US Politics Mega-thread - Page 6979

On February 27 2017 06:12 Biff The Understudy wrote:

Anyone saying Trump has tiny hands is FAKE NEWS

Ladies and gents, the President of the United States.

Seriously, he has to stop tweeting, it's a fucking disgrace. All the capital of respect and sympathy that Obama built in the world for America in 8 years is evaporating.

Question for my conservative friends here. Would you have trusted Donal Trump to deal with the Cuba missile crisis? I mean, seriously, you are ask to replay the scenario and change JFK for Trump. Would you trust the result? I'm genuinely curious.

On February 27 2017 08:55 pmh wrote:


JFK took an enormous risk and got lucky that he didn't start ww3 with it,It ended well but it could easily have gone the other way.

On February 27 2017 09:25 LegalLord wrote:

You forgot to mention electability in your caricature of my responses.

On February 27 2017 09:22 Biff The Understudy wrote:
This thread in a nutshell:

Someone: mentions Russian interference
Danglar: it doesn't matter.
LL: It's all because Hillary and the establishment were evil in the first place.
GH: DNC DNC DNC DNC!!!!!!!!!!

Maybe none of you is real and I'm chatting with bots.

On February 27 2017 09:22 Biff The Understudy wrote:
This thread in a nutshell:

Someone: mentions Russian interference
Danglar: it doesn't matter.
LL: It's all because Hillary and the establishment were evil in the first place.
GH: DNC DNC DNC DNC!!!!!!!!!!

Maybe none of you is real and I'm chatting with bots.

President Donald Trump’s nominee for Navy secretary, Philip Bilden, withdrew from consideration Sunday, becoming the second Pentagon pick unable to untangle his financial investments in the vetting process.

"Mr. Philip Bilden has informed me that he has come to the difficult decision to withdraw from consideration to be secretary of the Navy," Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said in a statement. "This was a personal decision driven by privacy concerns and significant challenges he faced in separating himself from his business interests."


Mattis added that he would make a recommendation to the White House for a new nominee "in the coming days."

Bilden, who built his career in Hong Kong with the investment firm HarbourVest, was a surprise pick for the Navy post but had been Mattis’ preferred candidate.

Yet like billionaire investment banker Vincent Viola, who withdrew his nomination to be secretary of the Army earlier this month, Bilden ran into too many challenges during a review by the Office of Government Ethics to avoid potential conflicts of interest, according to sources familiar with the decision.

"I informed secretary of Defense Mattis with regret that I respectfully withdraw from consideration as Nominee for the 76th secretary of the Navy," Bilden said in a statement Sunday.

On February 27 2017 09:40 GreenHorizons wrote:


Well there's several different issues with the "RUSSSIA!?!" thing.

There's generically interfering in foreign elections. That's a pretty big deal among a lot of Hillary supporters, but interfering with foreign elections on behalf of a preferred outcome is like a US FP staple.

Then there's "but they hacked a major party", besides the fact that if they handled it with some integrity it wouldn't have been a big deal, again, hacking foreign political parties is basically a Tuesday at the NSA.

Then there's the "now Trump is a puppet of Russia". This one, while hyperbolic, has some weight. Having our president being leveraged over his ego is especially problematic. It's hard to get to the substance of the issue since it's surrounded by a high level of paranoia, partisanship and hyperbole.

That said, there's not much to say other than conjecture and tea leaves readings. Congress isn't interested in an independent investigation so it's probably just going to be a political distraction for the most part unless or until it turns into something of verifiable substance.

EDIT: The harping on the DNC makes sense since they just gave the progressive wing the finger and are trying to throw 18 and 20 to the Republicans. Want to make sure they can't act surprised when the Hillary wing floats Hillary/a surrogate for the presidency and we're circling back to the "you have to support us to stop Trump", and we tell them "we told you we wouldn't, you forced it anyway, you're not getting the votes and you knew that when you made those choices".

On February 27 2017 10:20 ChristianS wrote:

You always try to get a lot of play on the fact that we have historically interfered in other countries' politics a lot as some kind of proof that Russian interference isn't actually a big deal. I don't think that's got so much weight as you think it does. First because a lot of the people complaining about Russian interference might think we shouldn't do so much of that either. But also because, and I should think this point would be obvious, that wasn't [i]us[i] getting hacked. In the Trump era moer than ever before, people definitely don't believe in the Golden Rule in foreign policy. Most of those countries that were having their elections influenced by foreign powers were probably very upset about it. When it happens to us, so are we.

If you don't think Russia influenced our election, fine, we can argue about that. If you think they did, but the content of the leaks is what really matters, then we can try to discuss both subjects at some point – the content of the leaks and implications, and the source of the leaks and its implications. But the fact that our intelligence agencies also sometimes influence other coutries' elections is basically a complete non-sequitur, especially given that I don't think we've ever tried to influence another world superpower's elections, at least not in such a blatant way.

On February 27 2017 10:24 LegalLord wrote:
I suppose you could say "two wrongs don't make a right" in response to the Russians hacking the US when the US hacks abroad.

But in another sense, it's a sort of "you have no moral high ground to complain from" issue. You can't complain about Russia doing it as some sort of unprecedented evil when you do it yourself whenever you think you can get away with it.

First, it is unprecedented. Major world powers hacking each other's elections

On February 27 2017 09:22 Biff The Understudy wrote:
This thread in a nutshell:

Someone: mentions Russian interference
Danglar: it doesn't matter.
LL: It's all because Hillary and the establishment were evil in the first place.
GH: DNC DNC DNC DNC!!!!!!!!!!

Maybe none of you is real and I'm chatting with bots.

On February 27 2017 10:54 GreenHorizons wrote:


It's this type of phrasing that led to 50% of Democrats thinking Russians hacked vote totals and is at the core of a lot of the more hyperbolic rhetoric.

They hacked a major political party and that does happen with reasonable frequency. But is it the "hacking" or the interfering that's the primary offense in your view?

On February 27 2017 11:05 TheYango wrote:
So what do people actually expect us to do about the Russia thing?

Like okay, suppose we accept that it was a big deal. It's not clear to me the course of action here beyond "make sure there aren't people in Trump's administration that are actively colluding with Russia against US interests" and "make sure it doesn't happen again. Both of which are things that would happen anyway at this point. It's not clear to me what there is to discuss beyond that, outside of some delusional Democrats who think there's anything to be gained from overturning the election result.