US Politics Mega-thread - Page 7353

On April 19 2017 05:09 Liquid`Drone wrote:


Still really don't think the phrase makes sense. It's no hostage situation. I can agree that we were strongarmed into joining the 'coalition of the willing' wrt to the invasion of Iraq, but the UK and Poland were the only European countries to actually supply troops to the invasion force.

The alliance between western Europe and the US has existed because it has been considered mutually beneficial. This holds true for a vast majority of the european population. Stockholm syndrome isn't a phrase used to describe say, a child's love for an absent or alcoholic parent (where you could argue that the normal loving parent is the sane american president while Bush and Trump is what happens during a seriously bad bender), it describes the seemingly irrational positive feelings held towards someone holding you hostage. This isn't even close to an accurate description of US-Euro relations. And I realize that analogies don't have to be perfect for them to make sense, but this one is not nearly good enough to warrant being employed at the frequency you use it. ;p

On April 19 2017 05:00 LegalLord wrote:

Trump took a few things that people cared about - immigration, isolationism (during the campaign at least), counter-terrorism, trade deals - to the extreme. Maybe he's not better on policy than Obama but Obama was not particularly popular on policy. But Trump does cut deep at widely underappreciated issues and that's why many people could vote for him despite the fact that he really is as bad as his critics claim he is.

On April 19 2017 05:24 LegalLord wrote:

I must say, your inability to come to terms with the circumstances under which you supported Iraq - and the contortions that you use to justify it in hindsight - are quite impressive. A show of full support for any mistakes that would be as obvious as the Iraq one (with a willingness to lap up any comparable "lies"), and yet a nominal disagreement with Iraq itself.

It is perhaps notable that many of our more warmongering elements complain most about that Iraq wasn't the first (ill-advised, but they don't put it that way) war that ever happened but it's one that turned people more definitively against foreign intervention in a far more sustained fashion than in the past. Not any one reason for that. But nevertheless, it is true that people sympathize with that element of Trump's campaign.

I do find it interesting on your general insistence on "I been there, I know how things work, no one else does cuz no one else was there the way I was there." Especially when it's generally full of incomplete and particularly obtuse feels-based interpretations of all events (e.g. not bothering to find out how long I was in the US before running your mouth), with little regard as to actually discovering the truth of any situation. It's the kind of attitude that will make you a front-line cheerleader for the next Iraq - though after a few years when what was obviously terrible and short-sighted turns out to be so, you will take a feels-based approach to claim you was lied to and that that's why everything is bad.

Trump took a few things that people cared about - immigration, isolationism (during the campaign at least), counter-terrorism, trade deals - to the extreme. Maybe he's not better on policy than Obama but Obama was not particularly popular on policy.

The first sugar tax to be introduced on soft drinks in the United States to fight obesity has cut sales by nearly 10% and apparently increased the numbers of people buying water instead, a study has shown.

Berkeley, California, introduced a substantial tax on sugar-sweetened beverages on 1 March 2015. At the rate of 10% – or one penny per fluid ounce – it adds 12 cents to a 12 ounce can of soda priced at $1, or 68 cents to a two litre bottle costing just over $2 before the tax.

Experts hope that sugar taxes will hike the prices of unhealthy drinks and reduce the number of people who consume large quantities of them. Sugar-sweetened drinks are known to be a significant contributor to obesity, particularly in children and young people.

But taxes have only been introduced after battles with the industry. The latest tax to be introduced – in Philadelphia, in January, where unlike Berkeley incomes are low and obesity rates high – is still being challenged in the courts.

Berkeley is unlike most cities in America, with far higher levels of wealth and education and low consumption of colas and other sugary drinks. Yet Barry Popkin of the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA and Lynn Silver from the Public Health Institute found that, even there, the tax had changed people’s behaviour.

“This surprised me,” Popkin told the Guardian. “I didn’t think we’d get much effect at all.” The debate around obesity and the sugar tax had already brought consumption down in Berkeley – and yet the introduction of the tax appears to have brought it down further.

One year after the introduction of the tax, their paper in the journal Plos Medicine shows that sales of sugary drinks in Berkeley fell by 9.6%, while sales in surrounding areas with no tax rose by 6.9%.

While the academics cannot prove that consumers bought water instead, bottled water sales in Berkeley increased by 15.6% after the introduction of the tax. Sales of other non-taxed drinks such as unsweetened teas, milk and fruit juices also rose. But diet drinks and energy drinks appeared not to be so popular – those declined by 9.2%.

Shopkeepers did not lose out because the average grocery bill remained the same. The authors of the study suggest it is possible that consumers are shifting away from sugary drinks to healthier ones - and without causing undue economic hardship because spending did not drop.

