US Politics Mega-thread - Page 6442

On December 17 2016 18:40 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:

200 years? Last i heard Saudi has maybe 30-40 years of oil left.And we all know that oil is harder to extract than the stuff they've already pulled out.

Saudi gets 90% of it's revenue from oil, it will be a total minnow on the global political stage with a few decades and it is very unlikely the current monarchy will still exist.They will probably go back to being nomadic traders which to me is far preferable than the atrocities they are committing in Yemen right now in the name of globalism and the "war on terror".

When you go to the polls today, here is a thought to fortify you: We are being protected by a "big, beautiful brown wall." Latino turnout in Florida is tracking at 130% of normal, and African American turnout is consistent with the population in Florida, which is 13%. That may just keep this country from facing 4 years of infantile, angry leadership, or worse.

"Donald Trump will be kept from the White House by a big, beautiful, brown wall,” Clinton supporter Maria Cardona said during a tumultuous CNN panel. The panel was centered on Ana Navarro's announcement that she, a lifelong Republican, is voting for Hillary Clinton and also included Trump supporters Corey Lewandowski and Andy Dean. Both men were aghast at the numbers, refusing to accept that they signal an impending Trump loss, but Baraki Sellers, another panelist, broke it down for them:

“But what you see Andy, and what you and Corey are missing is the larger talking point. The larger talking point is that the electorate is more diverse. That benefits Hillary Clinton."

Minority voters can not do this alone, but their voices are being heard louder than ever. It's up to the rest of us to also get out of our comfort zones, even break from our party like Ana, to take the time and vote against an untenable candidate.

Vote like your life depends on it, because it very well may.

On December 18 2016 02:22 Karis Vas Ryaar wrote:



didn't the whole Iraq invasion involve the daughter of a diplomat pretending to be a war refugee to congress?

Hillary Clinton said on Thursday that the hacking attacks carried out by Russia against her campaign and the Democratic National Committee were intended “to undermine our democracy” and were ordered by Vladimir V. Putin “because he has a personal beef against me.”

Speaking to a group of donors in Manhattan, Mrs. Clinton said that Mr. Putin, the Russian president, had never forgiven her for the accusation she made in 2011, when she was secretary of state, that parliamentary elections his country held that year were rigged.

“Putin publicly blamed me for the outpouring of outrage by his own people, and that is the direct line between what he said back then and what he did in this election,” Mrs. Clinton said.

It is the first time Mrs. Clinton has publicly addressed the impact of the hacks since the intelligence community concluded that they were specifically aimed at harming her campaign.

“Make no mistake, as the press is finally catching up to the facts, which we desperately tried to present to them during the last months of the campaign,” Mrs. Clinton told the group, which collectively poured roughly $1 billion into her effort. “This is not just an attack on me and my campaign, although that may have added fuel to it. This is an attack against our country. We are well beyond normal political concerns here. This is about the integrity of our democracy and the security of our nation.”

In her remarks, she endorsed the proposal of a bipartisan group of senators to investigate the hacking and said the inquiry should be modeled on the commission set up after the Sept. 11 attacks. “The public deserves to know exactly what happened, and why, in order for us to prevent future attacks on our systems, including our electoral system,” she said.

Mrs. Clinton said the hacking was one of two “unprecedented” events that led to her defeat. The other was the release of a letter by James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director, shortly before the election disclosing new questions about emails handled by her private server. The letter, she said, cost her close races in several battleground states.

“Swing-state voters made their decisions in the final days breaking against me because of the F.B.I. letter from Director Comey,” she said.

Mrs. Clinton first talked about the impact of Mr. Comey’s letters in a conference call with donors a few days after the election. Since the election she has kept a low profile, mostly appearing on social media in photographs by passers-by who have spotted her walking her dogs near her home in Chappaqua, N.Y.

President Obama on Friday tied election-year hacks of Democrats to Russia’s Vladimir Putin, and warned Republicans that “Ronald Reagan would roll over in his grave” if he saw so many in the GOP expressing fondness for leaders in Moscow.

