US Politics: Nancy's Knock on the Senate Door

[argonak]

20 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Sometimes I just like to think about those small and not so small ironies of life.

Likesay. Who would've thought six years ago, that you would have to rely on Mitt Romney to save the world? Or that moment during the third (?) debate with Obama, when he called Russia the biggest threat to the security of the US. And how his party has decided to get into bed with Putin to get his stooge elected merely four years later. Of course Obama was laughing off Romney's assessment about Russia being the biggest threat present to the US. I wonder if would still laugh it off today.

Sorry for the rambling.

Romney was arguing that we needed an enormous navy to counter Russia (hello giant giveaway to the mil-industrial complex), not that we needed to patch up the gaping holes in our democracy because Russia was going to stab us through them. 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Probably not. And it wasn't meant as an endorsement for Romney for President. But like I said, small historical ironies.

[James Arryn]

As you know I hate Trump with a fucking passion, but can we stop saying things like ‘he doesn’t have the balls’ to explain his not going to war? It takes no courage to send other people’s kids to go kill other other people’s kids. No idea why this move always gets talked about as gutsy...who was the last President to pay a price for going to war? America falls in love with itself at the onset of any war, Trump would never get anywhere near anything dangerous, he’d get re-elected like a lock...there’s not a single brave thing about him telling strangers to to kill other strangers. America can get sick of occupations, but his second term would be in the bag by then.

If he doesn’t get us into another stupid fucking war, it’s not a failure of fortitude. It might be a sign of a limited attention span, but it’s nothing to do with his having or not having courage.

[HexMachina]

On 1/5/2020 at 11:35 PM, DanteGabriel said:

How fucking stupid do you have to be, after over three years with Dumbass Donnie, to think it's a good idea to present him with "far out" options and hope he chooses the less extreme options?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6zQ55S-DJsM

[Fez]

24 minutes ago, James Arryn said:

As you know I hate Trump with a fucking passion, but can we stop saying things like ‘he doesn’t have the balls’ to explain his not going to war? It takes no courage to send other people’s kids to go kill other other people’s kids. No idea why this move always gets talked about as gutsy...who was the last President to pay a price for going to war? America falls in love with itself at the onset of any war, Trump would never get anywhere near anything dangerous, he’d get re-elected like a lock...there’s not a single brave thing about him telling strangers to to kill other strangers. America can get sick of occupations, but his second term would be in the bag by then.

If he doesn’t get us into another stupid fucking war, it’s not a failure of fortitude. It might be a sign of a limited attention span, but it’s nothing to do with his having or not having courage.

One of the extremely limited things Trump got right was that he perceived that the Iraq War was not actually popular among the Republican base anymore. This should've been obvious considering how low Bush's approval ratings were when he left office (though obviously there were a lot of factors going on there), but a lot of Republican officials ignored the signs. But then, in one of his many apostasies during the Republican primary, Trump attacked Bush and called the Iraq War a huge mistake. It was one of many times that pundits declared his campaign over, and instead led to his polls improving. And this was before he consolidated the party too; it was early February 2016, when he was sitting at around 35% among Republican voters.

Now, the Iraq War was a huge mistake, so he's right there, and I wouldn't call Trump a coward for opposing that war. But he is a coward in that I think he would oppose any full-on, mass deployment of troops war (like a war with Iran would), regardless of whether it was justified, because he's terrified that it would sink his poll numbers. This doesn't make a dove (like some in the media idiotically said in 2016), since he's fine with expanding drone strikes, killing civilians, and sending special forces "trainers" all over the place. But it does make him a coward; although its relatively difficult to imagine a full scale troop deployment-style war that would be justified these days, so in that sense he's lucky.

[Kalbear]

heh

https://twitter.com/daveweigel/status/1215028350604972032?s=20

[Jace, Extat]

Because news is a fucking joke now I can't find out if Iran's latest missile attack in Baghdad came before or after Trump's declaration that "Iran is standing down." Which should only require a glance at the bylines for the publishing time, but alas...

Anyway, launching more attacks every time he opens his mouth is the correct play. They can just launch 2 missiles every time he says the situation is over indefinitely.

[DMC]

2 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Of course Obama was laughing off Romney's assessment about Russia being the biggest threat present to the US. I wonder if would still laugh it off today.

I would.  China's still plainly the biggest threat.  To put it in Godfather terms, Putin is Tattaglia - a pimp, he could never outfight Santino.

 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

16 minutes ago, DMC said:

I would.  China's still plainly the biggest threat.  To put it in Godfather terms, Putin is Tattaglia - a pimp, he could never outfight Santino.

 

So, Satino = the US?

If so also remember what old Don Vito had to say about Santino.

"Satino was a bad Don. Rest in Peace." (to Tom Hagen after he was removed as Consigliere).

This is confusing.

I think if you said Trump was Tataglia and Putin was Barzini, the puppeteer pulling his strings to win the Presidency, that would've made more sense.

