Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[entropy]

jeff.. I'll try to find the article.. I posted it hear before... it clearly highlighted the differences in BO's approach to the middle east compared to Bush's and Hillary's. I'm not saying Hillary is Bush, but she would have invaded Iraq after 9/11 and she was pushing for BO to invade after he "drew the line". She's much more likely to be involved if her friends from SA request.. and that is also more Bush than BO.

That's her record... much more willing to go to war than BO. But again, she will follow what makes her popular and who she owes.. so you really never know.

[Hannibal]

Trump will trend more towards being an isolationist. He will approach foreign policy with a "what's in this for us?" attitude.

[entropy]

also.. BO clearly feels the ME is tribal and pretty much not solvable currently. He clearly stated involvement in the ME should only be a case where US interests are necessary. He also stated sometimes bad things happen to good people... and the US wouldn't get involved. In other words, it's not the US's job to protect innocent people from bad guys.

I would suggest that Bush would believe it was his duty to help the innocent when there US interests, even weak ones. I would also suggest he'd be against taking refugees. From the article I mentioned in my last post, BO is willing to take refugees, but is less willing to help the innocent unless there is a strong correlation to US interests or safety. I'd also suggest Bush would use invasion while BO would prefer drones..

jmo on that last paragraph..

[entropy]

Trump will trend more towards being an isolationist. He will approach foreign policy with a "what's in this for us?" attitude.

agree..

I don't see him as war hungry but more of what will we get for helping or doing this..

that said, I think both Trump and Hillary would respond like Bush did after 9/11.. they'd follow the American people on it.

[hack]

Yeah but the key question is who is ``us''? K Street and Wall Street? Main Street's interests don't give with those other two. Trump's entire campaign is based on the premise that there are things that are good for every American entity, and he'll nail them. No such thing exists. There's no monolith of interests.

[WingsFan]

That running loop a couple weeks back showing the vicious attack by Donald Trump's campaign manager Corey Lewandowski on former reporter Michelle Fields. The one lefts showed more than the Kennedy assassination. Look for a press conference by state attorney's office in Palm Beach County, Florida, will not prosecute.

Probably get about 30 seconds coverage, I'm not a lawyer.... but there's talk Lewandowski might sue for defamation of character.

[CGVT]

I got a chuckle out of this. It could be redone with any politician and still be funny...

[Da Geezer]

Yeah but the key question is who is ``us''? K Street and Wall Street? Main Street's interests don't give with those other two. Trump's entire campaign is based on the premise that there are things that are good for every American entity, and he'll nail them. No such thing exists. There's no monolith of interests.

Well. . . . true.

First, I think Hanni meant that the phrase "what's in it for us" means the US national interest in foreign affairs. For example, Trump has been criticized for wanting to leave NATO (which he never said in his AIPAC speech, or anywhere else). What he has said is that the US is broke and the wealthy states of Europe need to pay more for the cost of their own defense. He has also expressed doubts about the part of the NATO treaty that calls for the US to treat an attack on a member country (Estonia for example) as an attack on the US. This is exactly the type of "treaty trap" that engulfed Europe in WWI. I'd like to know the specific entity that has an interest in a war with Russia over the Baltic States.

And to go further, I know of no significant constituency for the current economic situation of .1% growth in the first quarter. Both Cruz and Trump propose tax cuts that have, in the past, created at least a 5% annual growth rate. Cruz' plan "costs" $ 1.0 Trillion over 10 years, and Trump's "costs" $ 10.0 Trillion over the same period.. If the economy grows at a 3% greater marginal rate, the result in GDP growth would be $510 billion. So, in Cruz' plan, we would "spend" 100b to get 510b.

In economics, there is a term for goods that do better in absolute (not relative) terms when times are tough. Potatoes are the classic example. Social Service Workers would be another. But the vast majority of entities are better off in a growing economy than in a stagnant economy. I watched the Democrat debate last night, and I was struck by how no mention at all was made about economic growth. Both candidates were all about redistribution. Neither was interested in growing the pie. That is a substantial difference between the parties.

[Hannibal]

Trump, like many Americans, is sick and fucking tired of being the world's Sugar Daddy, the world's Policeman, and the world's Useful Idiot. We're tired of post Cold War inverventionist foreign policy that has made neither us nor the world safer. We're tired of all of the irrational anti-American hate being spewed around the world and we're sick of unappreciative allies. Especially in places like Saudi Arabia, which we have helped make rich with oil money and who we defended from Saddam Hussein in 1991. We're sick and tired of being told that we shouldn't look out for our own interests but it's perfectly okay for everyone else to do so. We're sick of places like Iraq, where our troops are more willing to put their lives on the line than our allies, who aren't willing to defend their homeland from terrorist wackos. And, especially in my case, we're tired of Socialist Democracies smugly boasting about the social welfare programs that they can afford becuase they don't have to pay for a national defense and we do (and those programs are still collapsing, especally with waves of immigrants coming in who contribute nothing).

Trump's answers on foreign policy appear more uninformed than they are because he isn't using the same playbook as everyone else. Hillary/Cruz/Kasich all have nice, thank tank-approved, nuanced-sounding answers when it comes to all kinds of foreign policy questions. They are experts on strategies that fail. Hooray. All of them operate from the same paradigm of being the world's sugar daddy/policeman/useful idiot. Once you get out of that paradigm the answers change dramatically. You go from debating how to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic to getting into the lifeboats.

Just Google immigration gop donors, this isn't some shadowy conspiracy.

The donors that you speak of are concerned about "electability" and not substance. They have simply concluded that the battle is lost and they might as well look like they were part of the winning side.

