U.S. Politics: The Flood Shall Wash Away The Cobbs

[Shryke]

26 minutes ago, Sword of Doom said:

Yea, Bush just started wars where bombs were dropped, bullets shot, and hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of dead dark skinned people lay dead, some of them in pieces and others charred. Lets not kid ourselves, Bush's horrible handling of everything is still being felt today, especially in the middle east. 

That said, Trump is utterly terrible and destroying any credibility the country may have gained back from Bush's fuck ups with Obama being elected. 

Yeah, I mean, Bush started the Iraq War and fucked up the North Korea situation fairly badly. But those were still less of a blow to american credibility and trustworthiness then what Trump is up to. By a lot.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 hours ago, Shryke said:

Eh, I don't think that's true. GWB harmed american standing but not in a permanent way for the most part and Obama more or less reversed course on that. He basically got a Nobel Peace Prize for a sort of return to normalcy.

Trump on the other hand has a very real possibility of permanently damaging american power and credibility on the world stage. It's essentially going to come down to whether he ends up being an embarrassing blip or the start of a pattern for US leadership. I think he'll end up hurting US image somewhat no matter what but if he gets re-elected or if the next Republican president ends up being Trumpian on foreign policy too, you are gonna see real drops in american leadership potential.

Bush did do lasting harm, just not in the same way. It's why, for example, it's a lot harder for the U.S. to craft military coalitions because we burned so many of our allies with Iraq. 

With regards to Trump, there's no need to couch it as being possible. He's already acted in ways that will do permanent damage to the U.S., and it will take a long time to undo this, and that's assuming we don't have any other Trump like actors in the WH. Trump has made America toxic while simultaneously reinforcing all of the worst stereotypes about Americans. 

2 hours ago, Clueless Northman said:

At this point in time, the only sane, logical and realstic option left to the rest of the planet is to make an example out of the USA and go with a total economic war, including an absolute trade blockade of the entire country.

Never gonna happen. 

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

Realistically, no one should want to deal with the US period - because while Trump might not be around forever, the US has shown a willingness to elect Trump and no real fight to push back against Trump-like figures. Any deals that rational US politicians might make could be swept aside in as little as a year. No one wants to make deals with that sort of thing, at least not reputable governments. Instead, you'll get the kind of deals that countries make with developing nations - exploitative ones with short term gains at best. 

I agree. Today's events also highlight how Trump never thinks more than one step ahead. For example, why would North Korea want to negotiate the dismantlement of their nuclear stockpiles with Trump when the next president could come along and undo everything. 

[Jace, Extat]

2 hours ago, Kalbear said:

 

I know how much liberals hate hypocrisy, but in this case it makes a whole lot of sense. 

Dude, having rules is the worst. First it was Franken, and now this NY AG?

And Cuomo gets to demand his resignation? It just sucks.

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

If the US wants to give Russia even more power in the Middle East (and the world), putting Iran into a position where it can invite Russia in to act as military advisors etc is a good way to go about it. You can see the battle lines forming with Iran, Syria, Lebanon and Russia on one side and Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Israel and the USA on the other (Turkey might have been in that camp until recently, but it's become a little warier of the situation).

If people think the Middle East has been a bloodbath basketcase before, they haven't seen a tenth of how bad it could get if the USA and Israel decide to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities and end up killing Russian inspectors or advisors there. And countries like Iran can legitimately demand that Israel declare their nuclear arsenals and stockpiles as well.

So I'm pretty over the whole 'Let's pretend he might be innocent' thing, I'm just gonna lay it out there.

The Trump campaign got a shitload of his greatest hits from Cambridge Analytica which is connected to Bannon who is connected to Nazis who are connected to Republicans who are connected to Russians who are connected to Trump.

I'm starting to wonder if the anti-Iran deal was fed to Trump through the Russians to create dissatisfaction among 40% of the brain dead electorate. That alone seems like a pretty easy and effective goal for the Kremlin.

Then he wins. And despite the efforts of the entirety of the American government Trump goes out and finds two nutjobs (Bolton, re-purposed Pompeo) who will enable his masters' ambitions of a Russo-Iranian compact.

I know the first instinct is to scream 'conspiracy!' But yeah. That's kind of where we are now.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

23 minutes ago, Mexal said:

Oh man, this is something else. Ignore the "this may have reimbursed him for the 130k" and focus on the details in this drop box. Trump's lawyer's company (Cohen's Essential Consultants), set up right before the election to pay off Stormy Daniels, received money from AT&T, Novartis, Russian Oligarch's company before a few major potential events. These were made to a "real estate consultancy". There is so much more as well. The details are found in this document.

