Politics Generations

[Gromnir]

one wonders how long before trump goes after powell. "fool" and "loser" is almost certain. "hillary supporter"? "very sad" is probable. wouldn't dismiss possible hashtag "treason" or even "impeachpowell." somebody will need explain treason and impeachment to trump once again, but am thinking so often the gop doesn't care as long as their not-funny john blutarsky reminds the base to get angry... like when the germans bombed pearl harbor.

aside,

AP sources: Trump allies pressed Ukraine over gas firm

attempting to preemptive throw perry under the proverbial bus makes some sense in retrospect.  if story is true, it kinda undermines trump's i'm concerned about corruption narrative. 

HA! Good Fun!

 

[ManifestedISO]

not long, but will include the 'dumb' projection attack the president uses on African-Americans ... Don Lemon and LeBron that I remember, likely more

 

if 'multiple' means at least three, there may be four current whistleblowers in talks with representation ... one IRS and three re Ukraine

 

(so thankful my superhero TV season begins tonight  ... hit pause on the fury and fire, get reacquainted with hope and justice ... well, after 60 Minutes)

[ManifestedISO]

was great, really enjoyed escapism with Batwoman and Supergirl, only to return to an insane reality

Quote

In a major shift in United States military policy in Syria, the White House said on Sunday that President Trump had given his endorsement for a Turkish military operation that would sweep away American-backed Kurdish forces near the border in Syria.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/07/us/politics/trump-turkey-syria.html

 

imagine if Johnson had sided with the NVA in Vietnam ...

[Zoraptor]

And that's an utterly perfidious green light too, since the US has been dismantling border fortifications for the past month as not being needed and showing Turkish troops around and blocking reconciliation agreements with the government. An utterly predictable betrayal and one any US leader would make in the end since there's no comparison between the strategic value of Turkey and some eminently disposable anarchist militia but that's scant comfort for the people who fought ISIS across hundreds of miles thinking the US had their back; even if that belief was ludicrously naive. Still, at least the literal (yes, literal, 1/2 the local tribe was loyal to ISIS then Saudi Arabia paid them to switch sides...) ex ISIS militia in Deir Ez Zour will still be protected by the US, as that is where the oil is...

Meanwhile Erdogan will ethnically cleanse the whole area same as he did in Afrin, settle it with the -literal literal, including the literal literal child decapitators of Harakat Noureddine al Zinki- head chopper jihadis that make up the pro Turkish Syrian factions that will no doubt be the kernel of ISIS 2.0 in a decades time, and then North Cyprus it. While I know it was a comparison to US policy mentioning the NVA or Ho in the same breath is insulting; Erdogan's a genuinely malignant person with zero redeeming qualities for anyone who isn't a mouth foamingly rabid Turkish Nationalist or seeking to sell him weapons.

[Gromnir]

8 hours ago, ManifestedISO said:

 

imagine if Johnson had sided with the NVA in Vietnam ...

as such is not a real surprise that mattis quit. 

in other insanity

Trump Taxes: President Ordered to Turn Over Returns to Manhattan D.A.

decision is being appealed, and so trump won't immediate be handing over taxes.

nevertheless,

"Mr. Trump’s lawyers sued last month to block the subpoena, arguing that the Constitution effectively makes sitting presidents immune from all criminal inquiries until they leave the White House. The lawyers acknowledged that their argument had not been tested in courts, but said the release of the president’s tax returns would cause him “irreparable harm.”

"In his 75-page ruling, Judge Marrero called the president’s argument “repugnant to the nation’s governmental structure and constitutional values.” Presidents, their families and businesses are not above the law, the judge wrote."

the scope of the President's attempted self-grant o' immunity from any criminal process is straining credulity.

alternative links:

https://www.npr.org/2019/10/07/767830713/federal-judge-rules-trump-must-hand-over-8-years-of-tax-returns

https://www.foxbusiness.com/money/judge-denies-trumps-tax-return-suit

HA! Good Fun!

 

[ShadySands]

https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/07/business/houston-rockets-nba-china-daryl-morey/index.html

[Gfted1]

Run you gob on Twitter, get hit in the pocket for it.

[Elerond]

[Gfted1]

Its funny how good he is at trolling. Drop some Tweets and sit back and watch people come unhinged dissecting every word. Extraordinaire! The internet never fails to internet.

