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get out soon AA and if you have to stay the weekend I hpe your nurses are hot
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oh so he investigated the material used to get the FISA warrant, and why Halper was spying on campaign members for the FBI 4 months prior to the start of the investigation?Comment
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yay! Shit is so good, CNN has to make news by reporting someone's opinion that, in reality, they probably made up themselves.Comment
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Texas republican tries to out-asshole Trump.
“Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.” - Groucho MarxComment
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Adam Schiff moves to have the 21st century's Dred Scott decision overturned by Constitutional amendment.
“Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.” - Groucho MarxComment
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I get the sentiment about the Kashogi murder. The House of Saud is brutal by any measure. Human rights? Forget it. But ........
"The enemy of my enemy is my friend."
My take is based on the reality of the impact of Islamic fundamentalism in the ME and the brutal groups that are aided and abetted in their bloody work by Iran. The Houtis in Yemen, the mischief they undertake in Syria and their support of Hamas and Hezbollah.
We could take the road that Fienstein and her collaborators would like the US to take with Iran and SA - carrot with no stick - or we can confront Iran with the various strategic approaches the Trump administration is undertaking based on reality.Mission to CFB's National Championship accomplished. But the shine on the NC Trophy is embarrassingly wearing off. It's M B-Ball ..... or hockey or volley ball or name your college sport favorite time ...... until next year.Comment
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Iran's a bad actor. So's Saudi Arabia. I don't really like assisting either one of them to defeat the other. Sunni terrorists, funded by Saudi and UAE dollars, have done more harm to America than Iran-backed ones ever have. Taking sides in Middle Eastern disputes is the reason we have never been able to extract ourselves from that hellhole. Our oil dependency on the Saudis was always exaggerated and it's even less important now. Forward-thinking people need to start reevaluating that relationship NOW rather than prepare to fight wars on their behalf so that they can be the paramount power in the region.
But my point was really about awarding Trump increasingly more power to operate wars and conduct all foreign policy with zero input or oversight from Congress. You're comfortable with that?Comment
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Acknowledged. I believe the threat of a nuclear armed Iran to be greater than that of ISIS or any other organized terror group. YMMV.Originally posted by Dr. Strangelove View Post
I think an argument can be made in support of your position.Originally posted by Dr. Strangelove View Post
OTH, an equally persuasive argument can be made that the Palestinian v. Israeli issues have, for decades, colored US ME FP. It underpins most of the violence there. I don't think it can be solved so, to me, the default position is the Green Line - the pre-1967 boundaries - with the bordering nations of Jordan, Syria, Egypt and Lebanon figuring out what to do with the Palestinian's demands for territory and self governance of it. It's not going to come from Israel without their willingness to cede it which they have demonstrated a willingness to do in the past, always rejected by whoever, at the time, was governing them. I see SA and Egypt playing a major role in any undertaking involving the Arab world's obligation to deal with the Palestinian issue. Hence, I'm more supportive of a pivot to SA as a means of facilitating the foregoing.
Having said that, I'll join you in shitting on the GWB administration's invasion of Iraq and the post Iraq War II circumstances that dumb ass endeavor created. There is no way that can be defended and the anti-Americanism, the increased threat of terrorism directed against American interests that undertaking created. As well, the GWB administration can be accused of enriching the pockets of those with oil and US defense industry interests in undertaking Iraq War II. I'll grant you that too. Shameful.
But looking at SA in the rear view mirror - all the credible evidence that Saudi Arabia exports the extremist Wahhabi interpretation of Sunni Islam in the myriad forms it is accused of doing so - obscures the threat of a nuclear armed Iran with its ties to the various proxies that nation and it's Mullahs support. I consider that the new nuclear reality that I believe the Trump administration is dealing with. I do not think this administrations ME FP is driven by oil interests - again, an antiquated excuse, no longer applicable for obvious reasons, the actual lack of US oil dependency being one of the primary ones.
As unseemly as it might appear to be - cuddling up to the SA Sheiks - the tribalism present in the Arab world of the ME - the kind that has been present for centuries if not millennia - is not going to go away with some "forward looking" ME policy that assumes the brutality of that tribalism can be ameliorated with carrots. It can't be. Sticks - big ones - with some carrots thrown in may do it and I'd call that approach, exactly what the Trump administration is doing by arming SA and deploying US forces directly in opposition to Iran.Originally posted by Dr. Strangelove View Post
I get the concern. Teddy Roosevelt had the same kind of strained relationship with Congress that Trump has albeit TR's personality, as abrasive as many thought it was, had a good side that Trump clearly lacks. TR was an adult instead of a petulant child. Nonetheless, there are parallels in the two president's approach to FP. TR was famous for end-running Congress on any number of his initiative because he didn't want to wait around for congress to debate his initiatives. If Roosevelt was renowned for anything it was making America the great power it became under his presidency. Not the least of that reality being achieved by Teddy being Teddy - the "bully" he was seen as.Originally posted by Dr. Strangelove View Post
I'm not ready to declare Trump's presidency like TR's as far as the end-game is concerned. There are a lot of Trump's undertakings that may or may not produce positive results. But I am clearly in support of the Executive in these matters even though it should be clear I don't like PDJT. As a nation and at the behest of voters who elected their representatives to the House, we have become way too willing to take the destructive path of trying to build a case for impeachment, discussing it openly as destructive as that can be to the president's authority, since Watergate and Nixon. I've made it abundantly clear that I'm for a presidency unencumbered by mindless Washington politics designed to discredit the president no matter who occupies the WH.
Mission to CFB's National Championship accomplished. But the shine on the NC Trophy is embarrassingly wearing off. It's M B-Ball ..... or hockey or volley ball or name your college sport favorite time ...... until next year.Comment
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“Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.” - Groucho MarxComment
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....... Sure beat the impeachment drum.
I guess a case can be made that starting the impeachment process in the House Judiciary Committee may inform the public like this former Congressman thinks happened in the Watergate circumstance to Nixon where, he says, after hearing testimony, the R leadership in the Senate went to Nixon and said "you have to go." So, seeing the writing on the wall, he resigned.
For reasons I've made abundantly clear, going down that road is littered with significant risks for the nation even when you ignore the political risks for the Ds.
Nixon was mired in a hugely unpopular war in Vietnam and facing an effective anti-war movement. This beyond his alleged Watergate involvement. Different time, different place and an element of false equivalence there.
If you are on the side that is against Trump's immigration, security, taxation, trade and FP initiatives maybe pursuing impeachment is a viable course of action. Because pursuing impeachment will simply allow foreign adversaries and political opponents to wait out the next administration. If, OTH, you are for his administration's policies, and I, for the most part, am, taking up impeachment is a very dangerous thing to do. JMO.Mission to CFB's National Championship accomplished. But the shine on the NC Trophy is embarrassingly wearing off. It's M B-Ball ..... or hockey or volley ball or name your college sport favorite time ...... until next year.Comment
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