The Politics Thread

[Wales2004]

The simpleton media is beyond stomach churning for me. They try to rephrase idiotic things Trump says into sensible statements and pretend that he actually has a foreign policy. It reeks of their desperation for normalcy and in doing so they are giving the public a very false picture of what's really going on. People may want to pretend otherwise but it's best not to pretend that he's ignorant when it comes to policies and has no interest in learning (and maybe even can't).

 

While they're fawning, Putin's plan is moving right along. I wouldn't be surprised if this somehow gets spun into how we need to cooperate with Russia as justification for lifting the sanctions. Putin will have Trump salivating over how he can wipe out ISIS as Putin uses him to dominate Europe.

 

Oh look at us planning an air strike or something:

 

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Edited April 8, 2017 by Wales2004

[DramatistDreamer]

Job growth in March has slowed. I wonder who Trump is going to blame, considering he took credit for January (even though he had only been sworn in mid-month) and February's job growth.

Is he going to try to blame Obama after taking credit for the Obama administrations previous successes?

[DRW50]

 

They love war. It makes them feel "important," because they can take on the moral perch they last had in any reality during Vietnam, and they are deluded enough to believe that someone actually looks to them for guidance. 

 

Williams is probably happy to get to have new stories to make up too...

[Juliajms]

Totally disgusting. Even if we were doing the right thing, calling the bombing of another nation "beautiful" is just completely messed up. How many times are we going to bomb the f*ck out of a middle eastern country, with no real strategy? 

 

I do understand why some human rights experts are happy about this. I really don't blame them. I felt the same after what Saddam Hussein did 20 some years ago. I happened to be up late the night he gassed the Kurds. CNN had footage and they aired it uncensored.  I'm pretty sure it's the worst thing I've ever seen in my life. I'll never forget it. Still, all the bombing we did only added to the atrocities and it won't surprise me if things end up the exact same way this time around.

Edited April 8, 2017 by Juliajms

[JaneAusten]

All this has done and all the intention was was to get people to stop focusing on RussiaGate. But the media will always be complicit.

 

Explain why human rights experts are happy? Have we suddenly decided to help create safe zones for the Syrian people, send aid and help, allow them refuge in the US. These are the things we actually could do to help the babies there. And where was all this horror in 2013 when thousands were hurt and killed from chemical weapons and Obama went to congress who said no. As far as I am concerned they are all hypocrites.

 

I read Mark Landler's op-ed in the Times yesterday and it was sickening talking about how Trump finally has a heart? It had to be the most dishonest fawning pieces in the times in ages and that says a lot about the times who have been complicit in many a war.

 

I have my issues with Rather but his work during the Vietnam war, bringing the real horrors of war to the screen had a lot to do with the repulsion to war more people gained during that time. Pictures of victims of gassing is awful and these people should be protected and not subjected to it. But there are more humanitarian acts we could take that could be a lot better. Sad that the MSM doesn't care about the 20 million people starving to death in Somalia and Yemen thanks to us.

[Juliajms]

They are hoping this will stop Assad from continuing to gas people. I'm not saying they are right or that it's every human rights worker that's thinking that way. I'm saying if you are on the ground in Syria watching this happen, I understand  you might hope that the US stepping in will help.

 

I've been saying we need to stay out of it, even when Obama was the one who wanted to get involved. We don't have the will to do what it would take this kind of war (thank god) and if we did we'd almost certainly have to be occupiers.

 

And maybe we do have a hand in what's happening in Somalia, Yemen and Sudan, but I don't think the whole thing can be laid at our door.  I'd certainly be way more in favor of food aid then I am of getting involved in Syria.  However , if your point is that we have let atrocities go on in places like Darfur without lifting much of a finger, yet for some reason we're getting involved with Syria, then I could not agree more. I don't see why the Syrian civil war is more worthy of our intervention then Sudan's was. I'm hardly a military expert, but it seems to me we might have had a chance of actually helping in Sudan, although once again the question is what do you do after you win? Leaving a power vacuum doesn't seem like a good option and occupation is nearly as bad. 

[Vee]

Axios on Bannon being forced out.

[marceline]

 

Getting Bannon out of the White House would be a real victory.

[Vee]

He's likely the one responsible for engineering the "#FireKushner" hashtag over the last 24+ hours with the online alt-right, in a proxy war between himself and Young Jared. I guess that honeymoon between them didn't last long; I didn't expect it to.

 

Josh Marshall analyzes it a little.

Edited April 8, 2017 by Vee

[MissLlanviewPA]

 

If you haven't read Dan Rather's post, please do. He has been an oasis of common sense and thought since the last presidential election.

 

 

[DRW50]

Thanks for sharing that.

[JaneAusten]

There are issues I have with Rather but he also comes from a time(perhaps the end and transition from) when the media was actually a trusted source. Sure he had his own issues and he won't ever be "the most trusted person in America" as Cronkite was proclaimed, but he comes from an era when the media mattered and were generally fair and impartial. Issues aside, I will always respect what he did in Vietnam and how he was a key in helping to change American sentiment simply by being on the ground with troops there and exposing the fact it's not nor ever has been a glamour affair, something Americans have lost sight of it seems. I'm glad he can see it even if many in our media are too busy fawning and trying to win favor. He also was a big thorn in Nixon's side as Watergate unfolded, Nixon referring to Rather as an enemy of America, citing his work in Vietnam as the rational.

 

I have a close family member who was killed in action in Vietnam and joined the marines after high school because his father lauded it. His dad(my great uncle) never got over feeling the weight of responsibility for his son's death(he could have gone to college on a baseball scholarship but instead chose the marines because of his dad). It ate at him for the rest of his life. He became a stanch opponent to Vietnam and the US involvement in further military actions after his son's death.

Edited April 8, 2017 by JaneAusten

[DramatistDreamer]

According to analysis done at Standard & Poor's, Obamacare is not in a 'Death Spiral'. 

 

No ‘Death Spiral’: Insurers May Soon Profit From Obamacare Plans, Analysis Finds

[Khan]

 

Agree.  

[JaneAusten]

You know I love Obama but his foreign policy and intervention decisions left me furious.  And Clinton's hawkishness was never something I admired her for. But I have to respect Obama a bit more after this and how he finally bowed out of bombing Syria in 2013(even though congress didn't authorize) due to lack of support from allies and perhaps his own questioning as to whether it was right. He had to be under intense pressure from his foreign policy advisors to bomb.

 

I'm always for the humanitarian path and when Syria first started deteriorating, humanitarian action IMO is as far as we should have gone. Helping to create safe zones and havens, even allowing more refugees here would have been a far more charitable and productive effort than arming resistance fighters particularly because they own agendas were toxic.

 

The conflicts in the middle east are too complex to get in the middle of IMO. It's why I still laugh when I hear Dick Cheney spewing nonsense about how we would be welcomed as liberators in Iraq. Spoken out of pure ignorance. People seem to believe we will be welcomed as liberators as we were in Europe after WW2.

Edited April 8, 2017 by JaneAusten