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On October 02 2016 03:27 Sermokala wrote: Calling the prevention of a large scale genocide in yugoslavia as an imperialist action is pretty stupid. Europe didn't want to get their hands dirty in the most obvious post cold war problem they could solve so America had to stop the war before it really kicked off.
The rest of that I pretty much agree with, nato has become a way for the us to cover for europes lack of military in exchange for increased Us influence on the world. As much as euroes like to parrot around about being free from US influence they only have a choice between the US and Russia. One will cut off their natural gas in the middle of winter and watch your people freeze to death while blaming you for it.
Yugoslavia was a mess of a country whose demise was quite likely. As with quite a few Eastern European countries, there was quite a bit of ethnic strife that made it quite hard to exist as a single country. Part of the reason the USSR even had such a substantial security apparatus was that there were quite a few conflicts within an unstable part of the world (though that apparatus did have a number of key weaknesses of note since it was established in a less sane and more paranoid environment). However, it is also true that NATO, in Yugoslavia as in multiple other countries in their operating zones, pushed to escalate those conflicts into civil war and to end those civil wars on terms more favorable to parties that were pro-Western. Yugoslavia was a special case simply because of when it happened - in the decade after the collapse of the USSR, when Russia really did not have the ability to oppose this intervention. It has moderate geopolitical importance due to its location, but more importantly the intervention there was a diplomatically aggressive move that destroyed any hopes of a genuine reset with Russia and led to a very neocon-esque approach to American FP. Rather imperialist.
On October 02 2016 06:55 Gorsameth wrote: This "I will attack Bill' line is just so wierd. Even aside from its effectiveness (which I would rate low) surely the idea is to catch your opponent off-guard and not signaling it 2 weeks in advance so they can prep a retort. And faking the line of attack to make Hillary 'waste' prep time doesnt make much sense either since she looked more then ready last time.
Probably just talking about it to keep it in the news...? Sorta like those "surveys" aka infomercials.
On October 02 2016 08:16 Slaughter wrote: Why would Trump think attacking Clinton with her husbands infidelities would work?
He himself has done the same thing in his marriages and that kind of attack can easily be spun by Clinton as an attack on her as a woman.
Whatever infidelities befell Trump, his wives didn't stay with him, it was in the papers.
So in a country whose general values have a strong Christian undercurrent, somehow being a serial adulterer while simultaneously attacking the wife of a serial adulterer who actually "stuck with him because of family values" (as if she was somehow to blame) is expected to be a profitable line of attack?
It doesn't strike me as below the shit flinging tone of this election. HRC lied about and insulted Bill's mistresses, many of whom were people working for him as president and so forth, and from where I'm sitting stayed with him because of power and status. You say serial adulterer for both of them, I'd say on the surface Trump looks more faithful than Bill but I haven't gotten into the adultery accounting to be certain.
On October 02 2016 03:27 Sermokala wrote: Calling the prevention of a large scale genocide in yugoslavia as an imperialist action is pretty stupid. Europe didn't want to get their hands dirty in the most obvious post cold war problem they could solve so America had to stop the war before it really kicked off.
The rest of that I pretty much agree with, nato has become a way for the us to cover for europes lack of military in exchange for increased Us influence on the world. As much as euroes like to parrot around about being free from US influence they only have a choice between the US and Russia. One will cut off their natural gas in the middle of winter and watch your people freeze to death while blaming you for it.
Yugoslavia was a mess of a country whose demise was quite likely. As with quite a few Eastern European countries, there was quite a bit of ethnic strife that made it quite hard to exist as a single country. Part of the reason the USSR even had such a substantial security apparatus was that there were quite a few conflicts within an unstable part of the world (though that apparatus did have a number of key weaknesses of note since it was established in a less sane and more paranoid environment). However, it is also true that NATO, in Yugoslavia as in multiple other countries in their operating zones, pushed to escalate those conflicts into civil war and to end those civil wars on terms more favorable to parties that were pro-Western. Yugoslavia was a special case simply because of when it happened - in the decade after the collapse of the USSR, when Russia really did not have the ability to oppose this intervention. It has moderate geopolitical importance due to its location, but more importantly the intervention there was a diplomatically aggressive move that destroyed any hopes of a genuine reset with Russia and led to a very neocon-esque approach to American FP. Rather imperialist.
That is an extremely cynical view and i am being nice here. NATO did not push the croatian independence war or the Bosnian war, you could argue that the western powers could have done more to prevent the break up of Yugoslavia or to stabilize the resulting nations. Had the same happened without bloodshed, America would have probably called it a miracle of freedom and democracy. But it did not, it was the ugliest war since WW2 on european ground and it had to be stopped.
