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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. |
Multiple US officials briefed on the matter told CNN on Thursday that FBI Director James Comey and Trump had a brief one-on-one conversation at last Friday's intelligence briefing.
It's during that pull aside that Comey briefed the President-elect on the two-page synopsis of the claims about Trump and Russia. All four intelligence chiefs had decided that Comey would be the one who would handle the sensitive discussion with the President-elect.
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Also on Thursday, the two-page synopsis was discussed in a closed-session Senate intelligence briefing, multiple senators told CNN. Intelligence officials said the material was not a product of the intelligence community, an apparent reference to the unverified allegations against Trump.
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[Director of National Intelligence James Clapper] added that the intelligence community "has not made any judgment that the information in this document is reliable, and we did not rely upon it in any way for our conclusions. However, part of our obligation is to ensure that policymakers are provided with the fullest possible picture of any matters that might affect national security."
CNN
The ongoing investigations and briefings are newsworthy.
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The US risks a “large-scale war” with China if it attempts to blockade islands in the South China Sea, Chinese state media has said, adding that if recent statements become policy when Donald Trump takes over as president “the two sides had better prepare for a military clash”.
China has controversially built fortifications and artificial islands across the South China Sea. Rex Tillerson, Trump’s nominee for secretary of state, said China’s “access to those islands … is not going to be allowed”.
China claims nearly the entire area, with rival claims by five south-east Asian neighbours and Taiwan.
Tillerson did not specify how the US would block access but experts agreed it could only be done by a significant show of military force. Tillerson likened China’s island building to “Russia’s taking of Crimea”.
“Tillerson had better bone up on nuclear power strategies if he wants to force a big nuclear power to withdraw from its own territories,” said an editorial in the Global Times, a Communist-party controlled newspaper.
“China has enough determination and strength to make sure that his rabble rousing will not succeed … Unless Washington plans to wage a large-scale war in the South China Sea, any other approaches to prevent Chinese access to the islands will be foolish.”
Under Barack Obama the US remained neutral on sovereignty claims, not recognising any ownership, but often challenged China’s control of the area by sailing warships past islands in what it called freedom of navigation exercises.
If that policy became more confrontational, including denying China access to islands it already controls, “it would set a course for devastating confrontation between China and the US”, declared the state-run China Daily.
China’s official response was more tame. Foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said China-US relations were based on “non-confrontation, non-conflict, mutual benefit and win-win cooperation”.
Both newspapers also dismissed recent statements by Trump and his team – taking a similar stance to the Chinese government, which is waiting for Trump to be sworn in before equating his words with policy.
Source
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I don't like where China is going with its aggression. Why is it that only the USA has to challenge the Chinese though?
This is going to be a very hard case and I'm not sure that Trump is realistically capable of handling it.
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All you Bernie supporters and far left liberals who turned the ACA into a circus back in 2008, the republicans just showed you how to make changes to an already placed law that circumvents the filibuster so long as you have a majority--like The majority of democrats at the time already knew.
Thank you for destroying all hope for a fixed American healthcare system.
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What other countries do you expect would challenge Chinese claims to South China Sea islands? And why would they want to pick a really big fight?
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On January 14 2017 00:30 LightSpectra wrote:
I don't know what's complicated about this.
If I print 100 copies of book X, the cost for each one is $2. If I print 1,000 copies of the same book, the cost to print each one is $1.75, because of the efficiency of automation of scale. What's cheaper, then? Have 10 factories that each print 100 copies, or have 1 factory that prints the 1,000 copies? The former's total cost to society is $2,000. The latter is $1,750. Therefore, by consolidating all the factories, we have a net gain of the difference between the two, i.e. $250.
It's true that competition can cause a company to cut costs, or improve quality, in places where a state-run industry might not--and that might be a great argument for privatized medical care. But for medical insurance, the micro-efficiencies that are gained from a dozen private companies is massively dwarfed by the economy of scale, when you factor in how much all of the lawyers and IT and bureaucrats and lobbyists and advertisers costs.
Which is cheaper, an admin budget to manage all hospitals (like a federal mandate would require), or an admin budget that manages only a subset of hospitals (because private companies are not required to have partnerships with all hospitals)?
The answer, like I keep saying, is "it depends."
Like, will the HR and legal teams of each hospital be subsidized by the government? If not, how does each hospital ensure liability safeties if the liability can't simply be passed down to the patient or insurance company? Well now you need admin costs go up to maintain that relationship between the government and the hospital when currently hospitals could just go to a different health insurance agency for a better contract.
This doesn't mean it will be more expensive overall, just saying that it's not a smooth curve as you would like to believe.
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On January 14 2017 01:24 Incognoto wrote:
I don't like where China is going with its aggression. Why is it that only the USA has to challenge the Chinese though?
This is going to be a very hard case and I'm not sure that Trump is realistically capable of handling it.
because noone else if foolish enough to think they can?
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Is his people "Russia"? Cause yea, of course they can give a full report on the hack within 90 days. That's enough time to make it look like anybody did it.