“Not much happens in Russia without Vladimir Putin,” Obama told reporters at his final press conference of 2016. “I will let you make that determination as to whether there are high-level Russian officials who go off rogue and decide to tamper with the U.S. election process without Vladimir Putin knowing about it.”

The president promised unspecific and potentially secret retaliation against Russia, telling Putin, “We can do stuff to you,” and took pains to belittle Moscow’s influence over world affairs.

“The Russians can’t change us or significantly weaken us,” he said. “They are a smaller country, they are a weaker country, their economy doesn’t produce anything that anyone wants to buy except oil and gas and arms. They don’t innovate. But they can impact us if we lose track of who we are. They can impact us if we abandon our values.”

Obama pointed to a public opinion poll that, he said, showed 37 percent of Republicans have a favorable view of Putin, blaming the “fierceness of partisan battle” in the United States for driving Americans into the arms of a historic foe. During the campaign, Donald Trump often heaped praise on Putin, whom he labeled a stronger leader than the U.S. president.

“Over a third of Republican voters approve of Vladimir Putin, the former head of the KGB,” Obama said. “Ronald Reagan would roll over in his grave.”

Asked whether his administration will provide evidence to back up charges of Russian meddling, Obama gave a guarded response.

“We will provide evidence that we can safely provide, that does not compromise sources and methods. But I’ll be honest with you, when you are talking about cybersecurity, a lot of it is classified and we’re not going to provide it, because the way we catch folks is by knowing certain things about them that they may not want us to know, and if we’re going to monitor this stuff effectively going forward, we don’t want them to know that we know.”

But he expressed disbelief that Americans would trust Putin’s word over statements from the U.S. spy community. His comments came shortly after it was disclosed that the FBI agrees with the CIA’s conclusions that Russia targeted Democrats with the aim of helping Trump win on Nov. 8.

“This is one of those situations where, unless the American people genuinely think that the professionals in the CIA, the FBI, our entire intelligence infrastructure — many of whom, by the way, served in previous administrations, and who are Republicans — are less trustworthy than the Russians, then people should pay attention to what our intelligence agencies say,” Obama said.

Obama said he had confronted Putin during a September meeting about the cyberintrusions, telling the Russian leader to “cut it out.” He said he had delivered a similar warning to President Xi Jinping of China, which U.S. officials have blamed for major cyberattacks against the U.S. government and American firms.

And he promised that Moscow would pay a price for its alleged interference.

“Our goal continues to be to send a clear message to Russia or others not to do this to us because we can do stuff to you, but it is also important for us to do that in a thoughtful, methodical way,” Obama said. “Some of it we do publicly. Some of it we will do in a way that they know but not everybody will.”

Trump and some of his top aides have played down the potential impact of Russia’s alleged actions and cast doubt on the CIA’s findings. Last Friday, Trump’s transition team dismissed those findings, saying in a statement, “These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.”

At his press conference, Obama said the back-and-forth between the White House and the incoming administration would not hamper cooperation on the transfer of power.

“I think they would be the first to acknowledge that we have done everything we can to make sure that they are successful, as I promised, and that will continue,” he said.

Obama repeatedly emphasized the importance of a free and independent news media, but also took aim at the press over its widespread coverage of leaked emails linked to Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

“You guys wrote about it every day, every single leak about every little juicy tidbit of political gossip, including John Podesta’s risotto recipe,” the president said. “This was an obsession that dominated the news coverage.”

As a result, he said, “I don’t think she was treated fairly during the election. I think the coverage of her and the issues was troubling.”

On December 18 2016 02:49 oBlade wrote:
One thing the president gave away on TV was the administration's failure to organize an international response in Syria when he was patting them on the back for doing what he claims is the best they could (droning terrorists and arming the opposition). Because putting together an international response wasn't an option. Well, it wasn't an option because they couldn't hack it. That's what that actually means. There's never a gift-wrapped way to move the world but a theme for most of this administration on any issue has been looking for a quick answer, realizing it doesn't exist, then giving up and using the perpetual campaign to sell the results as some kind of inevitability.