[Skarpen]

Let's take a breather from this storm in a glass of water. We will have another 5 years of Trump presidency for this. Unless he will extend to third or further terms.

In UK another liberal agenda crashed and burned. Surprising, right?

Sad to see the cradle of women emancipation movement now making women life more and more miserable.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10077577/gender-neutral-toilets-school-girls-feel-unsafe/

[Malcador]

12 hours ago, ManifestedISO said:

was great, really enjoyed escapism with Batwoman and Supergirl, only to return to an insane reality

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/07/us/politics/trump-turkey-syria.html

 

imagine if Johnson had sided with the NVA in Vietnam ...

Well he's threatened Turkey with economic destruction if they misbehave (according to his own personal metric....whatever the **** that is)

 

Edited October 7, 2019 by Malcador

[Gromnir]

1 hour ago, Malcador said:

Well he's threatened Turkey with economic destruction if they misbehave (according to his own personal metric....whatever the **** that is)

 

word is erdogan offered to dig up dirt on the central park five. sealed the deal for trump.

HA! Good Fun!

[Guard Dog]

13 hours ago, ManifestedISO said:

was great, really enjoyed escapism with Batwoman and Supergirl, only to return to an insane reality

I'm dreading the end of the World Series and the conclusion of the baseball season for much the same reason. It is a very pleasant diversion.

[HoonDing]

Hard to forget those Turk tanks sitting on the border doin nothing while ISIS were raping and pillaging Kobane.

[Guard Dog]

If you want to shake hands with the devil you're going to have to do it in hell.

[smjjames]

Anyways, Trump is getting a hell of a lot of pushback for what is a kneejerk reaction to a complicated situation that requires careful thought. There's no 'Alexander the Great splits the Gordian knot in two with a sword' solution for this one.

Maybe a more appropriate analogy would be a Gordian knot connected to several rube goldberg machines that are both independent and react to each other, with some cords leading to disaster and some not, cutting all of them at once would guarantee disaster. Then again, maybe a Gordian knot+ my addition is a poor analogy for the whole Syria situation?

[Zoraptor]

It isn't really 'kneejerk' per se, Trump has tried to withdraw troops multiple times before. It's an extremely 'bad' decision for multiple reasons, but it's not really sudden or unexpected and may well be the best decision available, at least for the US. While the announcement was peremptory it had clearly been planned for a while as transportation started arriving days earlier*.

If the Turks were set on invading with or without US approval- which they probably were since Erdogan desperately needs to solve some internal problems- the choice was literally fighting the Turks, not fighting but withdrawing during actual fighting or withdrawing before the fighting broke out. One of those is an obvious better (or at least way safer) option than the others. I can't see any US President in living memory making an ultimately different decision so long as they were convinced the attack was definitely coming.

*It's clearly not popular with most of the military though, as they ran an arms convoy through from Iraq, tonight- with the Turks attacking that border crossing as soon as they heard of it

46 minutes ago, HoonDing said:

Hard to forget those Turk tanks sitting on the border doin nothing while ISIS were raping and pillaging Kobane.

Serious posting? A man of your talents?

(of course the Turks were worse than doing nothing, they allowed supply and new recruits through their territory to ISIS, and provided much of their external funding via buying their oil)

[Guard Dog]

BTW. On this day in 2001 the 101st Airborne and the 22nd MEU began combat operations in Afghanistan. 18 years later...

That means a child born after 9-11 to a deployed service member fighting there in 2001 is now old enough to fight in the same conflict as their parent(s). That has never happened in US history.

Enough is enough. Turning over security ops in northern Syria to Turkey is only the latest in a long list of horrifying mistakes. Getting involved in Syria at all was a mistake. Invading Iraq was a HUGE mistake. That led in large part to the civil war in Syria. Keeping Iraq together rather than breaking it up was a mistake. It was a artificial construct (f--k up) of the British. An uneasy combination of three groups of people who hated each other. It was only ever held together at gunpoint. Now Syria is in ruins, Iran has a little buddy as a neighbor (rather than a sworn enemy) millions of people are dead or permanently f----d up. Thousands of those are Americans. Billions upon billions of dollars people had to work hard to earn have been wasted. All of this to permanently f--k up a region that had little or nothing to do with the original event.

