US Politics: He's Trump, he's Trump, he's Trump, he's in my head

[aceluby]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

You got to admit, it was pretty funny how you said that literally two or three minutes before the bombings were reported. 

Oh definitely.  It was basically the universe telling me "YOU ARE WRONG!".  Lol.

[Mlle. Zabzie]

3 hours ago, Fez said:

I don't want to drag the thread back to all the pre-Syria debates from yesterday I was in, so I'll just say this:

I think the mistake a lot of people are making is assuming that Republicans are perfect actors who will do what is best for their party. They aren't remotely, and the House Freedom Caucus should be evidence enough of that. Republicans (and Democrats, and pretty much all officials) can be counted on to do what is best for themselves. Because we're in a party system, that often means doing what's best for the party as well; but not always. Especially when there aren't elections to worry about. So, for instance, judges aren't going to retire to advance the conservative movement; because what's best for them is to get to keep being judges. And Kennedy doesn't care about doing a favor for Republicans, or Democrats, he just wants to keep being the gatekeeper of American civic and private life.

All these people are still just that; people. They aren't automations acting in whatever way will make the country the maximum amount of conservative.

I totally agree with this.  A mistake that partisans of both sides are making (even on this board) is viewing the parties as (nefarious or benevolent) monoliths.  They aren't.  Not even close.  They are made up of people who do people type stuff for people type reasons, which means that you get people type (read *incoherent*) policy results.  

1 minute ago, Fragile Bird said:

Wait a second - we went through all this in the 80s and 90s. Equal pay for equal work, examining the value of female dominated jobs and male dominated jobs, etc etc.

Back in 1990 I got hired by a US multi-national, and within a few weeks was deeply involved in a major transaction. A few months later, I got a huge raise, over 10%, and was told my performance was outstanding. A year later the HR guys roared with laughter when I told them that. They kindly explained it was because I had been offered way less than a man would have been offered. The salary review had been part of a review demanded by provincial legislation, not American, but the Ontario legislation was based on US legislation.

I guess every generation of women has to fight the same frigging battles all over with another set of men, whether it's about sexism, racism or equal pay. Frankly, that's why it's so damn depressing hearing younger women say "I'm not a feminist:, or "my generation is different". Like hell they are.

Yeah, but you are promised through grade school, etc. that things are different now.  And you start to work and you think "hey, things are different now."  And then you are in the workplace for a few years and you realize that underneath the shiny veneer of HR chipperness that has been overlaid on your experience there is a deep rotting core of crap that drives results in ways you thought disappeared, forget about with the 60s, but in the 1920s.  Damn sticky it's depressing.  But that veneer is REALLY shiny.

[OldGimletEye]

Just now, Fragile Bird said:

Wait a second - we went through all this in the 80s and 90s. Equal pay for equal work, examining the value of female dominated jobs and male dominated jobs, etc etc.

Back in 1990 I got hired by a US multi-national, and within a few weeks was deeply involved in a major transaction. A few months later, I got a huge raise, over 10%, and was told my performance was outstanding. A year later the HR guys roared with laughter when I told them that. They kindly explained it was because I had been offered way less than a man would have been offered. The salary review had been part of a review demanded by provincial legislation, not American, but the Ontario legislation was based on US legislation.

I guess every generation of women has to fight the same frigging battles all over with another set of men, whether it's about sexism, racism or equal pay. Frankly, that's why it's so damn depressing hearing younger women say "I'm not a feminist:, or "my generation is different". Like hell they are.

So you doubt the story that women's pay is just a result of the first order condition of the firm's maximization problem?

Yeah, me too.

[Fragile Bird]

8 minutes ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

Yeah, but you are promised through grade school, etc. that things are different now.  And you start to work and you think "hey, things are different now."  And then you are in the workplace for a few years and you realize that underneath the shiny veneer of HR chipperness that has been overlaid on your experience there is a deep rotting core of crap that drives results in ways you thought disappeared, forget about with the 60s, but in the 1920s.  Damn sticky it's depressing.  But that veneer is REALLY shiny.

