Sound The TRUMPets! A Thread for Presidential Pondering 2016-2020(?)

[zamyrabyrd]

Simon NZ: "And you're [criticizing] a guy who actually served in Vietnam while praising someone who dodged going with a bogus claim of bone spurs and bragged of partying his time away instead.
That's our zb, in a nutshell.  In fact, it says a LOT about zb.

Sure, ANYONE who served in Vietnam was a saint. How about the My Lai coverup?
Agent Orange was beneficial to generations of body deformation, stunted growth and paralysis.
Come out and say it, Karl, WHAT does it say about me?
I am not a coward, are YOU?

[zamyrabyrd]

This poor woman wants her beliefs to be true more than have what's true be her beliefs. Seeking what's true means a willingness to recognize false beliefs even if the believer is you, especially if the believer is you.

My abhorrence of Obama has nothing to do with beliefs, but rather how he ran the US into further debt and despoiled the Middle East, unleashing murder, destruction and waves of refugees. His "deal" with Iran was also despicable.

This is what I don't get around here. Arguments are usually emotionally based assuming that the other person is operating under the same feelings of anger and hatred. I happen to think there are too many open questions about John McCain to put him on the fast track to canonization and sainthood.

[Marc]

Well, Obama inherited a crisis and had to do a lot of repair work.

But, who knows, you might be surprised about the height of USA debt thanks to Trump, who could do something about that in a period of growing economics.
Instead he is lowering taxes... and is he cutting down on government spending to compensate that? Not sure, but I doubt it.

Anyway, if not, and of the well developed economies the USA will remain the only country with increasing debts, then the trust and enthousiasm of investors might decrease. Bad for the dollar, bad for investments, and maybe good for another huge crisis to come.

[milk]

Sure, ANYONE who served in Vietnam was a saint. How about the My Lai coverup?
Agent Orange was beneficial to generations of body deformation, stunted growth and paralysis.
Come out and say it, Karl, WHAT does it say about me?
I am not a coward, are YOU?

Come on, this is nothing compared with the minefield that was NYC nightlife in the 70s.

[drogulus]

My abhorrence of Obama has nothing to do with beliefs, but rather how he ran the US into further debt and despoiled the Middle East, unleashing murder, destruction and waves of refugees. His "deal" with Iran was also despicable.

This is what I don't get around here. Arguments are usually emotionally based assuming that the other person is operating under the same feelings of anger and hatred. I happen to think there are too many open questions about John McCain to put him on the fast track to canonization and sainthood.

     You are excluding the middle, that McCain was a good person with flaws. Saints are placards. No actual person is like that. Also, it's not a compelling argument that says I can use low quality emotive reasons because my opponent does.

     The ME is a vacuum empires fight over, some home grown, some from outside. I view the inability of the region to come up with a path to modernity to be a case of where no ideas can correct the physical and social environment. The region keeps cycling back to religious absolutism and similar ideologies. MEers are perfectly capable of doing that on their own, as they keep demonstrating.

     I say this with no illusions about whether Westerners are trying to help, as I think trying to help isn't the only way a region gets to modernize out of its affliction. Ideas can find fertile soil to grow, or not. Let's not rob everyone of agency as a kind of covert prejudice.

[Karl Henning]

     You are excluding the middle, that McCain was a good person with flaws. Saints are placards. No actual person is like that. Also, it's not a compelling argument that says I can use low quality emotive reasons because my opponent does.

Both McCain and Trump are flawed people.  An impartial observer would find McCain the superior character.

Parenthetically, yes, I have left-wing friends who (equally wrong-headedly) apply a zero-tolerance policy to McCain, without regard for the plain fact that it is impossible for a politician to get everything right in all the things he says in public.  One could hardly reside in Boston, and not have a friend or three like that.  Pretty derned hard to talk sense into them, too.

[zamyrabyrd]

Pretty derned hard to talk sense into them, too.

I find the above REALLY amusing.
You still didn't answer my question.
Here's what you wrote: That's our zb, in a nutshell.  In fact, it says a LOT about zb.
Now please explain...

