US Politics Mega-thread - Page 7348

On April 18 2017 06:11 pmh wrote:



I really do think that there is no way to go back for trump. He could crazy on something else and make the people at home forget about NK for a while but it would still be a huge setback for the usa in international politics,not only regarding korea. Korea will feel strenghtend because the usa does not "dare" to follow through,most likely resulting in accelerating the weapons program. It also could effect the behaviour of other countries like iran and possibly rusia.

On April 18 2017 06:16 Necro)Phagist( wrote:
As scary as 'war' with NK sounds I feel like it is growing more and more necessary. Trump not exactly the man I want at the head of it either but something does need to be done. NK military equipment may seem like a joke but they are edging closer to be able to do some serious damage. While they could never win an all out war, the more we wait now the higher potential causalities.

They can't do anything really to the states, but they can do some serious damage to Seoul and maybe even Japan if left unchecked much longer. Trump while I hate him, has been dealt a pretty shitty hand to have to deal with this situation early on in his presidency.

On April 18 2017 06:16 Necro)Phagist( wrote:
As scary as 'war' with NK sounds I feel like it is growing more and more necessary. Trump not exactly the man I want at the head of it either but something does need to be done. NK military equipment may seem like a joke but they are edging closer to be able to do some serious damage. While they could never win an all out war, the more we wait now the higher potential causalities.

They can't do anything really to the states, but they can do some serious damage to Seoul and maybe even Japan if left unchecked much longer. Trump while I hate him, has been dealt a pretty shitty hand to have to deal with this situation early on in his presidency.

On April 18 2017 06:26 pmh wrote:
Maybe war is inevitable in the long run but I still think it would not be that bad to wait a bit longer,if only because the risks right now seem rather high. NK is pretty far of from developing a fully functional and reliable IBM. They have been testing scud rockets I read somewhere,they are decades old. And even 1 rocket and having 10 warheads?
It could be intercepted and kim seems more interested in staying in power (for which he thinks nukes are essential) then having the ambition to start a full out war somewhere. In the meantime his power could start to erode from within.
I don't know,i guess we will see in the coming months. My guess is that kim will stay low for a while and the usa will not do anything as a result of that. For now this seems to be the best outcome to me.

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said Monday that it would require a “highly aggressive to not realistic” schedule for President Donald Trump to sign a tax bill before Congress breaks for recess in August.

In February, Mnuchin told CNBC that he wanted to see “very significant” tax reform “done by the August recess.”

“It started as [an] aggressive timeline,” Mnuchin said in an interview with the Financial Times published Monday, referring to the August deadline. “It is fair to say it is probably delayed a bit because of the health care.”

The Trump administration and congressional leadership originally planned to repeal and replace Obamacare before approaching a tax bill, as the health care effort would fundamentally change the tax landscape. The party will face an existential crisis of sorts if it fails to achieve either policy priority.

On March 24, the same day the GOP’s American Health Care Act failed to garner sufficient Republican support for a vote, Mnuchin told Axios’ Mike Allen that tax reform was “much simpler” than health care reform, and that Republicans would propose a tax bill in one comprehensive piece, rather than in incremental measures.

Mnuchin also told FT that Trump’s recent comments that the U.S. dollar was too strong didn’t mean the President supports devaluing American currency. Last week, Trump told the Wall Street Journal that it’s “very, very hard to compete when you have a strong dollar and other countries are devaluing their currency.” In the same interview, Trump reversed his pledge to declare China a currency manipulator.

“The President was making a factual comment about the strength of the dollar in the short term,” Mnuchin told FT. “There’s a big difference between talk and action.”

On April 18 2017 06:23 Plansix wrote:

If we go attack NK, you can expect our relationship with that entire region to change overnight. I doubt any aspect of the US economy would escape the diplomatic and possibly literally fallout from that exchange.

And then there is the whole South Korea capital would be leveled issue.

On April 18 2017 06:29 LegalLord wrote:
Keeping Seoul hostage won't work as a strategy forever. Sooner or later NK will have to be reeled in before it starts being a threat to more than just its neighbors. And it is starting to look like "sooner" since we will eventually reach a point where even the complete destruction of Seoul (which is unlikely to happen even in the worst case) would be better than the alternative.