I have this brilliant friend who worked in one of the city's top law firms for a couple of years. He walked up to me in 2000 at a meeting and told me we were in the same Bar Ads class back in 1980 (the guy has a memory like an elephant). He told me about bonuses at the firm, and the next level, secret bonuses, and the next level, secret secret bonuses, and the next level, talk-about-this-bonus-and-I'm-gonna-have-to-kill-you bonuses. He was at that last level. The secrets in the workplace are endless, and self-interest keeps your mouth shut.

<sidebar> Whatever happened to him...

He bought a house at the start of the 80s housing boom, after getting his job and settling down. In two years the house had doubled in value and he had become thoroughly disgusted at the shit that went on at the Big Firm (sexism, racism, lies and more lies etc). He sold the house, bought a sailboat, and he and his wife sailed around the Caribbean for more than two years, until their baby started walking and they were worried the little devil would fall off the boat one day. Did not go back to law, though the firm begged him to when they came back. Wife was a pharmacist, so things worked out fine.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

1 hour ago, Commodore said:

This myth is perpetuated to excuse inaction, as if it's a binary choice between that and all out war.

This was a spanking, and spankings can have a deterrent effect.

And they can also start all out wars. This country is a fucking powder keg. You have al-Qaeda and Isis militias involved, Iranian Shia militia, the Russians and Assad loyalists all mixing it up in various different regions. Do we even have an idea as to who we're supposed to back here? 

[Fragile Bird]

5 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

And they can also start all out wars. This country is a fucking powder keg. You have al-Qaeda and Isis militias involved, Iranian Shia militia, the Russians and Assad loyalists all mixing it up in various different regions. Do we even have an idea as to who we're supposed to back here? 

Well, "who are we backing" has been the central topic over the last 5 years, hasn't it? Leading to "weak Obama"?

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

10 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Well, "who are we backing" has been the central topic over the last 5 years, hasn't it? Leading to "weak Obama"?

Near as I can tell, the only good move is no move. All the combatants are ideological enemies. What's the gameplan here? What's the endgame? Create another power vacuum that God knows what steps into? 

[Fragile Bird]

5 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Near as I can tell, the only good move is no move. All the combatants are ideological enemies. What's the gameplan here? What's the endgame? Create another power vacuum that God knows what steps into? 

Uhhhhh...wasn't it "how can we stand by while a fucking maniac slaughters his people?" and then "holy shit ISIS will move in" and then "OMG millions of people running from the war are causing the biggest refugee problem in Europe since WW II" and then "the drowned babies, Jesus wept"?

[Commodore]

49 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Near as I can tell, the only good move is no move. All the combatants are ideological enemies. What's the gameplan here? What's the endgame? Create another power vacuum that God knows what steps into? 

near-term objective of deterring the use of sarin gas

[Kalbear]

5 minutes ago, Commodore said:

near-term objective of deterring the use of sarin gas

At what cost? And why? 

If it poisons our relationship with Russia there, was it worth it? If so, why? Why are, specifically, chemical weapons so indiscriminately opposed - and if they are, why didn't the GOP go after Syria in 2013, when it would have been more effective to do so?

I mean to be clear - you don't give a fuck about civilians dying in Syria, right? As long as it's conventional weapons killing them it's all good, right?

ETA: the direct result of this is that it is more likely that the US and Russia warplanes will end up shooting each other, and Syria and Russia are publicly more committed to each other.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

9 minutes ago, Commodore said:

near-term objective of deterring the use of sarin gas

Not nearly compelling enough to get directly involved in this shitshow. 

[S John]

For me, the one silver lining of Trump getting elected was that, based on his earlier comments, it looked like we'd steer clear of the whole Syria situation and also likely avoid antagonizing Russia.  That ship is currently sailing out towards the horizon.     That'll learn me to take anything Trump says at face value.

[Kalbear]

Just now, S John said:

For me, the one silver lining of Trump getting elected was that, based on his earlier comments, it looked like we'd steer clear of the whole Syria situation and also likely avoid antagonizing Russia.  That ship is currently sailing out towards the horizon.     That'll learn me to take anything Trump says at face value.

Yep. 

As I've said in the past, Trump has no specific policy or political standing for anything, is easily swayed, and ultimately does things to improve his own life or satisfy him in some way. He will go back on things he said in the same paragraph, he will change his entire viewpoint based solely on who he is talking to (witness his interviews with WaPo and NYT), he will happily ignore parts of sentences that don't fit his view (the thing recently with Elijah Cummings is a good example).