As for Afghanistan, I see no way that could have been avoided. But staying there for 18 years to set up a country that will collapse the moment we leave was a total waste. Once the Taliban were routed they should have armed the remaining regional warlords and left them to it. The Pashtun seemed to be happiest  when left to their individual tribes anyway.

In 1863 the leader of France sent a letter to the Lincoln Administration asking the US to join a  "protest" of Tsar Alexander of Russia forcibly putting down a Polish uprising. The Secretary of State, William Seward declined in a letter defending  "our policy of non-intervention—straight, absolute, and peculiar as it may seem to other nations,'

"The American people must be content to recommend the cause of human progress by the wisdom with which they should exercise the powers of self-government, forbearing at all times, and in every way, from foreign alliances, intervention, and interference."

WTF happened to us? It started going wrong the Teddy Roosevelt and the conflict between Panama and Columbia he incited. Then Wilson got in office and it went really wrong. Is it even possible to find our way back at this point? Are we so far down the this road of repeating and expanding on the mistakes of the British that we are doomed to shed our blood and others only to leave the world worse off?

Edited October 7, 2019 by Guard Dog
Grammar

[smjjames]

29 minutes ago, Zoraptor said:

It isn't really 'kneejerk' per se,

The way he has gone about it looks pretty kneejerk.

@Guard Dog The answer to just how much of a mistake Syria was (arguably, not intervening earlier may have also been a mistake, but we're talking about a hypothetical at this point) may not be really known until the dust completely settles and the historians have at it, but meanwhile, I agree, the challenge is to not screw it up any further.

29 minutes ago, Guard Dog said:

In 1863 the leader of France sent a letter to the Lincoln Administration asking the US to join a  "protest" of Tsar Alexander of Russia forcibly putting down a Polish uprising. The Secretary of State, William Seward declined in a letter saying:  "defending 'our policy of non-intervention in European matters—straight, absolute, and peculiar as it may seem to other nations,'

"The American people must be content to recommend the cause of human progress by the wisdom with which they should exercise the powers of self-government, forbearing at all times, and in every way, from foreign alliances, intervention, and interference."

FIFY since the unspoken part is really "Lets stay out of European matters as we REALLY don't want to get sucked into the fights between the great powers". Of course though, it's a handy excuse since the US had it's hands full at the time and you probably couldn't come up with a more diplomatic excuse for saying "No thanks, we don't want to get sucked into European conflicts, besides, we have our hands full".

Found the conflict mentioned and it doesn't say anything about France approaching the US about it, though looks like it ended up being an attempt to throw around diplomatic weight rather than a war. No idea how much diplomatic sway the US had at the time.

Arguably the problems started slightly further back with the Spanish-American war when the US started getting a taste of imperialism.

[smjjames]

Moving on I guess?

To nobodys (except maybe Trump himself) surprise, China says no to Trumps meddling request. Besides the fact that it would be a really dumb move to jump into the political buzzsaw that is happening, especially when Trump just fingered them out, they've (well, one commentator I guess) said that it'd be political blackmail for Trump to do that.

I guess maybe Trump thought China would be as subservient/desperate as Ukraine was.

[Skarpen]

NBA is a beloved institution and nothing can turn people against it.

Well, guess again:

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/stand-for-freedom-boycott-the-nba

Blizzard is a beloved game developer and nothing can turn people against it.

Well, guess again:

https://www.polygon.com/2019/10/8/20904972/blizzard-boycott-campaign-hearthstone-hong-kong-blitzchung-china

It seems people do have some decency and will stand up to corporate shills praising murderous regimes, who knew.

[Gorgon]

Money makes the world go around I guess, even if that means people disappearing in the middle of the night or being sent to 'reeducation' camps.  It's an old story though. China has been leveraging trade vs critique of its system for a long time and most countries have been playing along in one form or another. They can't afford not to. So, why would corporations be any different. 

That said, I piss on the NBA and Blizzard from a great height.

 

[ShadySands]

Trump is the only one that will stand up to China

Unfortunately he stands like this

The hero we deserve

[Malcador]

Well, will have to see how much actual standing up to them is done, at least for latter seems to be impotent screeching.   Wonder if Blizzard would have gotten off easier with just cutting him off.

[ShadySands]

In other news Andrew Yang is the 8th to make the November debate stage.