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On January 14 2017 01:24 Incognoto wrote:
I don't like where China is going with its aggression. Why is it that only the USA has to challenge the Chinese though?
This is going to be a very hard case and I'm not sure that Trump is realistically capable of handling it.
Unlike Russia, we cannot really punish China with economic sanctions. They have too much economic power themselves, and while we could surely ruin their economy, it would come at the cost of a global recession. Do you really want to be the government that says to your people "you lost your jobs because we had to stop Chinese adventurism"?
In fact, from a realpolitik point of view, why do we even have to stop Chinese adventurism? From a humanist point of view, it's pretty fucked up, but lets face it, Jean Paul from Marseille could give 0 fucks about the people in Vietnam or the Phillipines being bullied by China. Until China starts fucking with India and there's a risk of nukes, nobody really cares enough, and it's damned hard to point out why it is actually important to maintain a reasonable power balance (I personally don't know of any non-humanitarian reasons, but it is probably a lot more complicated and involves India).
So if Europe has enough on its plate with the middle east and Russia, that leaves the USA and their half-assed Asia pivot. I guess India might want some say in the matter, but they simply aren't powerful enough to stand up to China with anything except threats of nukes, which nobody will respond well to.
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China makes a lot of enemies and has few allies. But they have good money which a lot of countries are inclined to want.
In the long term, the reality of an unstable economic buildup will manifest and we will see how well China will cope.
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On January 14 2017 01:33 LegalLord wrote:
What other countries do you expect would challenge Chinese claims to South China Sea islands? And why would they want to pick a really big fight?
There shouldn't be a fight. We live in times where we don't randomly annex territory because "I said so".
Europe should be working more closely with the USA to tell China to can its shit. Also what Russia did with Crimea is unacceptable and both Europe and the USA just let it happen. Europe has become a bunch of deluded leftist softies who let America do all the dirty work.
Of course, no one wants to be "tough" on China or Russia because it's bad press (not to mention legitimately dangerous) and no one wants to escalate that crap. However the "no-response" blind eye thing that Occidental countries are doing is just telling Russia and China that they're free to do whatever they want. They'll start with Crimea and some islands, but where will they stop? These are fascists and communists here, they don't really give a shit about basic human rights (freedom of press, etc.).
Unfortunately, when you look at the political landscape of both the USA and Europe, no one is going to have the balls to deal with Eastern aggression. It's not like the Chinese or the Russians are bad people by any measure, but their governments are for sure.
It'd be nice to normalize relations with them but we can't do that if they literally invade small countries.
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On January 14 2017 02:57 Incognoto wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2017 01:33 LegalLord wrote:
What other countries do you expect would challenge Chinese claims to South China Sea islands? And why would they want to pick a really big fight? There shouldn't be a fight. We live in times where we don't randomly annex territory because "I said so".
Really? What about Iraq 10 years ago?
And more relevant to China, or Russia: why not? Yeah, we agreed that they *shouldn't*, but what if they just don't care? How much is it worth to France to expend (in money AND in lives) to stand up for such principles?
In the Russian case it's fairly clear. It's in Europe's back yard, and worth at least a minor economic hit to take a stance. But China is half the world away... are your principles worth French lives in a war on the other side of the world?
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On January 14 2017 01:05 Doodsmack wrote:Show nested quote +Multiple US officials briefed on the matter told CNN on Thursday that FBI Director James Comey and Trump had a brief one-on-one conversation at last Friday's intelligence briefing.
It's during that pull aside that Comey briefed the President-elect on the two-page synopsis of the claims about Trump and Russia. All four intelligence chiefs had decided that Comey would be the one who would handle the sensitive discussion with the President-elect.
...
Also on Thursday, the two-page synopsis was discussed in a closed-session Senate intelligence briefing, multiple senators told CNN. Intelligence officials said the material was not a product of the intelligence community, an apparent reference to the unverified allegations against Trump.
...
[Director of National Intelligence James Clapper] added that the intelligence community "has not made any judgment that the information in this document is reliable, and we did not rely upon it in any way for our conclusions. However, part of our obligation is to ensure that policymakers are provided with the fullest possible picture of any matters that might affect national security." CNNThe ongoing investigations and briefings are newsworthy.
So the CNN story did not include false claims, contrary to what some people here were saying? Shocking!
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On January 14 2017 03:08 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2017 02:57 Incognoto wrote:On January 14 2017 01:33 LegalLord wrote:
What other countries do you expect would challenge Chinese claims to South China Sea islands? And why would they want to pick a really big fight? There shouldn't be a fight. We live in times where we don't randomly annex territory because "I said so". Really? What about Iraq 10 years ago?
A nitpick: while its intervention in Iraq was illegal, the US did not annex Iraqi territory.
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On January 14 2017 03:08 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2017 02:57 Incognoto wrote:On January 14 2017 01:33 LegalLord wrote:
What other countries do you expect would challenge Chinese claims to South China Sea islands? And why would they want to pick a really big fight? There shouldn't be a fight. We live in times where we don't randomly annex territory because "I said so". Really? What about Iraq 10 years ago?
If the US had simply annexed Iraq we wouldn't have the problems we do now.