[DMC]

1 minute ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

So, Satino = the US?

If so also remember what old Don Vito had to say about Santino.

"Satino was a bad Don. Rest in Peace." (to Tom Hagen after he was removed as Consigliere).

This is confusing.

I think if you said Trump was Tataglia and Putin was Barzini, the puppeteer pulling his strings to win the Presidency, that would've made more sense.

Yes, Santino would be basically every US regime since Roosevelt - Teddy.  Way too willing to fight, but still competent enough to lead his superior force into easily quelling any stones in his shoes.  Obvious correlation for Trump would be Fredo, but that really is a grave insult to Fredo in numerous ways.  Putin is not Barzini.  His moves are decidedly thuggish and, more importantly, way too out in the open.  That's not how Barzini operated.

[Jace, Extat]

Remember when he put that orange in his mouth? Great picture.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

53 minutes ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

Remember when he put that orange in his mouth? Great picture.

You're a cannoli.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Also, it sounds like the Senate intelligence briefing did not go well. The Administration has still failed to demonstrate any evidence of an imminent attack. 

[Clueless Northman]

9 hours ago, Pebble thats Stubby said:

A part of me thinks, Trump could look at Iran's response and think "they can't hurt us, no-one died. so whats stopping me?  We have nothing to fear from Iran"  thus he provokes them further.

Some of his military advisers can probably understand what they see when they look at pictures of the Iranian hits. At the very least, some top guys in the Pentagon are able to see the precision of those missiles that hit the base, and that should be enough to convince them staying too long in Iraq is a sure way of losing a lot of men (and expensive military hardware). We're not talking about Saddam's Scuds, when the locals had just as much bad luck of being hit by a failing Patriot than by a Scud.

[karaddin]

So this thread which is focused on why we aren't seeing action on climate change has a detailed break down of the geopolitical and economic pressures behind the current situation which happens to also explain how hostility to Iran plays into checking China's growth, a detail which seems rather relevant at this point in time. It contains a number of details that I didn't know, and I assume plenty of other people are at my levels of ignorance!

Yes, its very long for a twitter thread, just pretend its a proper piece elsewhere that has been formatted oddly.

 

[Fragile Bird]

1 hour ago, karaddin said:

So this thread which is focused on why we aren't seeing action on climate change has a detailed break down of the geopolitical and economic pressures behind the current situation which happens to also explain how hostility to Iran plays into checking China's growth, a detail which seems rather relevant at this point in time. It contains a number of details that I didn't know, and I assume plenty of other people are at my levels of ignorance!

Yes, its very long for a twitter thread, just pretend its a proper piece elsewhere that has been formatted oddly.

 

Fascinating. Now I see why Graham was sent out to threaten Iran with never being able to export oil again.

[Jace, Extat]

1 hour ago, Triskele said:

In another more of a "not necessarily to endorse, but to discuss," here's a piece arguing that moderates tend to do better no matter how much progressive energy seems to matter.   

One part that jumped out:

 

This is the argument against unqualified racing to the left that others and myself have been positing for... years now.

I'm a leftist, to the point that it would likely frighten a lot of people who comically consider themselves 'liberal'. But I also acknowledge that we live in a right-leaning time and nation, therefore the individuals to be won over are those who defected from the last great liberal happening by going Trump or going home.

The fate of the Democratic party going forward has, to me, always been determinate on the methods chosen to check the rampancy of panic mongering and incessant disinformation propagated (quite effectively, I might add) by the right.

"A functional democracy (small 'd') requires an educated and informed populace."

This is a lie. A democracy functions in the manner most expedient to the whims of representatives and spokespersons of a given populace. Right now, the whims are confused and reactionary, which grants initiative to the enemies of independent choice. The 2020 failure of the Democratic party will not be against Donald J. Trump, but rather against the predictable desire of every human being on Earth to imagine a simplistic worldview and work in reverse from there to justify faith in empty rhetoric.

Or something like that...

[James Arryn]

But Jace, we are where we are because Gingrich convinced the GOP to pursue a perpetual hard charge to the right.

[DanteGabriel]

4 minutes ago, James Arryn said:

But Jace, we are where we are because Gingrich convinced the GOP to pursue a perpetual hard charge to the right.

I'd argue we are where we are because Sherman displayed too much restraint.

[Jace, Extat]

2 minutes ago, James Arryn said:

But Jace, we are where we are because Gingrich convinced the GOP to pursue a perpetual hard charge to the right.

And the populace was receptive. Have they been as accepting of hard shifts to the left? I'll answer for you. "No." Because this is a right-leaning country, at the very least since it defined itself as opposite the Soviet Union. Universal Healthcare is now so broadly popular that a Republican majority couldn't get a repeal of the ACA through even with reconciliation when they had all levers necessary to enact such a political coup, but it still cost Democrats their future in enacting the pathetic and flawed version we have. 

America is so secure from outside influence (physically) that its people have quite forgotten how to defend themselves, ideologically or otherwise.