On April 18 2017 06:32 Necro)Phagist( wrote:

That is what I mean by tough hand dealt. Seoul would be in serious danger and most likely hit hard. But Kim Jong Un is not exactly stable and is more aggressively testing weapons that can reach further. So do you let them build up more and just keep putting off the problems in hope of a future peaceful resolution which is extremely unlikely, or do you bite the bullet and rip the band aid off quickly so to speak. Try best to evacuate Seoul or even just a precision strike on Pyongyang to take out leadership? I'm clearly no expert but to me just putting it off over and over clearly hasn't worked. The longer we wait the more toys they have to play with. It's a shitty situation all around.

On April 18 2017 06:39 Plansix wrote:

This is the option everyone has taken for decades. There is no easy fix. Do you remember the Iraq war and how it took like 10+ years to get out of there? This would take longer and costs more. We can't just "kill the leadership" and then leave. That isn't an option.

The US does not have the political will or desire to be involved in the war you are advocating. So we either need to find a peaceful solution or be prepared for another generation defining conflict. We fucked up the last one real bad and I don't think our leaders are smarter this time around.

Donald Trump's presidency is less than three months old, but in that time there have been massive turnouts for the Women's March and for Tax Day protests in cities across the country demanding that Trump release his returns. This coming Saturday, on Earth Day, scores of March for Science protests are expected.

Helping to guide these actions are veteran activists with the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power — better known as ACT UP. Thirty years after the coalition's founding, some seasoned activists are dusting off their bullhorns and updating their direct-action playbooks to tap into the new wave of activism energized by opposition to Trump's policies.

Founded in 1987, ACT UP never settled for trying to push change quietly or behind the scenes.

It was loud, demanding and in-your-face with telegenic direct action, a protest that got serious attention and, occasionally, laughs.

Like the time members engulfed the suburban Virginia home of their nemesis, the late Republican Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina, in a giant canvas condom that read "Helms Is Deadlier Than A Virus."

Or when ACT UP members posed as news executives and bum-rushed Dan Rather during a live broadcast of the CBS Evening News at the start of the Gulf War.

Then there was the time they stormed the National Institutes of Health, pushing for changes in AIDS research, funding and clinical trials. Over an NIH foyer, activists unfurled a giant banner with their logo and slogan: Silence=Death.

I'm "the snarky, Machiavellian dude behind the Silence=Death image," New York artist and writer Avram Finkelstein says with a chuckle.

That slogan — black and white with a pink triangle — presaged the formation of the radical AIDS advocacy group ACT UP. The slogan helped change the way the world looked at AIDS. At one point, Silence=Death was the most powerful protest slogan around. It became an iconic backdrop to the group's chant for "ACT UP, FIGHT BACK, FIGHT AIDS!"

Now, at 65, Finkelstein is one of several ACT UP veterans from the 1980s and '90s who today are helping shepherd new protesters, training and strategizing, including the anti-Trump collective Rise and Resist.

"Many people are younger people who work with organizations that were formed by ACT UP. Or were in ACT UP themselves," he says.

He recently led a teach-in on design and imagery for Rise and Resist.

"All of the civil disobedience training is being done by the same exact people who did them at ACT UP," Finkelstein says. "So here is this perfect cross-section of this moment. Here is an intergenerational activist organization. And its meetings are in the community center a spitting distance from where the original ACT UP meetings took place."

In January, Rise and Resist took one of its first actions: Scores of members booked brunch reservations at restaurants in several Trump-owned properties including Trump Tower. Over eggs Benedict in the crowded eateries, protesters began to cough and cough some more. The "cough-in" protesters held up signs saying "Trumpcare is making us sick."

"That's the kind of mediagenic sort of action that ACT UP used to needle their opponent," says filmmaker and writer David France, who is behind the book and film How To Survive A Plague. "And Trump is an easy target for needling, and they're working on trying to exploit that weakness of his. The more time he spends in the early morning hours fashioning his tweets in response to perceived slights, the less time he has to advance his agenda."

France and others note that the feeling of total powerlessness in the face of Trump and Republican control of Washington echoes the early days of the AIDS crisis.

