American Politics

[Onyx Darkmatter]

I think the leaks involves the Manchester Concert Attack. Probably has something to do with securities, so the UK got pissed at the US.

 

[kkck]

I think the leaks involves the Manchester Concert Attack. Probably has something to do with securities, so the UK got pissed at the US.

I know about those leaks but that is not what i am asking about. I am asking in general, why are there so many leaks?

 

[Onyx Darkmatter]

I know about those leaks but that is not what i am asking about. I am asking in general, why are there so many leaks?

Hmm... that I'm unsure of.

 

[M3J]

I know about those leaks but that is not what i am asking about. I am asking in general, why are there so many leaks?

Act of rebellion and teenage angst, I bet.

 

[kkck]

I get what trump is trying to do when he says NATO members own money but does he realize that nato members don't actually own money? Why does he phrase that in a way that is both inaccurate and makes US allies sound like thieves?

 

[M3J]

makes US allies sound like thieves?

you just answered your own question

 

[Franckie]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-al...da-gop-operative-1495724787?mg=id-wsj&tesla=y

This is bullshit. It's been obvious all along that the Russians and parts of the GOP have been colluding with one another to oust Democrats. The idea that the GOP were merely passive, unwitting beneficiaries of Russian interference last year is garbage. GOP leaders know better, but they turn a blind eye with the collusion that is incoming from our own country with a hostile foreign power. Dude, the Russians are not our friends. They'll turn on the GOP the moment they cease to be useful, and have already hacked them at least once. Other countries are already noting how rabid partisanship can be used to undermine our national security and influence abroad. And the GOP ignores all this because of their addiction to promoting welfare for the wealthy by shafting the safety net.

 

[kkck]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-al...da-gop-operative-1495724787?mg=id-wsj&tesla=y

This is bullshit. It's been obvious all along that the Russians and parts of the GOP have been colluding with one another to oust Democrats. The idea that the GOP were merely passive, unwitting beneficiaries of Russian interference last year is garbage. GOP leaders know better, but they turn a blind eye with the collusion that is incoming from our own country with a hostile foreign power. Dude, the Russians are not our friends. They'll turn on the GOP the moment they cease to be useful, and have already hacked them at least once. Other countries are already noting how rabid partisanship can be used to undermine our national security and influence abroad. And the GOP ignores all this because of their addiction to promoting welfare for the wealthy by shafting the safety net.

As for the bold part, to be honest that is almost how I saw the situation. The alternative would be that the GOP actively worked with russia with the hacking and whatever else this entails. However that is not to say them being passive unwitting beneficiaries makes them innocent. The keyword there is "passive". They shouldn't have been passive. They failed to call out trump and russia over this bullshit. And now the other side of the coin. Russia is absolutely not the GOP's friend. And it is certainly not friends with trump. Russia's goal isn't to help trump, it is to cause political chaos and destabilize the US. Their aim was to erode trust in the highest office in the country, US institutions and perhaps get the US president to enable their own geopolitical agenda. Russia didn't need to collude with trump or anyone else to do what they did at the election. It's like the bit about hacking macron's emails. Russia didn't need permission from or to work with le pen to do it, they just did it to hopefully cause chaos in france. Honestly, trump's people are so incompetent that russia probably avoided the collusion intentionally so that those idiots wouldn't ruin it.

 

[M3J]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-al...da-gop-operative-1495724787?mg=id-wsj&tesla=y

This is bullshit. It's been obvious all along that the Russians and parts of the GOP have been colluding with one another to oust Democrats. The idea that the GOP were merely passive, unwitting beneficiaries of Russian interference last year is garbage. GOP leaders know better, but they turn a blind eye with the collusion that is incoming from our own country with a hostile foreign power. Dude, the Russians are not our friends. They'll turn on the GOP the moment they cease to be useful, and have already hacked them at least once. Other countries are already noting how rabid partisanship can be used to undermine our national security and influence abroad. And the GOP ignores all this because of their addiction to promoting welfare for the wealthy by shafting the safety net.

Thing is though, democrats would likely do the same if given the chance.

 

[swirlydragon]

I made myself believe that Trump was a better choice than Hilary after he won the elections.
Well now I realize that it was just wishful thinking and nothing else.

 

[M3J]

So, a white supremacist killed two guys, one of them a veteran, when they defended a Muslim girl. Another white supremacist days ago killed a black vet. Clearly the problem is racism and white racists being lunatics.

Also, did Trump ever mention these killings at all? Or was he quiet?

 

[swirlydragon]

So, a white supremacist killed two guys, one of them a veteran, when they defended a Muslim girl. Another white supremacist days ago killed a black vet. Clearly the problem is racism and white racists being lunatics.

Also, did Trump ever mention these killings at all? Or was he quiet?

He is quiet since these attacks do not fit his political agenda.
He will only address Muslim attacks, I guess smh

 

[M3J]

 

[kkck]

So rumors are the US is withdrawing from the paris agreement... Trump must be thinking he is so smart by withdrawing... Everyone else tries to adjust to it but the US doesn't care about that and boosts production.Worst part is that it probably won't even play out that way for the US anyways. Trump is so deep in the oil swamp even that won't matter to him anyways.