In the first year, the tax was levied only in the chain supermarkets and chain petrol stations, so there is still scope for a bigger effect when independent and small shops also bring it in. The money raised is going to child health programmes.

On April 19 2017 05:45 LegalLord wrote:

People are beating the drum, yes - and you're among them. In a much more roundabout "we HAVE to do something because we CANNOT let this bad thing go on even though I have no idea how we can help" way but with the same result. Thankfully fewer people who are quite that gullible are currently in the political scene.


Lol. I didn't vote for Trump precisely because I didn't want what we got here. I merely can appreciate it as a sort of "eat karma, shitheads" scenario in which those that gave him a way to the presidency now suffer the consequences of his leadership.

our leaders are more concerned with the next election and paycheck after they are voted out.

On April 19 2017 05:40 LegalLord wrote:

Ok, if we use the Wikipedia definition:

It's fair to say that that's not exactly right. I might more accurately describe it as "battered woman syndrome"

which is sometimes used interchangeably with Stockholm syndrome.

The analogy I would use is that the US is the alcoholic husband who is abusive during periods of long drinking but more measured when he isn't drinking. Europe is afraid to leave, partially because they don't have all that much else they can run away to. And he pays the bills so it's hard to flee. And Europe develops into a situation where in times of drinking it just tries to meekly wait for it to pass (enduring beatings and random controlling behavior) while being cheerful and happy during the more sane periods.

Of course the analogy never translates perfectly to international relations. But it's a good way to describe how pathetic the desire to just wait it out - even though there is zero indication that this is a trend that will pass - looks. So I think it's worth using as appropriate to describe the contortions that European leadership goes through to stand by the US and wait through Trump, even though they will have to keep doing that forever.

On April 19 2017 06:04 LegalLord wrote:

Sometimes the US is weird, sometimes other countries do something you don't like and you still have to deal with them. The difference is that Europeans only talk about the US in such grand terms - as this glorious guarantor of peace in Europe that has stood for 70 years. And yet it occasionally goes insane, like a guardian who occasionally comes by and beats you.

They never use the exact terms of "the US makes Europe peaceful" but it's an obvious implication of heaping praise upon US-centric alliances and projects and speaking about how important they - and by extension the US - are.

The U.S. Navy aircraft carrier that the Trump administration had said was steaming toward North Korea was actually conducting exercises off the coast of Australia, a U.S. defense official acknowledged Tuesday.

The Navy announced April 9 that the USS Carl Vinson strike group, including the carrier and two guided missile destroyers, was ordered to “sail north and report on station in the Western Pacific Ocean.”

Following the Navy’s announcement, a U.S. official told Reuters the deployment of the group of ships was a “necessary” show of force because of North Korea’s recent behavior, which included a failed missile test. President Donald Trump went on to say the U.S. was “sending an armada” to counter the North Korean threat.

The move prompted a strong rebuke by North Korea, which told CNN in a statement that it would counter the "reckless acts of aggression" with "whatever methods the US wants to take."

But a Navy photograph posted online Saturday showed the Carl Vinson in the Sunda Strait near Indonesia, providing the first clues that the ship was not where many had reported.

The Carl Vinson strike group is currently off the northwest coast of Australia after conducting exercises with the Royal Australian Navy for the past three days and is heading north toward the Sea of Japan, the defense official said.

Defense News first reported that the ship was not near North Korea on Monday night. The Washington Post and New York Times also reported on the confusion which The Times said stemmed from a “glitch-ridden sequence of events” that included a premature announcement of the deployment from the Navy and an incorrect statement from Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.

Mattis was asked directly about whether the deployment of the Carl Vinson strike group was intended as a “show of presence” to North Korea during a press conference a week ago.

“She's just on her way up there because that's where we thought it was most prudent to have her at this time,” Mattis responded.

“I believe it's because she was originally headed in one direction for an exercise, and we canceled our role in that exercise, and that's what became public. We had to explain why she wasn't in that exercise,” he continued, though the Defense Department’s transcript was amended to note that a port visit to Australia, not the exercise with the Royal Australian Navy, was canceled.

The defense official was unsure if the Navy had had any conversations with Mattis’ office or the Joint Staff following the mix-up, but said it was “not the Navy’s place” to speak with the White House about it.

The White House had no comment, referring questions to the Pentagon. The Pentagon directed all queries to U.S. Pacific Command, which did not immediately have a response.

On April 19 2017 05:40 thePunGun wrote:

Trump and Obama have one thing in common:
Both promised the moon to get elected, but what they've delivered felt/ feels more like Uranus....

On April 19 2017 06:13 Liquid`Drone wrote:
When is the last time a German Chancellor said anything of that sort?