fatboyonabike
Captain oblivious
Toe the party line or get fucked up by the Carabineros!...Hmm, what is the choice again?
Trump..... (The Sophistry Thread)
- Thread starter John U
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pink poodle
気が狂っている男
Those electric torture beds looked pretty comfy...
Told you this Ukraine thing was a game changer!
alrsv1
Likes Bikes
My better half is Chilena, and yes it was a real eye opener going there and realising that otherwise sane, reasonable people thought he was the shit, and most of the people that disappeared went on 'holiday', really. How much of that was that they actually believed it or just had to tell themselves that because his politics aligned with their own.
Genuinely horrifying.
It was like going to work in the US for the first time a realising that people actually liked Bush, when everywhere else in the world you go its almost a universal constant that he's an idiotic lying scumbag. So much so that two different places I went for Spanish leasons they use a picture of Bush to mean 'stupid' and 'bad'. But when you go there, really hits home that a lot people love him.
Asininedrivel
caviar connoisseur
Still a waste of time and effort for anything beyond a symbolic measure of trying to prove Trump is at least somewhat within the bounds of the law*
However some fun has at least resulted in that:
Trump said he did nothing wrong and the call to Zelensky was the best phone call anyone has ever orchestrated and he should know (Sunday)
Trump said okay maybe it wasn't the best call ever and it was about corruption but he didn't refuse to hand over promised aid (Monday)
Trump said actually okay maybe I did refuse to hand over aid but it's because the dog ate it or something (Tuesday)
Wonder what he'll say today?
*(really hope I'm wrong though)
Agreed, China has been pulling shit for years in regards to IP theft, blackmailing companies for source codes, blocking investment, etc. etc. However, the "trade war" is much more than that, it's a strategic move to constrain the Chinese economy and possibly decouple the US economy from the Chinese. There's a bunch written about it, here's just a taste: https://www.axios.com/china-united-...war-7be11ae3-a62f-4b0e-89fc-e75beb18903b.html - https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opin...not-about-trade-not-about-trump-heres-what-it - This one is particularly good at explaining it: https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/08/2...na-hawk-peter-navarro-american-factory-obama/
What the TPP was going to do by knitting together liberal economies around the Pacific, Trump is trying to do unilaterally by brute force.
Whilst some countries in NATO could definitely to more, Trump's characterisation of the situation is either disingenuous or just stupid. Using GDP as a measure fails to capture the info you require. A nation could spend 10% of their GDP on military spending, but if it's going into big bonuses for the top brass, it's useless in terms of national defence or supporting treaty obligations. Even if a nation is spending over 2% GDP, if it's spending it on CT training, drone R&D and clearance divers, it's not going to be useful. But if a nation is spending 1.5% on integrated systems that support maritime domain awareness, integrated air defence systems, tank divisions with training, maintenance and logitistical suport that allows them to operate at long distances for long periods of time, that would be better than a standard 2% GDP spending on "defence".
The whole 2% thing is rather fatuous. Then when you look at the way he's trying to have the ROK, Japan, etc. pay more for "US services", it completely misses the point that the US does NOT want them to go it alone. Having them under the US wing supports US interests possibly even more than it supports ROK/Japan interests. Alliances are not a transactional relationship, they are strategic and have to be viewed through a different lens than a financial one.
Again, immigration is an issue for every country. However, the wall is nothing but lipstick - in otherwords, completely cosmetic. It certainly won't stop the drugs, it won't stop the crime and it won't stop the massive amount of 'illegal immigrants' that come through the checkpoints. What it tends to stop more is the asylum seekers and refugees.
His action on immigration is purely political, without an ounce of pragmatism.
Another way of saying that is that previous politicians have played politics with words, for headlines and cheap votes, but they haven't been stupid or dishonest enough to damage the national interest by actually pushing hard on these issues just to look tough.
I can also show you a mountain of crap he's said that he's done the absolute opposite of since taking office:
Trump won the election because of the electoral college, he lost the popular vote
The deficit has increased massively under Trump
Trump extended the debt ceiling.
Trump attacked Syria in 2017
This could go on for a long time, and oh, I could also mention the whole "Mexico will pay for the wall" thing, but I don't think anyone ever really believed that from the start.
Lastly, I would prefer the most corrupt and dishonest politicians to NOT have the courage of their convitions, to be honest!!
Attachments
That the vote to allow the whistleblower appear before Congress was won 100-0 grabbed my attention. Why did the Reps vote yes? Have they heard what's happening and are starting to backpedal from the indefensible? Or are they trying to lure the Dems into a Clinton/Lewinsky trap? What made Pelosi change her mind so soon after leaning back away from it?
I could easily be misinterpreting things (or have severe confirmation bias) but it feels that there MAY be a shift.
Time will tell.
pink poodle
気が狂っている男
I found this museum to be very interesting:
Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos
ww3.museodelamemoria.cl
[B]Jamie O'Grady [/B][B][/B]Verified account @[B]JamieOGrady[/B]
Wow,@HeidiNBC reporting that Trump called Pelosi today and asked “if they could work something out on this whole whistleblower thing.”