[drogulus]

Well, Obama inherited a crisis and had to do a lot of repair work.

But, who knows, you might be surprised about the height of USA debt thanks to Trump, who could do something about that in a period of growing economics.
Instead he is lowering taxes... and is he cutting down on government spending to compensate that? Not sure, but I doubt it.

Anyway, if not, and of the well developed economies the USA will remain the only country with increasing debts, then the trust and enthousiasm of investors might decrease. Bad for the dollar, bad for investments, and maybe good for another huge crisis to come.

     Is expansion bad for the economy because it will end, or is it bad because we will at some point decide to end it?

     Sovereign debt is the accumulated savings in the dollar, held by entities that can hold and use it. That's the point of a money system, to provide the needs of the government for the resources it wants to use and thereby to send dollars into the economy for everyone to use for themselves. The debt is the record of the dollars we have, the deficit is the flow of dollars into the economy. A surplus is the flow of dollars out of the economy. For jobs and growth the flow should be positive to the private sector almost all the time. The tax therefore must lag the spend and the lag is the policy for expansion, for jobs and wages and investment. The positive flow into the economy exactly equals the flow out of the money authority for each measurement period.

     The tax always comes back. If the government spends dollars into existence the tax will get them back or they will be saved as the "national debt". The question then should be what the national debt is for, and the answer is what I just said. Money is not for itself, it's for its use to move everything in the economy from point to point.

[drogulus]

     People who served with McCain tend to think well of him, including follow POWs and those in government who worked with him. It doesn't seem to have mattered which party they belonged to. McCain had a positive problem solving approach to government which put him at odds with his own party. He did this without becoming an independent or a "Senator from Maine". How much of that had to do with his background or representing the Goldwater state I don't know. For me what was important was that if someone from either party wanted to solve a problem they could go to him and ask for help.

     I went to the doctor recently and they said I should call my insurance company to get a rebate on some charge. I said I didn't want to bother. The person said it was a matter of principle. I said I don't have principles. That's partly true.

[bwv 1080]

I voted for Obama in 2008 primarily due McCain's uberhawkery, particular in regards to Russia.  Remember at the time he wanted NATO membership for Georgia coming on the wake of some border clashes with Russia.

And McCain was a maverick only in regard to the Republican right, he was a consummate Washington insider who never actually bucked mainstream opinion - all of his 'maverick' views would be right at home in the NY Times editorial page

That said, it was beyond the pale for Trump, who never sacrificed anything for anyone in his life, to attack his war record

[drogulus]

    I question the thesis that the deterrence value of hawkery leads to more war than the lack of hawkish deterrence. Stopping Putin from taking the next bite has value in terms of the bites he won't risk taking. Putin takes bites to restore imperial Russian greatness, so he is well motivated to continue if the coast looks clear. The doubt McCain would raise and the certainty Obama raised about freedom of action has an effect on Putin. Would McCain really try to stop me? Doubt is a valuable tool. You might not see its value but I guarantee Putin does.

    There are certainly warmongers who are as literal-minded and obtuse as peacemongers, thinking they are supposed to "take a stand" as though circumstances didn't matter that much. Obama was like that on several fronts. He thought he could make peace with all kinds of people with his good intentions. Yes, he was a ding dong of that kind.

[bwv 1080]

Until Putin calls the bluff, knowing that NATO would not really go to war over Georgia.

[eljr]

Trump World!

where the circus is always in town

[Karl Henning]

Not a very entertaining circus, either.

[drogulus]

Until Putin calls the bluff, knowing that NATO would not really go to war over Georgia.

      Exactly, creating doubt about how far we'll go is part of how deterrence works. I think Putin is not a superhero about overcoming his doubts. There was no percentage for NATO to make it easy for him. Lack of deterrence is riskier than deterrence. Putin must want lack of deterrence to be complete as possible. He doesn't only want NATO to be weak, he wants it to collapse so he doesn't even have to think twice about his next move. He's invested a great deal in the TrumPutin adventure. He wants us to think he is invincible and that any opposition means we are committed to war.

