Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Dr. Strangelove]

[Detroit Dan]

What? A civil discussion of politics amongst people of different political philosophies? Umpossible!

Obama seemed to generally realize the limits of his power. I wish he would have used the bully pulpit more.

Twitter has proved to be an effective tool for both good (Harbaugh) and evil (Trump).

[Wild Hoss]

Barack has been a non-interventionist since Day One. It was a fairly popular position in 2007-08, but in the intervening years the American people believe that they have become rich again, and have forgotten the pics of flag-draped coffins being unloaded at Dover AFB. We seem to be getting salty.

I have zero qualms with the N-I approach, especially when it comes to Syria. There are no Good Guys in that mess, only victims. To get directly involved there out of some ill-conceived and nebulous notion of global policing would be height of foolishness, and Barack knows it. The new guy...TBD.

[Whitley]

Tomorrow the new session of Congress will start. These are the cabinet guys that Trump wants:

Rex Tillerson Sec. of State: No prior governmental experience. CEO of Exxon. Was Awarded highest honor Russia can give a non native. A personal friend of Putin's.

Sen Jeff Sessions (Alabama) Attorney General: A guy that was nominated for a federal judge position, but his nomination could not get out of committee because he was too racist for the 1980s.

Betsy DeVos Sec. of Education: A proponent for no oversight and for profit charter schools. A vocal opponent of public education. For results look at the Michigan charter school system which has very little oversight and 80% of them are for profit.

Rep. Tom Price Sec. of Health and Human Services: Burn to the ground everything related to Obamacare. Don't worry HSAs and buying insurance anywhere in the US will take care of everything.

just a sampling....that is not including a guy that wanted to shutter his agency (Gov Rick Perry and Energy). A guy that fought his agency every step of the way and believes the jury is out on humans causing climate change (OK AG Scott Pruitt and EPA). Or a guy (McVulaney) that is a tea party guy that will look to cut and cut and with Paul Ryan look to gut social security and medicare.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Congress' first day back and wow...Against the wishes of Paul Ryan and other GOP leadership, House Republicans have voted to gut the Office of Congressional Ethics. Instead of being an independent body, Congress itself would have oversight over the body that investigates Congressional members. The vote was held in secret.

DRAIN THE SWAMP!!

http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/02/politics/office-of-congressional-ethics-oversight-of-ethics-committee-amendment/

[iam416]

Really like Scott Pruitt and Sessions nominations.

[entropy]

hoss..

As I said, no president has been consistent. BO has dropped a lot of bombs in the ME to be "not involved".

again, I'm more in favor of BO's direction than Bush's/Clinton's.. but he hasn't been consistent either and has made threats he's backed down from.

from the campaign, it would seem Trump wants other world leaders to be involved with "helping". We will see, but he doesn't have the ties 2 of our last 3 presidents had to the region, so I'd suspect we will see more BO type behaviors. That is unless there is an attack..

[Wild Hoss]

ent,

There are two sides to your argument though, and you only acknowledge one.

If one agrees the costs of stopping those people from dying are unbearable, then attempting to hang those deaths on BO is not "part of the review"...its just petty politics. If one disagrees, then blame away...but those costs- beginning with calculations of American lives- need to be "part of the review" of that position.

There was a certain distance BO was willing to go in order to influence the outcome. It wasn't enough, but by and large I agree with where he drew the line. He tried. He didn't have to.

[entropy]

Hoss.. I would never suggest the cost of US lives should be eliminated from the equation. It has to be part of it. I'm just saying no action has a cost too.






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[hack]

I've yet to hear any suggested actions in Syria or the greater ME conflict that don't come with any costs.

[entropy]

hack.. correct. But that's not what you hear discussed or reported.

[Da Geezer]

Whitley:

Re: cabinet nominations. Let's remember that the "obstructionist" Republicans gave Obama all of his nominees in 08-09.

Re: the ME and Syria. I've actually wondered why "safe-zones" for non-combatant citizens have never been at least tried. Perhaps they would have become targets for both sides, but it seems like an idea that could, at least, have been attempted.

[Da Geezer]

WM:

If the US did go into Ukraine/Crimea, the alt-right universe which you exist in Geezer would've taken issue with Obama.

No one is suggesting the US "go into" Ukraine/Crimea. The US could have provided weapons, particularly anti-tank weapons, to the Ukrainian government.

[entropy]

providing weapons has never really worked, at least to my knowledge.

[Wild Hoss]

hack.. correct. But that's not what you hear discussed or reported.

We (Americans) are pretty fickle about what we decide to care about....that drives the decisionmaking in some instances. Kosovo, yes. Sri Lanka, Rawanda, etc, no.

The slaughter in Syria has been going on for a long time, but the American public hasn't gotten particularly worked up about it until recent months IMO. Nobody expected it to drag out this long, for starters.