Wow,
pink poodle
気が狂っている男
It could be a bit colourful media draining distraction from the next election. People can reach saturation point, become disillusioned + disenfranchised + disinterested and so on, lower voter turnout, drown out the democratic monster's voice, impeachment goes nowhere and bam...a "vindicated" Trump slips hack into office as corruptor in chief.
moorey
call me Mia
In his defence, Pilosi is pretty gutless and self serving. Would be just like her to cut him some sweet deal.
Nerf Herder
Wheel size expert
Last bits don’t really relate to what I’m saying or my intent re Trump ... but yeah wack job
Re NATO Defence Spend vs % GDP ... I had thought that was the relevant measure/ requirement for the alliance members ... but I know you’ll be across that better then me
Going back to the trade war ... and recent China reaction to ScoMo comments about WTO reclassification developing vs developed or whatever the next level is ...
Do you have some perspective on why Western Democracies are letting China get away with so much shizzle?
Is it purely in the hope that a rising middle class will lead to regime change? Is it that simple?
If this is the case do you think the west has read the Chinese people correctly?
I might be moving a bit off topic ... but I agree with ScoMo re developing nation status has to change for China if not now then what’s the line in the sand. I also hate it when oppositions just hate shit because it was the govt’s shit.
Asininedrivel
caviar connoisseur
Just speed read the transcript memo (on ABC News) and I'd say there's a fairly solid implied threat there ("the USA has been very, very, very good to you") - but it could just as easily be discounted if you didn't want to believe it, as the entire Republican Party with the exception of Mitt Romney are now lining up to do.
The main infuriating thing about the transcript is just how much of an infant that orange fuck comes across as in everyday conversation. Like a cunning 12 year old bully trying to nudge the new kid into line. Pathetic.
It was more so to show that he doesn't have policy convictions, only policy conveniences.Last bits don’t really relate to what I’m saying or my intent re Trump ... but yeah wack job
At best, it's one of the many measures to consider but it's the most basic and on its own it means little to nothing. But, politicians and others continue to use it (and strategic thinkers, planners, academics, etc. groan when they do) just as people still use IQ as a measure of intelligence when psychologists/psychiatrists and other professsionals stopped using it decades ago because it was not an accurate measure.Re NATO Defence Spend vs % GDP ... I had thought that was the relevant measure/ requirement for the alliance members ... but I know you’ll be across that better then me
"Defense spending as a percentage of GDP is a fundamentally flawed metric that does not fully capture the contribution of allies and does little to incentivize them to do what we actually want them to do—build a sizable, capable, and well-trained military that is designed and prepared to operate in coalitions when called upon."
Some reading on the issue, should you be interested (they're short pieces):
Bad Idea: Demanding Allies Spend Two Percent of GDP on Defense | Defense360
It’s time we ditch the two percent (or any percent) of GDP metric for allied defense spending and focus on what really matters—capability, capacity, readiness, and interoperability. In the end, it’s not about how much of our allies’ economic output is directed to defense, and this metric does...
defense360.csis.org
Defence spending: What should we be measuring? | Lowy Institute
www.lowyinstitute.org
There's no perfect measure for defence spending | The Strategist
In a recent post, Neil James made some interesting points about defence spending metrics and the political economy of defence in a democracy. With the federal budget due in three weeks’ time, I thought I ...
www.aspistrategist.org.au
There was a hope that making space for China in the global system, especially in terms of trade and finance, would see a gradual liberalisation of their economy and politics, which would then mean an improvement in human rights, the way we see them. This would then make some kind of confrontation due to their rising power less likely. This has been shown to be faulty (and a little arrogant) as China has come up in the current global system (in terms of trade, investment, etc. and benefited from the US global security structure) but is now manipulating it to its own advantage and looking to overturn it for a preferred version (which is bad if you don't like authoritarianism, totalitarianism, dictatorships, etc.).
There's a lot of reading on this as well:
How the West got China wrong
It bet that China would head towards democracy and the market economy. The gamble has failed
China Lost the United States First
Beijing’s hostility started long before the trade war.
foreignpolicy.com
How the West got China wrong
Stein Ringen says rather than see the superpower through the distorting lens of liberal standards, Western leaders should understand the dictatorship on its own terms and realise that their models cannot be applied to the nation’s unique system
www.scmp.com
What the West Got Wrong About China, Part 1 (Published 2018)
Many in the United States believed that capitalism would never work without political freedom. Then China began to rise.
I don't know enough to have an opinion on this but China certainly games the system.
Yep, the Reps seem to think that this is defensible. It really is the age of "fuck the national interest".
Interesting to see what the whistleblower has to say.
hifiandmtb
Sphincter beanie
Involving his personal attorney in the conversation certainly stinks of shit.
Binaural
Eats Squid
Literally the only reason to do this is so he can claim client-attorney confidentiality if questioned, and help Trump avoid using a member of the US government to do his dirty work. The good news is that this derelict (Guiliani) has basically admitted to the major points of the narrative, and client-attorney privilege rather unsurprisingly doesn't extent to information about crimes that have been committed by either party.
The weird thing is that from previous investigations, we know Trump is very careful to not exactly instruct his underlings in what he wants, he implies like a mafia boss and they go do it. The surprise is that this works at all with the best people.
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pink poodle
気が狂っている男
So much hype. I'm wary of being let down again.