On October 02 2016 07:25 Sent. wrote: That's when you start importing young people from countries you used to bomb
You also have to call anyone who disagrees a racist.
Only the short sighted ones thar justify their mistrust of refugees by saying they are "realistic". Since reality and statics do not support that distrust.
Not sure what you mean by that.
Economics? Here is a study commissioned by the UK Parliament that studies the effects of immigration. The basic conclusion is that in the short and long term, the net benefits of immigration depend very strongly on the quality of the immigrants themselves, that bad immigrants are not a good thing, and that immigrants generally increase GDP but not always GDP per capita. The simple, and almost obvious, conclusion is that the "immigration always good" argument is as stupid and wrong as it is un-nuanced.
Social/cultural effects, criminality, and terrorism? Well it's safe to say I disagree, but I'm not opening that can of worms again because that's always a terrible discussion.
On October 02 2016 03:27 Sermokala wrote: Calling the prevention of a large scale genocide in yugoslavia as an imperialist action is pretty stupid. Europe didn't want to get their hands dirty in the most obvious post cold war problem they could solve so America had to stop the war before it really kicked off.
The rest of that I pretty much agree with, nato has become a way for the us to cover for europes lack of military in exchange for increased Us influence on the world. As much as euroes like to parrot around about being free from US influence they only have a choice between the US and Russia. One will cut off their natural gas in the middle of winter and watch your people freeze to death while blaming you for it.
Yugoslavia was a mess of a country whose demise was quite likely. As with quite a few Eastern European countries, there was quite a bit of ethnic strife that made it quite hard to exist as a single country. Part of the reason the USSR even had such a substantial security apparatus was that there were quite a few conflicts within an unstable part of the world (though that apparatus did have a number of key weaknesses of note since it was established in a less sane and more paranoid environment). However, it is also true that NATO, in Yugoslavia as in multiple other countries in their operating zones, pushed to escalate those conflicts into civil war and to end those civil wars on terms more favorable to parties that were pro-Western. Yugoslavia was a special case simply because of when it happened - in the decade after the collapse of the USSR, when Russia really did not have the ability to oppose this intervention. It has moderate geopolitical importance due to its location, but more importantly the intervention there was a diplomatically aggressive move that destroyed any hopes of a genuine reset with Russia and led to a very neocon-esque approach to American FP. Rather imperialist.
That is an extremely cynical view and i am being nice here. NATO did not push the croatian independence war or the Bosnian war, you could argue that the western powers could have done more to prevent the break up of Yugoslavia or to stabilize the resulting nations. Had the same happened without bloodshed, America would have probably called it a miracle of freedom and democracy. But it did not, it was the ugliest war since WW2 on european ground and it had to be stopped.
Here is some reading that shows that there indeed was an effort to spin EE nations with stability issues towards Western orientation by encouraging the most pro-Western elements within those countries to oppose Soviet interests. A short declassified note by Reagan, so it contains a fair bit of bluster, but the content is essentially in line with what I was saying about the issue.
Trump Tax Records Obtained by The Times Reveal He Could Have Avoided Paying Taxes for Nearly Two Decades
Donald J. Trump declared a $916 million loss on his 1995 income tax returns, a tax deduction so substantial it could have allowed him to legally avoid paying any federal income taxes for up to 18 years, records obtained by The New York Times show.
The 1995 tax records, never before disclosed, reveal the extraordinary tax benefits that Mr. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, derived from the financial wreckage he left behind in the early 1990s through mismanagement of three Atlantic City casinos, his ill-fated foray into the airline business and his ill-timed purchase of the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan.
Tax experts hired by The Times to analyze Mr. Trump’s 1995 records said that tax rules especially advantageous to wealthy filers would have allowed Mr. Trump to use his $916 million loss to cancel out an equivalent amount of taxable income over an 18-year period.
so he tanked so heavily in the 90's that he's still not paying taxes and he's probably worth much less than he claims. Seemed like the only reasonable explanation to begin with, if he'd just dodged taxes he'd probably have bragged about it.
On October 02 2016 03:27 Sermokala wrote: Calling the prevention of a large scale genocide in yugoslavia as an imperialist action is pretty stupid. Europe didn't want to get their hands dirty in the most obvious post cold war problem they could solve so America had to stop the war before it really kicked off.
The rest of that I pretty much agree with, nato has become a way for the us to cover for europes lack of military in exchange for increased Us influence on the world. As much as euroes like to parrot around about being free from US influence they only have a choice between the US and Russia. One will cut off their natural gas in the middle of winter and watch your people freeze to death while blaming you for it.
