President Trump: The NEW one and only politics thread

Meanwhile, in the "war zone."

 

Constant right-wing outrage over President Obama, in the long-term, brought no benefits to the Republican Party. If you recall, his successor is not at all the living embodiment of that outrage.

 

They had a very strong relationship during the Cold War. It cooled after the fall of the USSR but picked up steam after the Arab Spring, when Russia saw uprisings all over --- including the Americans' lie about what they would do in Libya --- and after what happened there, Russia went looking for another ally in the region. Syria was a nice fit, given the nations' history. It gave them a chance to see what its newly revamped military was capable of, since it really had never been put to the test. It also gave them a chance to show off weapons to potential customers in the region. And it gives them a chance to have some say in world affairs in the Middle East.

And maybe most important --- the countries are reasonably close together, and Russia has been victimized by terrorism more than any other country. Instability anywhere in that part of the world is something they view as a genuine security threat.

Their interventions are 1) far less numerous than that of the United States and 2) limited to their region of the world. When Russian military are spotted in Canada or Mexico, then we may have a legitimate gripe.

This American concept that "We have the right to a sphere of influence in the world . . . and nobody else does" does not play very well over there. At all.

I'll take your word on the superiority of Singapore's education system.

But they are educating 5.6 million. The Soviets were educating a population of 300 million stretched over 11 time zones.

That's a good question, and I believe this article --- albeit three years old --- tries to answer it. It says, in short, that Russians are wonderful at invention but terrible at innovation. And yes, the country's political climate definitely has a hand in that problem.

Russia's great at invention, but stinks at innovation

 

Claire McCaskill said she is "a little confused why (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) is the thing."

Well, Claire, you sort of answered your own question. I'm not a big O-C fan, but the fact that pasty old white people don't get why younger folks want to forge ahead to the future without them is why hopefully their days in charge are numbered. I say that as a pasty middle-aged white person. "Whhhhat? You mean younger people who are different than me might want to have a say in their own lives and have ideas of how they want to go about it? That's just crazy talk."

Ocasio-Cortez's rise leaves outgoing Democrat Claire McCaskill 'confused,' report says

 

Yeah.

Might want to revamp a system with outcomes like this:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/loca...1c0fe0c5b8f_story.html?utm_term=.b4cef7b8afb2

 

Alma,
I don't like being grouped in with gender pronoun warriors. Not everything in life needs a f'n hashtag.
I find the packaging of this contemptible - it's not how people like O'Rourke broke through the ice.

 

There's a conflict in every human heart between the rational and the irrational, between good and evil. The good does not always triumph. Sometimes the dark side overcomes what Lincoln called the better angels of our nature. Every man has got a breaking point. You and I have. Donald Trump has reached his. And very obviously, he has gone insane.

 

McCaskill knows why. Her saying she doesn’t know why is a way of saying Ocasio-Cortez shouldn’t be a thing. A better reporter would have challenged McCaskill on her wording.

 

I figure the one on the right is the face of the future.

 

How would the current resistance have ended WWII?
Probably not the way Truman did.

 

Impeachment
Count 1 Aid and comfort to the enemy

 

We will see. House and Senate leadership is as entrenched as the Brezhnev Politburo. It’s a long game in the legislature unless the democrats can orchestrate a Gingrich style coup d’Etat. Right now, she’s just an abberataion. A more liberal democrat than who she replaced but she doesn’t move the real politics needle.
Can she speak for many? I don’t believe the Congressional Black Caucus will show her much love, she represents more of a real threat to their perception of their power than Speaker Ryan.

As was mentioned before, the average American voter, while not classically racist, will not be governed by a coalition where African Americans are the leaders. Barack Obama was a unicorn. Black for sure by the perception of the masses. But not urban African American, and he wasn’t.

Can the democrats fashion a young diverse leadership that is palatable to the average voter? Can they put together a Hispanic/White/Asian mix with enough black faces to keep the coalition together without pushing middle to the nontrumo right