 

[Franckie]

Thing is though, democrats would likely do the same if given the chance.

No. The GOP's sin is the same one that enabled Vichy: hating your (perceived) domestic political opponents so much that you collaborate with the foreign invader. Democrats aren't there. Yet.

So rumors are the US is withdrawing from the paris agreement... Trump must be thinking he is so smart by withdrawing... Everyone else tries to adjust to it but the US doesn't care about that and boosts production.Worst part is that it probably won't even play out that way for the US anyways. Trump is so deep in the oil swamp even that won't matter to him anyways.

The U.S. has actually been steadily losing credibility for a long time now. People often forget how the Bush Administration wandered from one crisis to another, flabbergasting both allies and enemies alike. Trump pulling out of the Paris Agreement is hardly different from the Bush Administration pulling out of the Kyoto Protocol, for example. Much of our current political dysfunction that led to Trump has its roots in the GOP's actions in the 1990s, like launching Fox News.

 

[kkck]

No. The GOP's sin is the same one that enabled Vichy: hating your (perceived) domestic political opponents so much that you collaborate with the foreign invader. Democrats aren't there. Yet.

The U.S. has actually been steadily losing credibility for a long time now. People often forget how the Bush Administration wandered from one crisis to another, flabbergasting both allies and enemies alike. Trump pulling out of the Paris Agreement is hardly different from the Bush Administration pulling out of the Kyoto Protocol, for example. Much of our current political dysfunction that led to Trump has its roots in the GOP's actions in the 1990s, like launching Fox News.

Well, that respect was somewhat reestablished by the obama administration. Even now obama is a well liked figure in Europe in general as far as I can tell. Agreed that trump is basically the same as george bush though. Overall, people need to realize that most of the unpopular stuff trump is doing right is not "trumpian". There is no trumpism yet. The stuff trump has done in regards to climate change and health care along with what he is trying to do with taxes are stuff "sensible" republicans have been pushing for for years. This isn't new insane stuff the republican party is doing because of trump, this is literally what they have been pushing for. This is literally what republicans stand for. The stuff that would fall under trumpism so to speak would be the at least murky connections to russia, trump potentially profiting from the presidency (him receiving foreign diplomats on his hotels should be at the very least be frown-worthy), kushner doing way too much while having no qualifications and the bit with china where they were selling visas to rich people, everything bannon related... Basically, none of the white house issues that relate specifically to trump have much to do with policy itself. At least when it comes to domestic policy trump is not doing things differently from what, say, john kasich or marco rubio would. Foreign policy wise he is pretty different from the average republican though. I can't fathom a regular republican going on tour on europe to insult allies while at the same time cuddling with putin...

That said, my question would be: What the hell do republicans think a strong and respected leader looks like? Most of US allies think trump is an ignorant buffoon and his actions have already prompted US allies to basically say the US can't be relied on anymore. Of course, trump has not made europe into it's enemy, I can't fathom that being possible at this point, but if we consider how he is viewed by them and how they view his chumminess with putin and who knows who else the US has lost plenty of influence worldwide very quickly. imagine, there is actually a possibility that US allies might reconsider sharing information with the US because there is a legitimate fear that trump would share it with russia.....

 

[M3J]

No. The GOP's sin is the same one that enabled Vichy: hating your (perceived) domestic political opponents so much that you collaborate with the foreign invader. Democrats aren't there. Yet.



The U.S. has actually been steadily losing credibility for a long time now. People often forget how the Bush Administration wandered from one crisis to another, flabbergasting both allies and enemies alike. Trump pulling out of the Paris Agreement is hardly different from the Bush Administration pulling out of the Kyoto Protocol, for example. Much of our current political dysfunction that led to Trump has its roots in the GOP's actions in the 1990s, like launching Fox News.

But the country was gaining credibility under Obama, to a degree. In fact, it was the people criticizing OBama/his plans that were making us lose credibility, and it didn't help that Trump kept getting more and more popular. We lost face as soon as Trump pulled ahead in the primaries, nearly completely.

 

[SleipnirX]

Well I have to say withdrawing from the climate change commitment is a really crap thing to do - but not quite for the reasons you might expect. The thing with climate change is, argue over anthropogenic CC all you want, natural climate change definitely exists - there have definitely been whole eras of earths history where the planet has been so warm that there were no polar ice caps at all. Heck, they were growing grapes in Scotland as recently as the roman period. Our climate records also largely began in an unusually cold period that happened to coincide with the industrial revolution (the little ice age) - so again, a large chunk of warming to date is actually normalisation of the climate. We need to stop with the talk of 'preventing warming' - that is beyond us completely. We need to start talking about 'mitigating the effects of CC' as we're going to have to deal with it eventually.