      What is holding Putin back from his next move? Let's figure that one out.

[Karl Henning]

      What is holding Putin back from his next move? Let's figure that one out.

Maybe not Donald the Patsy, you're thinking?

[bwv 1080]

      Exactly, creating doubt about how far we'll go is part of how deterrence works. I think Putin is not a superhero about overcoming his doubts. There was no percentage for NATO to make it easy for him. Lack of deterrence is riskier than deterrence. Putin must want lack of deterrence to be complete as possible. He doesn't only want NATO to be weak, he wants it to collapse so he doesn't even have to think twice about his next move. He's invested a great deal in the TrumPutin adventure. He wants us to think he is invincible and that any opposition means we are committed to war.

      What is holding Putin back from his next move? Let's figure that one out.

So do you think Georgia and Ukraine should be admitted to NATO, giving them a more or less unconditional guarantee that the US will go to war on their behalf?  What is our national interest in these former Soviet Socialist Republics?  If you ask me, the line for NATO should be drawn where it currently stands - the pre Molotov-Robbentrop USSR boundaries (ie the former USSR less the Baltic states).  Putin, while a bad actor, not sitting around planning on how he is going to set up a chain of dominoes that results in Russian tanks rolling through Germany (anyway Russia is a poor country - on par with Mexico and no long term existential threat to Western Europe)

[Florestan]

If you ask me, the line for NATO should be drawn where it currently stands - the pre Molotov-Robbentrop USSR boundaries (ie the former USSR less the Baltic states).

Be careful what you wish for! --- and do your history homework as well. 

By your criterion, it would be the former USSR less the Baltic State and less The Republic of Moldavia and less some parts of present-day Ukraine --- all of the former being part and parcel of pre Molotov-Robbentrop USSR boundaries as they historically belong to Romania. 

[SimonNZ]

Donald Trump: Google's news service is rigged against me

"Donald Trump has used a series of early morning tweets to complain that Google's news service is "rigged" against him and has pledged to address this "very serious" situation.

The US president said the existing system was biased in favour of stories from leftwing news outlets and suggested tech companies were trying to hide positive stories about his administration - something that Google strongly denied.

Asked whether Trump thinks Google should be subject to some regulation, Larry Kudlow, the president's top economic adviser, told reporters outside the White House that "we're taking a look".

Trump also stated that 96% of Google News results for "Trump" were from leftwing outlets, which he described as "very dangerous".

It is likely the US president was , which concluded that the vast majority of Google News results for the president were from left-leaning outlets. The site used a classification that ranks almost every mainstream news outlet – other than Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, the Economist, and DailyMail.com – as leftwing.

PJ Media said its survey of the top 100 Google News results for the search term "Trump" was "not scientific" but suggested "a pattern of bias against right-leaning content".

The US president possibly came across PJ Media's 96% statistic after it was covered by Fox News host Lou Dobbs on his Monday night broadcast."

-

Stop doing dumb shit and people will stop writing about your dumb shit. That's pretty much how that one works, moron.

And "regulation" requiring positive reviews?. I think there's a name for that.

Also: I usually get Fox on the first page when I do a google search for Trump News.

[bwv 1080]

Be careful what you wish for! --- and do your history homework as well. 

By your criterion, it would be the former USSR less the Baltic State and less The Republic of Moldavia and less some parts of present-day Ukraine --- all of the former being part and parcel of pre Molotov-Robbentrop USSR boundaries as they historically belong to Romania. 

I had a feeling I would hear from you about Bessarabia / Moldavia or whatever that piece of Romania was

Am talking about where the line of adding countries to NATO should end - it has to end somewhere.  Like China, Russia is an historic regional power and some respect should be given its historical sphere of influence.  just as we play this game with not recognizing Taiwan as an independent country or agitating for Tibetan independence - we should not be messing with most of the former SSRs.