We wouldn't need to setup a government, they'd just have senators and congressmen reporting to the white house. We would be spending resources building schools, hospitals, and infrastructure.
We would pass a homestead act to allow for cheap expansion into Iraq lands by anyone with American citizenship. We would start some longterm bases there, and make all our allies from Iraq citizens of the united states.
There would be no pullout or withdrawal policy, and instead we would make tax cut incentives to move there. We create a local nation state for anyone wanting to have a western lifestyle to move to.
If we had simply annexed Iraq things would have been better.
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Welcome to the real world, where countries have territorial disputes, other countries try to exploit it for personal gain, and it sometimes escalates to real hostilities.
"Fascists and communists..." well. That's just rich.
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On January 14 2017 03:11 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2017 03:08 Acrofales wrote:On January 14 2017 02:57 Incognoto wrote:On January 14 2017 01:33 LegalLord wrote:
What other countries do you expect would challenge Chinese claims to South China Sea islands? And why would they want to pick a really big fight? There shouldn't be a fight. We live in times where we don't randomly annex territory because "I said so". Really? What about Iraq 10 years ago? If the US had simply annexed Iraq we wouldn't have the problems we do now. We wouldn't need to setup a government, they'd just have senators and congressmen reporting to the white house. We would be spending resources building schools, hospitals, and infrastructure. We would pass a homestead act to allow for cheap expansion into Iraq lands by anyone with American citizenship. We would start some longterm bases there, and make all our allies from Iraq citizens of the united states. There would be no pullout or withdrawal policy, and instead we would make tax cut incentives to move there. We create a local nation state for anyone wanting to have a western lifestyle to move to. If we had simply annexed Iraq things would have been better.
You're not actually arguing against my point. In fact, you're saying that not only is it not wrong to just annex another country, but in this case it would have been morally better to do so.
Maybe Crimea is also better off under Russian rule. Hell, maybe Lithuania would be too. I'm pretty sure Putin thinks they would be.
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On January 14 2017 03:11 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2017 03:08 Acrofales wrote:On January 14 2017 02:57 Incognoto wrote:On January 14 2017 01:33 LegalLord wrote:
What other countries do you expect would challenge Chinese claims to South China Sea islands? And why would they want to pick a really big fight? There shouldn't be a fight. We live in times where we don't randomly annex territory because "I said so". Really? What about Iraq 10 years ago? If the US had simply annexed Iraq we wouldn't have the problems we do now. We wouldn't need to setup a government, they'd just have senators and congressmen reporting to the white house. We would be spending resources building schools, hospitals, and infrastructure. We would pass a homestead act to allow for cheap expansion into Iraq lands by anyone with American citizenship. We would start some longterm bases there, and make all our allies from Iraq citizens of the united states. There would be no pullout or withdrawal policy, and instead we would make tax cut incentives to move there. We create a local nation state for anyone wanting to have a western lifestyle to move to. If we had simply annexed Iraq things would have been better.
Annexing a country doesn't make all the problems within it go away, nor does it make it want to be a part of your country.
See also: France annexing Algeria.
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On January 14 2017 03:14 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2017 03:11 Thieving Magpie wrote:On January 14 2017 03:08 Acrofales wrote:On January 14 2017 02:57 Incognoto wrote:On January 14 2017 01:33 LegalLord wrote:
What other countries do you expect would challenge Chinese claims to South China Sea islands? And why would they want to pick a really big fight? There shouldn't be a fight. We live in times where we don't randomly annex territory because "I said so". Really? What about Iraq 10 years ago? If the US had simply annexed Iraq we wouldn't have the problems we do now. We wouldn't need to setup a government, they'd just have senators and congressmen reporting to the white house. We would be spending resources building schools, hospitals, and infrastructure. We would pass a homestead act to allow for cheap expansion into Iraq lands by anyone with American citizenship. We would start some longterm bases there, and make all our allies from Iraq citizens of the united states. There would be no pullout or withdrawal policy, and instead we would make tax cut incentives to move there. We create a local nation state for anyone wanting to have a western lifestyle to move to. If we had simply annexed Iraq things would have been better. You're not actually arguing against my point. In fact, you're saying that not only is it not wrong to just annex another country, but in this case it would have been morally better to do so.
No, the morally right thing to do was not go to Iraq in the first place.
Being that we did go to Iraq, the worse thing to do would be to blow it to shit, put amateurs with no power in leadership, and expect neighboring powers to not just bleed the new administration dry now that the big power player they were initially scared of (Saddam) is dead.
What I'm saying is that if you're going to fucking do something do it all the fucking way or you're just some random terrorist showing up to some foreign land to cause chaos and destruction.
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The US deeply misunderstood what they were wading into when they went into Iraq. They saw that they were killing it in Afghanistan, doing what the Soviet Union failed to do (that conflict got worse later, but I digress), and they wanted Iraq too. Only later did they find out just how deep a miscalculation that was, at which point it became something of a no-win situation.
Going for it all the way... well, maybe you should have elected John Rambo "we'll stay in Iraq for 100 years" McCain if you wanted that.
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EPT