ETA: Just a FYI, Vekselberg, who Avenatti is claiming paid money into the account of Essential Consultants, was stopped at the airport by Mueller. He also attended Trump's Inauguration and I believe might be one of the Russian Oligarchs who is sanctioned. This all happened while Trump was president. 

Money launderers gonna money launder. I'm sure this, if accurate, is just the tip of the iceberg.   

[Mexal]

2 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Money launderers gonna money launder. I'm sure this, if accurate, is just the tip of the iceberg.   

This doesn't even look like money laundering. This looks like a slush fund for people to buy influence.

[Yukle]

2 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Realistically, no one should want to deal with the US period - because while Trump might not be around forever, the US has shown a willingness to elect Trump and no real fight to push back against Trump-like figures. Any deals that rational US politicians might make could be swept aside in as little as a year. No one wants to make deals with that sort of thing, at least not reputable governments. Instead, you'll get the kind of deals that countries make with developing nations - exploitative ones with short term gains at best. 

Yes, I agree with this. Now the USA has shown that its word is only made by the party who first signed an agreement, not the nation as a whole.

This is something that China will gleefully exploit. For one thing, their trade deals and agreements at the moment have more or less been paying off as they said they would (not that they can sustain their probably fraudulently boosted growth rates, but that's another matter). They're also swaying developing nations to their side with long-term leases and infrastructure deals, playing a patient game that thinks decades ahead.

China can boast at the moment that their one-party state is its biggest strength. You know what you will get from China tomorrow, in a year and in fifty years, because their policies are not subject to the whims of opportunistic racists peddling trickle-down economics.

Trump, and all of the Republicans, have shown that the USA is no longer interested in the future. Trade relies on certainty, and wealth is built in trade, and who wants to risk it all on a pack of idiots who won't think more than a few minutes ahead?

[Yukle]

Haha! First Enabler Melania Trump rarely speaks, but when she does, she's as lazy as her husband.

Her "Be Best" campaign strives to prove why it's only okay to bully people if you're her husband, and somehow reconciles supporting a sex offender to become president. It remains bewildered at how children learn to be so mean to each other.

And, of course, it was plagiarised. A toast to the First Idiot!

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/may/07/melania-trump-plagiarism-row-be-best-campaign

[Darth Richard II]

"Be Best" sounds like something a drunk dad tells Wil Ferrel in some sort of sports comedy/

[Mexal]

AT&T confirms paying Michael Cohen's company he set up to pay Stormy Daniels. I would love to know how they knew to hire this "Real Estate Consulting" company that no one knew existed...

 

[Clueless Northman]

1 hour ago, Shryke said:

Yeah, I mean, Bush started the Iraq War and fucked up the North Korea situation fairly badly. But those were still less of a blow to american credibility and trustworthiness then what Trump is up to. By a lot.

You know, nobody gives a fuck about US "credibility". People give a fuck about the US causing hundreds of thousands of deaths, destroying an entire region of the world, or risking nuclear war.

Does anyone think Bush wouldn't have gone to war with Iran, had things gone smoothly in Iraq?

When it comes to getting rid of the Iran deal, it's obvious that any GOP president would have done the same. One can wonder if some Dems wouldn't have done it either. At the very least, it's clear that not only GOP loonies want war on Iran; some Dems would like it just as much - they're probably just a bit more fearful things would go badly.

 

1 hour ago, Yukle said:

They're also swaying developing nations to their side with long-term leases and infrastructure deals, playing a patient game that thinks decades ahead.

They're swaying governments, but they're quite greedy in their deals, taking quite a lot of local resources, and most if not all the infrastructure-building is done with Chinese workers, not locals. Bottom line is that a lot of locals dislike China, if not more, because they feel like they're being cheated. If we had smart Western leaders, they might take some advantage of this - or at least push enough that China wouldn't be able to profit as much from these deals -, but considering the bunch of uninspired clowns we're dealing with - to begin with, in D.C. -, that's quite hopeless. And with this last move, China's position indeed will be improved.

[Martell Spy]

First Mueller convict reports to prison
Dutch attorney Alex van der Zwaan turned himself in Monday after being sentenced for lying to investigators.