Yugoslavia was a mess of a country whose demise was quite likely. As with quite a few Eastern European countries, there was quite a bit of ethnic strife that made it quite hard to exist as a single country. Part of the reason the USSR even had such a substantial security apparatus was that there were quite a few conflicts within an unstable part of the world (though that apparatus did have a number of key weaknesses of note since it was established in a less sane and more paranoid environment). However, it is also true that NATO, in Yugoslavia as in multiple other countries in their operating zones, pushed to escalate those conflicts into civil war and to end those civil wars on terms more favorable to parties that were pro-Western. Yugoslavia was a special case simply because of when it happened - in the decade after the collapse of the USSR, when Russia really did not have the ability to oppose this intervention. It has moderate geopolitical importance due to its location, but more importantly the intervention there was a diplomatically aggressive move that destroyed any hopes of a genuine reset with Russia and led to a very neocon-esque approach to American FP. Rather imperialist.
You're ignoreing the very real genocide happening along not even just religious lines. the USSR was incapable of acting outside of its borders as it was collapsing from the inside. Europe tried to "intervene" and got PTSD from WW1. That left the USA as the only one capable in the world of stopping a massive civil war in the middle of europe from spiralling out of control and very possibly starting WW3. The USSR was able to keep civil unrest from happening in eastern europe by keeping a powerful army ready to slaughter any resistance to communist rule. When this was removed the balkans did what the balkans have been doing for hundreds of years and went to war with eachother.
Why the fuck Russia would oppose the intervention? At the very least we saved them from a black eye FP wise that would have lasted for centuries and at the best we gave them a semblance of slavic brotherhood with serbia and greece to counter our croatian-albaian-turkic allies.
Anyone who says the Balkans has moderate Geopolitical importance due to its location has never read European history, or looked at a map.
So trump has multiple scandels waiting in the wings, will any of them really hit him before election day. Trump is already imploding and he does not really have time to dig himself back out of the hole. If you look at past trends it takes trump like month to month and a half to bring himself back into the horse race once he starts to shut up. If everything hits him at once though in the next month i hope it is enough to start dragging down repubs down the ticket as well.
On October 02 2016 12:28 Shingi11 wrote: So trump has multiple scandels waiting in the wings, will any of them really hit him before election day. Trump is already imploding and he does not really have time to dig himself back out of the hole. If you look at past trends it takes trump like month to month and a half to bring himself back into the horse race once he starts to shut up. If everything hits him at once though in the next month i hope it is enough to start dragging down repubs down the ticket as well.
Depends how long until Hillary gets caught lying stupidly again.
On October 02 2016 12:28 Shingi11 wrote: So trump has multiple scandels waiting in the wings, will any of them really hit him before election day. Trump is already imploding and he does not really have time to dig himself back out of the hole. If you look at past trends it takes trump like month to month and a half to bring himself back into the horse race once he starts to shut up. If everything hits him at once though in the next month i hope it is enough to start dragging down repubs down the ticket as well.
Depends how long until Hillary gets caught lying stupidly again.
What is left for her to get caught in though. There is the supposed big release by wikileaks and that is about it. And that is a boy who cry wolf situation for me there since every release is supposed to end Hilary. I mean something could come up but at this point everything has been beaten to death.
Like the cuba deal alone could end trump if that starts to really pick up since he cant win without flordia.
On October 02 2016 07:04 LegalLord wrote: Trump sounds like a sore loser right now. It's not hard just to give the generic, and correct, answer that you stand by the president whoever said person ends up being. It's even easier not to double down on a losing strategy.
After Trump loses, being able to call it rigged is a really great way to launch the Trump media network and continue selling shit to the same gullible uninformed masses voting for him now. He might be dumb, but he knows a business opportunity when he sees it, and he will fuck over the legitimacy of our democracy to make money.
To be honest, if this tax report is accurate, I'm almost surprised Donald hasn't been bragging about it for years. He clearly isn't against willingly admitting that he takes advantage of laws and loopholes for personal and professional gain. If there's stuff to hide in his taxes that probably isn't it.
On October 02 2016 13:20 DannyJ wrote: To be honest, if this tax report is accurate, I'm almost surprised Donald hasn't been bragging about it for years. He clearly isn't against willingly admitting that he takes advantage of laws and loopholes for personal and professional gain. If there's stuff to hide in his taxes that probably isn't it.
If true, it's not surprising that he wouldn't brag about it. He is sensitive about his wealth status and the perception people have of him as an intelligent businessman and a winner. Losing a billion in a year is very damaging to that image he cultivates.
That sounds like strategic reporting of losses to me, really. There's a lot of ways to report a loss by pulling things out of your ass, especially for real estate.
EPT
