Cont: The Trump Presidency: Part 19

[Ziggurat]

That's worthy of ten dogs but people hate them.

It’s funny you should laugh when you are not only wrong, but I already proved you wrong up thread.

 

[Ziggurat]

Zig, you poo-poo'ed a previous comment on this topic by stating the proposed time scale was too long. Yet, here you suggest opening up lease areas has the desired effect on Russian behavior. Yet it takes YEARS from opening up a lease area to actual production, much less enough production to affect Russian behavior.

You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Years , not decades.

 

[Aridas]

I didn’t say he was smart. I said he wasn’t stupid.

I'll accept that correction of what you said. My apologies for my mistake.

 

[acbytesla]

There’s a reason Putin backs environmentalists in the US.

Gee. I thought Trump made stupid remarks. Seriously?

 

[Aridas]

Incidentally, I may as well poke at the Guardian in response to the Putin supports US environmentalist claim.

Republican-led committee says Russia funded 'useful idiot' environmentalists

House lawmakers say Russia backed Dakota Access pipeline protesters and supported them on social media, but evidence is thin

A close reading of the report, however, reveals that many of the committee’s claims rely on meager evidence, not least its assertion that Russia has backed land and wildlife conservation organizations including the Sierra Club and the League of Conservation Voters.

<snip>

In a statement, the Sierra Club legislative director, Melinda Pierce, called the accusations of Russian-backed financing “absurd, false smears” that “were invented by the same deceitful front groups getting paid to do the dirty work of big polluters and big tobacco”.

Footnotes supporting the congressional report’s funding claim lead back to a single 2015 publication, From Russia With Love?, that was compiled by an organization called the Environmental Policy Alliance, an industry front group created by the Washington DC public relations operative Richard Berman.

In 2014, the New York Times obtained an audio recording of Berman advising fossil fuel executives at an industry summit that they should envision their struggle against environmentalists as “an endless war”. He then asked the gathered executives to finance the Environmental Policy Alliance’s “Big Green Radicals” campaign, an effort to sully the reputation of major American environmental groups.

Berman’s organization published From Russia With Love? as part of that continuing campaign. Its claims hinge on guilt by association and focus on a private foundation called Sea Change that donated millions of dollars to environmental organizations like the Sierra Club and the League of Conservation Voters at the beginning of the decade. It then describes financial links between Sea Change and a Bermuda-based corporation that in turn has ties to a law firm whose employees are associated with Russian oligarchs and energy interests.

I'm not so impressed by the evidence of Putin's "support" of the environmentalists. There's more to the article, of course, but... I think that that's plenty to start with. I will say that the premise sounds superficially plausible, though, and likely even more plausible to less ethical conservatives that are projecting what they would do onto everyone else, despite all the evidence to the contrary.

 

[a_unique_person]

It’s funny you should laugh when you are not only wrong, but I already proved you wrong up thread.

According to your link you are confusing Astroturfing with protecting the environment.

 

[Hevneren]

No, he was Austrian but killed in Serbia by a Serbian anarchist.

I long ago gave up predicting what would happen in the ME.

Franz Ferdinand was shot in Sarajevo in Bosnia, which in 1914 was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (map). Gavrilo Princip was a Bosnian Serb. We shold never stop nitpicking.

 

[eeyore1954]

Bwahahahah. Zig thinks Trump is a successful person. Bwahahahah.




No, wait. That's very sad, not funny.

He was pretty successful in his quest to become president.
Much to the chagrin of most posters here.
I certainly never thought he could do it.

 

[Planigale]

We're now being told that the killing of Soleimani was because he was planning an "imminent attack to kill Americans". So far, no details of this alleged imminent attack have been given.

There was a time when we would have believed the POTUS and Sec. of State when they told us why something was done. Now? I don't believe anything either Trump or Pompeo say. Trump has lied so many times that he has no credibility whatsoever and Pompeo is just his arse kissing yes man. When Pompeo assures us that 'the world is a much safer place today' because of Soleimani's death, I put zero stock in it.

The problem I have with this is that he is a general; his job is to plan how to attack possible enemies. I am pretty sure that the pentagon is full of military personnel planning imminent attacks to kill Iranians (and Iraqis and Russians and ....), does that mean they are terrorists?

