Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Da Geezer]

Incorrect

Or, to be fair, incomplete. But what's above is sufficient to prove the allegation. Whether he gave a portion to charity or not has no bearing. He started a war and profited from that.

Cripe, I'd hate to have you as a juror in a criminal trial!

Hack, honestly, and for your own good, you should read other sources than Kos or the HuffPo. I personally would suggest National Review Online.

Just think what thirty-nine thousand five hundred MILLION dollars is. That just can't be right on it's face.

You should improve your behavior here. This community has suffered significantly and is much smaller because of you, and you show no appreciation at all for the people that backed you after your impassioned plea to return. Someone disagreeing with you is not a reason to have a tantrum. Asking for clarification is not horrible thing to have to do. Responding to a request for clarification isn't either. Grow up.

This type of thing moves you into the area of being a caricature. the words "the community..." in a sentence almost always means the sentence will be gibberish.

[hack]

That's the standard for gibberish?

[Ghengis Jon]

FISA stuff - rolling back Section 702.

In an absolute stunning revelation, the usually hallucinatory "Freedom Caucus" correctly stated "Government surveillance activities under the FISA Amendments Act have violated Americans' constitutionally protected rights."

Great will be the day when the FISA and Patriot Acts finally get repealed. Time to end our post 9/11 paranoid, knee jerk, self inflicted assault on the Bill of Rights.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-intelligence-idUSKBN1962SR

[Ghengis Jon]

One day Qatar is bad cuz they fund terrorism, the next day they're good enough to sell $12B worth of F-15s. Are they good or are they bad? Or does money 'trump' everything else?

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-sells-qatar-12-billion-arms-days-after-accusing-it-of-funding-terrorism/

[hack]

I honestly have no idea. Understanding the GCC is like trying to sort out the dynamics between your wife, your mother and your sister. The only thing we know is that Saudi is big brother, and everybody has to play along. I have no idea how Kuwait is managing its neutrality. That's got to be a difficult one to pull off.

It would have been nice to keep Trump out of there entirely. Perhaps this move specifically is a successful job by Mattis and McMaster in rebalancing US foreign policy toward the region.

[crashcourse]

hard to keep out of there when you have 10.000 troops there as part of centcom

have to keep playing both sides of the fence

[Jeff Buchanan]

Yeah, ME politics is exceedingly tricky stuff. It always has been - for literally centuries.

Under standing Arab culture requires an observer of the politics there to shed an Americo-or-Eurocentric world view. It's hard.

While I come from a military viewpoint in making this statement, the history of high-level relations with ME nations - we're talking about the regional CINCs here - has been remarkably successful in forging military relationships save Iran where tensions have existed since the hostage Crisis during the Carter administration.

What I've observed is some very intelligent CINCs - and Mattis was one of those - and their staffs is an ability to cut through the bull-shit that hampers State initiated diplomacy and get to the point. The Sheiks and their male progeny are interesting fellows. It's been my view that Arabs are rarely direct; they are frustratingly obtuse, hard to nail down and they continually look to gain an ability to escape or back-track from any position that they might take on any number of matters.

When your'e dealing with soldiers there's not as much of that and I think some of that has to do with first, high ranking Arab soldiers - almost to the man the progeny of the Shieks - are educated in the West and are trained in US military schools and second, there's generally no tip-toeing around diplomatic niceties when there are a bunch of generals of multiple nationalities sitting around a table .

[SeattleLionsFan]

hard to keep out of there when you have 10.000 troops there as part of centcom

have to keep playing both sides of the fence

You need to tell the president that, not anyone here.

[Dr. Strangelove]

[ame]https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/875701471999864833[/ame]

Confirms he's under investigation; Rosenstein a dead man walking

[Mainevent]

Is this the 4th or 5th flip flop on why Comey was fired?

[Ghengis Jon]

"I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director!" Trump said on Twitter, calling the probe into him a "Witch Hunt."


So the President takes his orders from the Asst AG?

<Note to self: Ask Rosenstein to tell Trump to resign>

[THE_WIZARD_]

[Whitley]

I don't think this has been reported on much, BUT VP Mike Pence has retained outside council.

[Dr. Strangelove]

RIP Helmut Kohl

[iam416]

Yes, I still miss the FRG and DDR. Fortunately, Nena is still alive.