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/08/russia-probe-prison-mueller-zwaan-574609

Quote

 

A Dutch attorney now has the dubious distinction of being the first person imprisoned in connection with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Alex van der Zwaan, 33, reported to a low-security Federal Bureau of Prisons facility near Allenwood, Pennsylvania, on Monday to serve the 30-day sentence he received for lying to investigators in the course of Mueller’s investigation, according to a bureau spokesperson. His projected release date is June 4, according to information on the prison bureau’s website.

 

 

[lokisnow]

4 hours ago, Clueless Northman said:

Reality check: the USA has been wiping its ass with deals and treaties since its birth. All of them were trashed sooner or later, when it became politically or economically interesting for the US to shit on them. That's not specific to Bush or Trump, or even to the GOP. Basically, what Kalbear just said - except I'm puzzled that people hadn't already realised it 15 years ago, or even earlier, and are only now slowly beginning to learn.

The US as a nation should be fully and totally boycotted and blockaded until it reforms itself deeply. Which means burning down the Constitution and replacing it with a wholly new one, shipping most political leaders and MPs to jail, and paying trillions in war reparations to tens of countries the world over. The USA, not Iran nor Russia, has shown time and time again that it only understands force and can only be brought to the negotiating table when it has been soundly bloodied. For the last 2 decaces, that bloody country has mostly ran economically on a protection racket because it has nukes and the biggest military around. Time to end the charade once and for all. (of course, if someone would actually bloody the nose of its disgusting willing slaves that lead Western countries, that would be a welcome bonus)

Social media affords the opportunity to organize a grassroots boycott of the United States. No state actor is going to initiate such an action, like South Africa apartheid boycotts, this would have to start with activists first.

so put up or shut up, enjoy boycotting Books and tvshows made by Americans.

on the other hand, this is a website for a defunct book series, and the probability of book six is very low, so it’s possible you’re risking very little, personally. 

[Martell Spy]

Republicans Agree That Trump Will Easily Convince Rest of World to Rewrite Iran Deal That Took Two Years to Negotiate

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/05/republican-reaction-to-iran-deal-withdrawal-wishful.html

Quote

 

Republican responses to Donald Trump’s announcement that the U.S. will withdraw from the 2015 Iran/Russia/China/Europe “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action” nuclear agreement seem to share a central conviction: That Iran is dangerous and needs to be bound by some sort of cooperative international agreement to limit its nuclear activity.

• House majority leader Kevin McCarthy told Fox News, in the network’s words, that he looks forward to Trump using the 90-day grace period that will precede the restoration of U.S. sanctions against Iran to negotiate an agreement “that prevents Iran from ever having a nuclear weapon.”

 

 

[Yukle]

1 hour ago, Clueless Northman said:

They're swaying governments, but they're quite greedy in their deals, taking quite a lot of local resources, and most if not all the infrastructure-building is done with Chinese workers, not locals. Bottom line is that a lot of locals dislike China, if not more, because they feel like they're being cheated. If we had smart Western leaders, they might take some advantage of this - or at least push enough that China wouldn't be able to profit as much from these deals -, but considering the bunch of uninspired clowns we're dealing with - to begin with, in D.C. -, that's quite hopeless. And with this last move, China's position indeed will be improved.

That I agree with. China's deals in Bangladesh were particularly unfair. China knew Bangaldesh would never repay the loans they were given, even at low interest, and now have two ports in Bangladesh on 99-year leases. It's eerily similar to what happened to China after the Opium wars: on the outside Britain was trading and helping to build their infrastructure, but in reality, they were making it easier to exploit the resources. 

Similarly, China is building infrastructure all throughout the Eurasian and African developing world. But it's so that trade and manufacturing goes through China, so that in the long-term you won't be able to ship or build without going through China.

And yet, what's the alternative for these nations? They're not being offered anything by the West. And certainly now that the USA's word is worthless, they must follow China's lead rather than the USA's.

It's not a fair system, but if it's a choice between supporting the USA, whose word means nothing and who will install puppet dictators in your buffer states, Russia, who will do the same, or China who will give you one-sided deals, but at least pump money into your country... who is a government going to side with?

[Mexal]

2 minutes ago, Triskele said:

I was trying to decide whether Trump pulling out of Paris or out of the Iran deal made me more ashamed.  Upon reflection, I think it's Paris because it involved virtually every country in the world on something that has a nigh-worldwide consensus.  That said, pulling out of the Iran deal would be the most shameful thing in any other world where the Paris accord didn't exist.  Seems like what Putin would want though with its potential to weaken the Western alliances.  