[lineygoblue]

Trump, like many Americans, is sick and tired of being the world's Sugar Daddy, the world's Policeman, and the world's Useful Idiot. We're tired of post Cold War inverventionist foreign policy that has made neither us nor the world safer. We're tired of all of the irrational anti-American hate being spewed around the world and we're sick of unappreciative allies. Especially in places like Saudi Arabia, which we have helped make rich with oil money and who we defended from Saddam Hussein in 1991. We're sick and tired of being told that we shouldn't look out for our own interests but it's perfectly okay for everyone else to do so. We're sick of places like Iraq, where our troops are more willing to put their lives on the line than our allies, who aren't willing to defend their homeland from terrorist wackos. And, especially in my case, we're tired of Socialist Democracies smugly boasting about the social welfare programs that they can afford becuase they don't have to pay for a national defense and we do (and those programs are still collapsing, especally with waves of immigrants coming in who contribute nothing).

Trump's answers on foreign policy appear more uninformed than they are because he isn't using the same playbook as everyone else. Hillary/Cruz/Kasich all have nice, thank tank-approved, nuanced-sounding answers when it comes to all kinds of foreign policy questions. They are experts on strategies that fail. Hooray. All of them operate from the same paradigm of being the world's sugar daddy/policeman/useful idiot. Once you get out of that paradigm the answers change dramatically. You go from debating how to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic to getting into the lifeboats..

Agree. Especially the bolded quotes.

[Wild Hoss]

Trump's answers on foreign policy appear more uninformed than they are because he isn't using the same playbook as everyone else. Hillary/Cruz/Kasich all have nice, thank tank-approved, nuanced-sounding answers when it comes to all kinds of foreign policy questions. They are experts on strategies that fail. Hooray. All of them operate from the same paradigm of being the world's sugar daddy/policeman/useful idiot. Once you get out of that paradigm the answers change dramatically. You go from debating how to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic to getting into the lifeboats.

False equivalence. A belief that the foreign policy paradigm needs to change does not make Donald informed on foreign affairs, or in the alternative, not dangerously uninformed on them. One’s barber probably holds many of the same foreign policy opinions that you mention above, but that doesn’t mean he’s qualified to be Secretary of State.

That said, I am in favor of Trump- like his counterpart on the Left, Sanders- pushing the boundries which have historically hemmed in policy discussions in this country. We have been scopelocked for decades, lacking in truly original ideas built from a wider view.

I do not believe either of them are remotely qualified to execute such changes, but that comes later. First we have to have the conversations.

[froot loops]

Those donors contribute a ton to the GOP, like hundreds of millions. If they are simply only concerned with electability then maybe they don't think it is a winning issue in a general election and it is bad for their business.

[hack]

Trump, like many Americans, is sick and fucking tired of being the world's Sugar Daddy, the world's Policeman, and the world's Useful Idiot. We're tired of post Cold War inverventionist foreign policy that has made neither us nor the world safer. We're tired of all of the irrational anti-American hate being spewed around the world and we're sick of unappreciative allies. Especially in places like Saudi Arabia, which we have helped make rich with oil money and who we defended from Saddam Hussein in 1991. We're sick and tired of being told that we shouldn't look out for our own interests but it's perfectly okay for everyone else to do so. We're sick of places like Iraq, where our troops are more willing to put their lives on the line than our allies, who aren't willing to defend their homeland from terrorist wackos. And, especially in my case, we're tired of Socialist Democracies smugly boasting about the social welfare programs that they can afford becuase they don't have to pay for a national defense and we do (and those programs are still collapsing, especally with waves of immigrants coming in who contribute nothing).

Well I think the defense contracting industry wouldn't consider itself a part of that ``we'' you speak of. And I think saying America protected Saudi from Iraq in '91 isn't necessarily an informed statement. I think the bottom line here is that if you're angry about other countries smugly enjoying the fact that they can spend on people instead of on weapons, then you have yourself, as a voting populace, to thank for that. You've been sold any number of wars on questionable pretenses and you take the bait every time.



Trump's answers on foreign policy appear more uninformed than they are because he isn't using the same playbook as everyone else. Hillary/Cruz/Kasich all have nice, thank tank-approved, nuanced-sounding answers when it comes to all kinds of foreign policy questions. They are experts on strategies that fail. Hooray. All of them operate from the same paradigm of being the world's sugar daddy/policeman/useful idiot. Once you get out of that paradigm the answers change dramatically. You go from debating how to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic to getting into the lifeboats.

Again, for whom are they failures? Not for companies Dick Cheney has a major financial stake in. Not for the energy sector either.

[Hannibal]

Those donors contribute a ton to the GOP, like hundreds of millions. If they are simply only concerned with electability then maybe they don't think it is a winning issue in a general election and it is bad for their business.

To what degree do you think oil magnates and hedge fund billionaires who live in gated communities have their finger on the pulse of America and have any clue whatsoever what are winning and losing issues?

And I am still waiting to see the list of huge GOP donors who push their candidates to accept open borders for reasons of substance (i.e. because their fortune benefits significantly from employing illegal labor), and not just because they are reading the New York Times editorial page or listening to inept Republican strategists.

[Wild Hoss]

I think the bottom line here is that if you're angry about other countries smugly enjoying the fact that they can spend on people instead of on weapons, then you have yourself, as a voting populace, to thank for that. You've been sold any number of wars on questionable pretenses and you take the bait every time.

Thing is, its not just the wars...its the whole "Offense is Defense" mindset left over from the Containment days that we take to the military. I wonder how many conflicts we'd have been involved in over the past 25 years if we had to gin up the manpower, equipment and financing before getting involved. Not many I suspect.

If its just lying around OTOH...