Think again. Iran together with North Korea are on top of the wanted list of the U.S government and there is no easier way to dismantle a regime by the means of civil war. Why send troops when you can cause a chaos and let people fight themselves? Syria, Libya, Yugoslavia, Iran, Egypt and many more countries have experienced this one way or another. Iran hasn't done anything yet to my knowledge, other than being opposed to it. They're in watch and wait mode I believe. What happens on the Iranian side as far as the Kurds go depends on what happens between Iraq and Kurdistan. Also, the Kurds live in a much bigger chunk of Turkey (roughly a quarter of the country) than they do Iran, so, Turkey seems more at risk of entering a civil war over the Kurds.

If he has any hand in it, it's probably a message: 'Leave Kurdistan alone so we can leave Catalonia alone'. Wasn't Russia against Kurdistan seceeding? Not sure what the Russian response was, but I know that the US and the UN are saying "no, don't do it." Pretty much everybody in the region is against Kurdistan seceeding for various reasons.

I wasn't trying to dismiss arguments or shut down the conversation, just trying to broaden it since pre-buffing isn't the only thing that could make things better. Haven't been participating that much since I'm out of my depth anyway with no experience in DnD or Baldurs Gate. At least as far as the current line of discussion goes.

What kind of class do you teach? That could be important to consider when getting a new desk or desks for the classroom.

I'm guessing they're fighting a zombie dragon because 'unholy flame', unless there's something else that creates the unholy flame. Also reminds me a little of the blessed/cursed cloud/surface feature of D:OS2, which can lead to a few silly stuff like blessed poison surface. If there's unholy flame, it only makes sense that holy flame (aside from shrines holy to Magran) would exist somewhere.

A prominent judge here has commented that the only reason the situation hasn't descended into a civil conflict yet is not so much that they aren't willing to fight as they simply not having what to fight with. Unlike in Ukraine, here there aren't any heavy weapons caches left over from the Soviet era, and again, unlike Donbass, the neighboring country isn't at all interested in arming and training a militia and deploying "little green men" until the locals can fend for themselves. Really, this is just a repeat of 1934. Doubtful that things will escalate as they did back then, though -- civil disturbances and riots are one thing, a full-fledged armed insurrection is a whole another. There is still the practical matter of how to arrest the head of the Catalan government without anyone getting shot in the process, however. Meanwhile in Russia... I wouldn't be surprised if Putin had an appendage or two in Catalonia, given how he exploits all the weaknesses that he can, but it's something that has been stewing for years independent of whether Putin was involved or not. And yes, he'd certainly be pleased at the West being in chaos.

Logic and reason coming from Scott Adams? lel.