The rest of the world must be kind of amazed at the differences between the two major US parties.  

Worst part about pulling out of the Paris accord was it was voluntary and you tell them what targets you will track towards. There was absolutely no reason to pull out of it.

[Jace, Extat]

1 hour ago, Mexal said:

Worst part about pulling out of the Paris accord was it was voluntary and you tell them what targets you will track towards. There was absolutely no reason to pull out of it.

I guess it has to be the Paris accord that was worse, right? At least with the Iran deal there are people who actually have issues with it, even if most of them are nut jobs.

The Paris accord wasn't just voluntary and without any 'downside' at all, he kept ranting that 'we'll come back if we get a better deal' which...

I mean...

Fuck.

Meanwhile, Don RacistShip lost in West Virginia.

I guess I'll just have to talk myself into being happy that he set 2.5 million dollars on fire.

[DMC]

7 hours ago, Shryke said:

Nah. This isn't a reality check it's just cynical bullshit disguising itself as a well-thought-out position.

You can literally see the difference right now. Trump vs GWB is a difference in american standing in the world that is not that hard to notice.

First, yes, what you quoted was a load of horseshit rather than a "reality check," I'm not going to bother with it.

In terms of Trump v. Dubya, that's still tough.  It's hard to quantify how damaging the Iraq War was to American standing.  And, yes, Dubya would have pulled out of the Iran deal as well.  Maybe not the Dubya of today due to the whole "if I knew then what I know now" thing, but the Dubya of 9/11 to 2008 certainly would have reinvoked sanctions, probably on day one rather than having McMaster and Mattis talk him out of it until the former was replaced by the likes of John Bolton.  

But Trump now combines neo-con chicken hawk hard power with isolationist anti-free trade soft power.  It's very difficult to conceive of a worst combination.  That's why Trump is such a detriment to American standing - while Dubya may have pulled out of the Iran deal, he certainly wouldn't have pulled out of TPP, and probably not the Paris Accords.  In terms of free-trade agreements, the Bush II administration actually negotiated an impressive amount.  So, yeah, the Bolton-Pompeo era of the Trump regime has the potential to do a startling amount of damage, and this is just their opening (and expected) salvo.

Also, Re: executive agreements - presidents have trended towards executive agreements over treaties far before the rise of polarization.  They became both convenient and necessary with the concurrent rise of the imperial presidency and the US as a superpower (i.e. FDR).  From 1939 to 1989, 94 percent of international agreements were executive agreements and not treaties.

[Fragile Bird]

41 minutes ago, Pony Empress Jace said:

Meanwhile, Don RacistShip lost in West Virginia.

I guess I'll just have to talk myself into being happy that he set 2.5 million dollars on fire.

It’s shocking to me that the guy got more than 26,000 votes in WV, when he’s got the blood of 29 miners on his hands.

[OldGimletEye]

12 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Bush did do lasting harm, just not in the same way. It's why, for example, it's a lot harder for the U.S. to craft military coalitions because we burned so many of our allies with Iraq. 

With regards to Trump, there's no need to couch it as being possible. He's already acted in ways that will do permanent damage to the U.S., and it will take a long time to undo this, and that's assuming we don't have any other Trump like actors in the WH. Trump has made America toxic while simultaneously reinforcing all of the worst stereotypes about Americans. 

Trump might be arguably worse than Bush. But both are or were extremely bad. And for me, trying to parse the differences between the two becomes a Judean People’s Front versus The People’s Front of Judea situation.

[Rippounet]

12 hours ago, Shryke said:

Yeah, I mean, Bush started the Iraq War and fucked up the North Korea situation fairly badly. But those were still less of a blow to american credibility and trustworthiness then what Trump is up to. By a lot.

As long as Trump hasn't started a major war that is simply not true.

Most people in the world don't follow American politics that closely and are unaware just how bad Trump is. Or don't give a fuck, as they see this as US problems anyway.
Y'all seem to forget that W. killed the Kyoto protocol on climate change and said Iran was part of an axis of evil. With the Iraq war he antagonized most of America's allies.

Trump's is barely half-way there right now. He's seen as a buffoon (like W was) but so far, for anyone living outside the US, his bark has been worse than his bite.