He's already broken several campaign promises, and while they seemed fairly pie in the sky stupid anyway (beating ISIS in the first 30 days, immediate repeal and replacement of ACA) they were promises he kept going on. Mexico won't be paying for that wall, either. And he doesn't care.

[OldGimletEye]

Just now, S John said:

For me, the one silver lining of Trump getting elected was that, based on his earlier comments, it looked like we'd steer clear of the whole Syria situation and also likely avoid antagonizing Russia.  That ship is currently sailing out towards the horizon.     That'll learn me to take anything Trump says at face value.

One of the biggest problems I had with Hillary was her interventionist tendencies, as I seriously dislike the Samantha Powers approach to foreign policy.

But at least with Hillary, you knew what you were getting. With Trump, it was impossible to tell what you were getting, except for bullshit.

[Toth]

And people still don't know for certain whether Assad really is that stupid to have actually used the gas again right? The German media still says they don't know and at this stage I only found two conflicting statements of UN-officials that boil down to that either the Russian 'we blew up a weapon's depot and shit happened' version is just as likely as Assad carrying the idiot ball.

To be completely frank... at this point, I am inclined to believe the Russians. Assad should be more clever than provoking a dumbass like Trump after Obama made him destroy his stockpiles. On the other hand, he did use this stuff on his people in the past, so I also at this point wouldn't put it past him anymore.

In any case, pouring more oil into the fires of this conflict is not helpful at all. As others here have stated far better than I could, just who exactly do we want to see winning this conflict here? At this point I already warmed up to the idea to let Assad deal with the stabilization of the area and look past his atrocities for the sake of not letting the next wave of radicalized nutjobs take over. My question here is, what exactly is this idiotic Trump administration going to do? Bomb Assad's people into stone age and then... profit? I don't see any series of event in which a prolonged intervention at this stage of this hellhole of a conflict would not worsen plain everything in the long run.

[Kalbear]

Quote

To be completely frank... at this point, I am inclined to believe the Russians. Assad should be more clever than provoking a dumbass like Trump after Obama made him destroy his stockpiles. On the other hand, he did use this stuff on his people in the past, so I also at this point wouldn't put it past him anymore.

In a Tom Clancy novel this would have been a calculated maneuver by the Russians and Assad to see if they could push Trump into doing something rash. Or a move by the Russians to make Syria even more dependent on Russia and destroy any early signs of US/Syria cooperation. 

[Fragile Bird]

Naw, I have no trouble believing it was Assad. The satellites go by every 15 minutes or half an hour or whatever, they saw the planes or helicopters leaving the base and flying to the town.

There's a small possibility that there was an ISIS storage facility with sarin, but the military said they avoided hitting certain targets at the airport because they believe Assad's chemical weapons storage is at that base, so I'm in the Assad did it camp.

[Maithanet]

Assad and the Russians are closer now than they were last week.  And the cost was some damage to a few airfields - hardly crippling to his regime.  This doesn't seem like an Idiot Ball move from Assad.  He needs the Russians to survive, and if he thought Putin and Trump might make a deal that left him out in the cold (certainly possible), he needed to do what he could to prevent that.  I assume he was betting that the benefit of the Russians being angry with the US was worth the damage that a hypothetical US strike might inflict.  And at the moment, that calculus looks correct.

[Toth]

8 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

In a Tom Clancy novel this would have been a calculated maneuver by the Russians and Assad to see if they could push Trump into doing something rash. Or a move by the Russians to make Syria even more dependent on Russia and destroy any early signs of US/Syria cooperation. 

But why would Putin give himself a headache?

Okay, fine, destroying any US/Assad cooperation could work under the assumption that Trump now just let this fizzle out and pretend it didn't happen. It's still an awfully uncertain gamble, considering that Trump has enough would-be crusaders in his council of card-carrying evil to go apeshit on Assad.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

It's also fair to point out, as many Republicans are too, that Tillerson's comments sent a signal to Assad that the U.S. was no longer going to be directly involved in fixing Syria and said comments gave Assad a green light to do as he pleases. Most of what I've read and heard about Assad implies that he's not the most politically savvy person, so it wouldn't be shocking to learn that he thought he could go back to gassing his own people.