On April 18 2017 06:32 Necro)Phagist( wrote:

That is what I mean by tough hand dealt. Seoul would be in serious danger and most likely hit hard. But Kim Jong Un is not exactly stable and is more aggressively testing weapons that can reach further. So do you let them build up more and just keep putting off the problems in hope of a future peaceful resolution which is extremely unlikely, or do you bite the bullet and rip the band aid off quickly so to speak. Try best to evacuate Seoul or even just a precision strike on Pyongyang to take out leadership? I'm clearly no expert but to me just putting it off over and over clearly hasn't worked. The longer we wait the more toys they have to play with. It's a shitty situation all around.

On April 18 2017 06:45 Gorsameth wrote:

Yeah you know, just rip that band-aid off. Having a city of 10 million levelled with all the casualties that entails is totally acceptable to resolve a situation that has been stable for over 70 years...

North Korea is not going to be the aggressor, not now, not 100 years from now. They are very much aware that any actual hostile action will see their country removed from the map in short order.

Dictatorships never last. At some point an opening will present itself to deal with NK without killing a few million people. No need to break a stalemate because your impatient.

On April 18 2017 06:48 Necro)Phagist( wrote:

Yea just keep waiting. Been waiting for decades and the only thing that has happened is they now have nuclear capabilities. So while the ripping the band aid off metaphor wasn't the classiest or best way to describe it I agree there, you can't deny that they are getting closer to have long range nuclear capabilities. So what is worse? Waiting to long and having say Tokyo and Seoul both nuked? No options here are good, it's all shit but doing something might be better. Notice how I said might be, I don't know and I'm not claiming to, nor am I claiming that we should just go in and say fuck it take the losses. I'm merely pointing out that while we wait, NK gets better weapons that can do more damage and that waiting hasn't exactly been the most productive thing thus far.

On April 18 2017 06:55 Gorsameth wrote:

And why exactly would North Korea be nuking someone, leading to their assured and swift destruction?

Even madman tend not to take action that will lead to their unavoidable death.

Yes we have been waiting decades, so what? We can wait 200 more years if need be. North Korea is not going to attack anyone.

On April 18 2017 06:55 Gorsameth wrote:

And why exactly would North Korea be nuking someone, leading to their assured and swift destruction?

Even madman tend not to take action that will lead to their unavoidable death.

Yes we have been waiting decades, so what? We can wait 200 more years if need be. North Korea is not going to attack anyone.

WASHINGTON ― White House press secretary Sean Spicer defended the Trump administration’s decision not to disclose the White House visitor logs online on Monday by blaming the Obama administration for not being transparent enough.

“We’re following the law as both the Presidential Records Act and the Federal Records Act prescribe it,” Spicer said. “So it’s the same policy that every administration had up until the Obama administration. And frankly, the faux attempt that the Obama administration put out where they would scrub anyone who they didn’t want put out didn’t serve anyone well.”

As for the argument that the public deserves to know who is meeting with the president and his staff ― whether lobbyists or dignitaries ― Spicer turned it on its head. “We recognize that there’s a privacy aspect to allowing citizens to come express their views,” he explained.

In all, the statement was a head-spinner, if only because it boiled down to a declaration that the current administration would be less transparent than the prior administration because the prior administration wasn’t transparent enough. But beyond that twisted logic, there was also a general misconception about the Obama White House’s visitor logs.

Investigations showed that the logs were poorly maintained and often contained holes. But multiple Obama aides pointed out that the scrubbing was done for several openly declared reasons. Names were kept off the list if they were personal family visits or involved particularly sensitive government matters (a potential Supreme Court nominee or a national security-related meeting). This did mean the logs were not entirely complete. Obama officials also had a propensity to host meetings at nearby coffee shops to avoid the logs entirely.

But the notion that the previous administration ducked all embarrassing revelations is wrong. Reporters routinely used the published visitor lists to write stories critical of the Obama administration. The logs were used to tell the story of how the White House crafted a deal with the pharmaceutical industry to gain support for Obamacare, to show how airline lobbyists influenced the White House during merger talks, to provide detail about the growing influence of Google in government, and to show the steady flow of CEOs and lobbyists coming to the White House.