So on to why, nonetheless, US withdrawal from the Paris agreement is still a disaster - basically because fossil fuels have about a million and one other drawbacks. I'll list just the biggest ones off the top of my head here:

1. Probably (IMO) the single biggest reason to ditch fossil fuels is the effect on the Oceans. Climate change, as outlined above, is still a bit vague, but Ocean acidification and deoxygenation is a real, measurable thing, and the increasing atmospheric concentration of CO2 is having a measurable impact. What this means is that we could soon see a complete devastation of marine life - bad enough for fishing towns and villages in developed countries, but absolute Armageddon for poorer countries where no alternative livelihoods exist for these millions of fishermen. That's not to mention the poor aquatic life itself slowly suffocating to death.
2. General pollution, air, acid rain, oils spills and the like, but increasingly oil and gas are becoming so difficult to get at we're having to resort to extremely damaging practices like fracking to get at it. Ask the residents in the US who can now light their tap water on fire why this ain't good!
3. Geopolitics. Unstable regions + big oil money - oh dear.
4. It's finite. Ultimately we are going to run out of accessible reserves, but longbrfore that it will cease to be a viable option to power our world as costs will rocket once we reach peak oil and start drawing down our last supplies. It is imperative we have an alternative power source in place by the time that happens.

So that's my thoughts on this, feel free to argue but I think it's pretty incontestable logic.

 

[xi0]

Forget about Climate Change, there are enough health benefits from reducing emissions in as many ways as possible. You don't even need to agree with whether Climate Change is man-made or not.

 

[Franckie]

Well, that respect was somewhat reestablished by the obama administration. Even now obama is a well liked figure in Europe in general as far as I can tell. Agreed that trump is basically the same as george bush though. Overall, people need to realize that most of the unpopular stuff trump is doing right is not "trumpian". There is no trumpism yet. The stuff trump has done in regards to climate change and health care along with what he is trying to do with taxes are stuff "sensible" republicans have been pushing for for years. This isn't new insane stuff the republican party is doing because of trump, this is literally what they have been pushing for. This is literally what republicans stand for. The stuff that would fall under trumpism so to speak would be the at least murky connections to russia, trump potentially profiting from the presidency (him receiving foreign diplomats on his hotels should be at the very least be frown-worthy), kushner doing way too much while having no qualifications and the bit with china where they were selling visas to rich people, everything bannon related... Basically, none of the white house issues that relate specifically to trump have much to do with policy itself. At least when it comes to domestic policy trump is not doing things differently from what, say, john kasich or marco rubio would. Foreign policy wise he is pretty different from the average republican though. I can't fathom a regular republican going on tour on europe to insult allies while at the same time cuddling with putin...

That said, my question would be: What the hell do republicans think a strong and respected leader looks like? Most of US allies think trump is an ignorant buffoon and his actions have already prompted US allies to basically say the US can't be relied on anymore. Of course, trump has not made europe into it's enemy, I can't fathom that being possible at this point, but if we consider how he is viewed by them and how they view his chumminess with putin and who knows who else the US has lost plenty of influence worldwide very quickly. imagine, there is actually a possibility that US allies might reconsider sharing information with the US because there is a legitimate fear that trump would share it with russia.....

Respect for Democrats, not Republicans. Even countries that have longed been hostile to the U.S., like Iran, were caught by surprise by GOP attempts to undermine Obama. And this is dangerous. Russia is self-explanatory, but it isn't the only country that has attempted to take advantage of the growing partisan divide in the U.S. Israel, for instance, prefers to co-op Republicans to use them as gullible rubes to instigate conflict in the Middle East so they don't have to lift a finger. Another thing is we need to put things in perspective. Obama helped restore some credibility to the U.S., but many of his decisions, like his decision to stay in Afghanistan, has caused a truckload of problems for the U.S. We're like the UK was during 1945: tired, overextended, and impotent.

The GOP's idea of a "strong and "respected leader" is someone who "liberals" hate. Many Republicans know Trump is an incompetent buffoon unfit for office and loath him, but they stick with him out of fear, greed, and misplaced tribal loyalty. I'm skeptical Trump can make it through 4 years, however. He appears to be a man at increasing risk of suffering a nervous breakdown. If that happens, then I expect Vice President Pence to take charge via the 25th Amendment.

Trump did surprise me today, however. He made two surprisingly good picks for the Federal Reserve Board. Actually competent.

But the country was gaining credibility under Obama, to a degree. In fact, it was the people criticizing OBama/his plans that were making us lose credibility, and it didn't help that Trump kept getting more and more popular. We lost face as soon as Trump pulled ahead in the primaries, nearly completely.

We lost face 17 years ago when George W. Bush won the presidency. Also, as I mentioned to kkck, it's debatable whether the U.S.'s reputation was truly restored or not. The international community's memory is much longer than that of U.S. voters and U.S. politicians. Over the last 20 years, they've seen the U.S. repeatedly elect buffoons like Bush and now Trump. What does that say about our country when we routinely elect dolts like these two? I know other countries have their own share of nutjobs, racists, and assholes, but the U.S. dominates the spotlight since we're still the most influential country in the world. For now anyway.