Indeed it is pretty hard to think that assassinating a general transiting through an international airport of an allied country is anything other than terrorism. If there was evidence for his participation in terrorism he could have been detained and put on trial, unless he was travelling on a diplomatic passport. International law only permits the use of lethal force if there is an immediate threat to life. On this principle all US forces in the middle east would become legitimate targets for assassination as they all are possible participants in an attack on Iranians or Iraqis. The clearest example of a terrorist action was the USN blowing up an Iranian civilian airliner, the Iranians probably have more justification for viewing the US as a terrorist organisation than vice versa; the alleged target of Iranian proxies are at least legitimate military targets. Fighting against an invading and occupying army is usually regarded as legitimate military action. Extra judicial execution of resistance fighters was one of the crimes the Nazis were accused of.

 

[jeremyp]

WWI started after an assassination of an Austrian archduke and his wife. Few realized what it would lead to.

Well, I think many realised it would lead to a general war in Europe, if not immediately, then as soon as Austro-Hungary started strong-arming Serbia in response to the assassination. Probably, nobody thought the war would last four years, practically bankrupting or destroying all the initial belligerents and enriching the USA.

Certainly nobody foresaw the conflagration that enveloped the World in the late 1930's and early 40's that was a direct consequence.

 

[Fast Eddie B]

He's still the man who claimed windmills cause cancer. There is no amount of charity that can excuse that one.

I said as much in my post. We have a mountain of false, misleading and ridiculous statements from which to choose. The moon/Mars one is just weak sauce.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

He was pretty successful in his quest to become president.
Much to the chagrin of most posters here.
I certainly never thought he could do it.

Was it success or accidental (Comey) with help (Russia)?

ETA: He is admittedly very successful at riling up the crowds.

 

[newyorkguy]

There is widespread condemnation of Trump's assassination of Qasem Soleimani. Even "Fox & Friends" aired a segment with congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard in which Gabbard was critical of Trump's action .

"It further escalates this tit-for-tat that's going on and on and on. [It] will elicit a very serious response from Iran and [push] us deeper and deeper into this quagmire," she said. "And it really begs the question: for what?" Gabbard said that while there is "no question about how evil" Soleimani was, "the real question is what are we trying to accomplish here in the country?" Link

 

[Andy_Ross]

Trump Tweets

95% Approval Rating in the Republican Party. Thank you!

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

The problem I have with this is that he is a general; his job is to plan how to attack possible enemies. I am pretty sure that the pentagon is full of military personnel planning imminent attacks to kill Iranians (and Iraqis and Russians and ....), does that mean they are terrorists?

In addition, where's the evidence? How is this any different from Saddam's WMDs?

Indeed it is pretty hard to think that assassinating a general transiting through an international airport of an allied country is anything other than terrorism. If there was evidence for his participation in terrorism he could have been detained and put on trial, unless he was travelling on a diplomatic passport. International law only permits the use of lethal force if there is an immediate threat to life. On this principle all US forces in the middle east would become legitimate targets for assassination as they all are possible participants in an attack on Iranians or Iraqis. The clearest example of a terrorist action was the USN blowing up an Iranian civilian airliner, the Iranians probably have more justification for viewing the US as a terrorist organisation than vice versa; the alleged target of Iranian proxies are at least legitimate military targets. Fighting against an invading and occupying army is usually regarded as legitimate military action. Extra judicial execution of resistance fighters was one of the crimes the Nazis were accused of.

All good points.

 

[Safe-Keeper]

He was pretty successful in his quest to become president.

Nitpick:
There is no concrete evidence of this, but Wolff repoted in Fire and Fury* that Trump didn't in fact want to be president, and that he and the people around him reacted with shock and horror when results came in on election night.

*I don't know if the link takes you straight to the right page, but it's at the end of the "Election Night" chapter.

 

[acbytesla]

He was pretty successful in his quest to become president.
Much to the chagrin of most posters here.
I certainly never thought he could do it.

I give you that Trump is a successful con man.

 

[Safe-Keeper]

As Sam Harris pointed out, perhaps the most successful con man in history, given he achieved, accidentally or not, the position of POTUS with his bull [manure]-ing.

 

[JoeMorgue]

That's why he's such a problem. Traditional bad Presidents still had vague concepts like at least not trying to be cartoonishly evil or at the very, very least simple self preservation making sure the base concept of "No matter how evil, greedy, and spiteful I want to be I at least recognize I'm better for purely selfish reasons if the country I live in continues to work and exist."

Trump is an unhinged manchild either being enabled by or using (or some sort of twisted self feeding version of both) a populace so spiteful and without hope that they want the whole system pulled down on everyone's head.

 

[Ladewig]

Was it success or accidental (Comey) with help (Russia)?

ETA: He is admittedly very successful at riling up the crowds.

Plus, during the primaries, the rational vote was split between all the rational candidates, but the irrational vote all went to Candidate Trump.