He's been doing that his entire presidency and it comes out particularly when he's having to do things he doesn't want to. Go back and listen to his state of the union addresses or his responses where he has to try and make up for him saying something racist like during Charlottesville.

1/8/2020 12:15:55 PM

Yeah, I've definitely noticed it in some speeches before, but it seemed like it was even worse during this one. But I haven't listened to his speeches in length (i just can't), and I only heard the first minute of today's.

1/8/2020 12:19:59 PM

Quote :

"It’s a clear de-escalation from the aftermath of the assassination. There is no doubt about that. And we should all be glad about that while understanding the initial escalation is all because of him in the first place. Trump still has no coherent plan or vision with the Middle East at large. He talks of bringing home troops as he sends 15,000 more in the last six months. He talks of negotiating with Iran as he shits on them non-stop. As best I can tell his only foreign policy ideas are “undo Obama.” "

Yeah i agree with all of this. The only consistent thing is this all seems wildly unplanned with no long term objectives or over-arching strategic vision.

1/8/2020 12:26:13 PM

^^wouldnt be surprised at all if he was doing worse today, particularly with impeachment hanging over his head

1/8/2020 12:33:42 PM

The irony in a bunch of people who will vote for Biden in November criticizing speaking prowess.

1/8/2020 1:36:55 PM

lol I'm pretty sure no one here wants Biden. Why don't you try being a good advocate for the left instead of a contrarian shithead?

Look, it's Abby Martin calling morons like you out:

https://twitter.com/AbbyMartin/status/1214763492051308544

[Edited on January 8, 2020 at 1:40 PM. Reason : .]

1/8/2020 1:38:18 PM

Quote :

"Trudeau, who I assume has access to better intelligence than TWW/Twitter put out a very non accusatory statement this morning."

I’m not sure what his motivation would be to lie, but he could know one thing from intel and still say something totally different.

(Or he could not have significant intel on it yet).

Quote :

" "It’s a clear de-escalation from the aftermath of the assassination. There is no doubt about that. And we should all be glad about that while understanding the initial escalation is all because of him in the first place."

Yes, exactly.
...but not, in my view, by the recent assassination. I view that as a response to repeated increased Iranian provocation over the last, what, 6 months or so.

Trump, however, made the initial escalation by breaking the nuclear deal and applying crippling economic pressure against them.

Quote :

"I’m pretty sure no one here wants Biden. "

I do. I mean, I don’t really want him, but he’s my candidate of last resort. Barely. At least for now.

[Edited on January 8, 2020 at 2:03 PM. Reason : ]

[Edited on January 8, 2020 at 2:20 PM. Reason : ]

1/8/2020 2:02:43 PM

Lets do a quick poll then. Yo TSB.... Who will you vote for if Biden wins the nomination?

Thats not a fair use of contrarian either. Just because I'm against concepts that happen to be popular doesn't mean I'm against them because they are popular.

I'm just being myself. I'm not a politician nor part of a campaign or party so I have no responsibility to anyone. Please though, tell me how I can be a "good advocate for the left" so I can at least internalize it. The funny thing about that tweet is that it was posted at 8:19 as a kneejerk response to a war she expected based on media leading us to believe a war had started. 12 hours later we found out the Trump completely deescalated the situation, destroying that narrative. Is kneejerk criticism of Trump the moment anything happens good for the left? Does fulfilling the rightwing caricature of TDS before full facts come out help the left?

I'm even willing to dissect that tweet under the hypothetical premise that we did actually go to war with iran lastnight. She's still missing the point. No one's supporting Trump by pointing out that he's anti-war because its all relative. No one believes that Trump has a leftist foreign policy or leftist policy on anything. The reasonable argument is that Trump is less of a hawk than the alternative (Hillary). Its up for debate how Trump's expansion aided by the democratic majority house would compare to the potential conflicts under the alternative administration. Hillary has said she would have setup a no-fly zone in Syria, confronted Russia on all fronts, and could "totally obliterate" Iran.

Why does it have to be all or nothing with you people? Why is anyone who doesn't think everything Trump does is the worst thing ever suddenly a Trump supporter? This sort of logic plays right into the "fascist left" caricature. Groupthink is not "leftist". You're lying if you claim you've ever agreed or disagreed with someone on 100% of issues.

You people are certainly capable of "lesser evil" math because its your bread and butter. TDS shouldn't override that mental asset.


[Edited on January 8, 2020 at 2:11 PM. Reason : i'd bet a lot of money most of the people on here will be voting for biden in november]

1/8/2020 2:06:22 PM

Criticizing a man that has a speech impediment for speaking prowess is a pretty shitheel thing to do.

Will we vote for Biden if he wins the Dem nomination? Most likely the majority of us would.
Do we WANT to have to vote for Biden? Of course not, again for the majority.

1/8/2020 2:23:31 PM

I will absolutely vote for Biden over Trump.

1/8/2020 2:27:45 PM

Quote :

" I'm not a politician nor part of a campaign or party so I have no responsibility to anyone."

You have a responsibility to the people you want to help with your politics. And you're helping no one by defending Trump to his dying breath. People like you are an absolute scourge to the socialist left.

[Edited on January 8, 2020 at 2:29 PM. Reason : btw I'm in a deep blue state and voted Green last time so gfy]

1/8/2020 2:28:42 PM

Quote :

" Lets do a quick poll then. Yo TSB.... Who will you vote for if Biden wins the nomination?"

Biden. And wouldn’t hesitate. I will vote for whatever major party candidate is up against Trump. It’s simple. We need to stop our lurch toward fascism.

I’m still undecided as to who I’ll vote for in the primary though I can’t imagine it’d be for someone other than Sanders or Warren.

As always, let’s remember that Earl likes Trump and wanted him to win in Nov 2016.

1/8/2020 2:29:53 PM

I would like to hear theduke talk about his experiences of being a bit liberal and in the military. I think that this is an interesting point because I've never met somebody in the military, or someone that wanted to enlist, that wasn't a raging far right conservative.

It's also interesting for me because I am currently in the process of joining the military.

[Edited on January 8, 2020 at 5:10 PM. Reason : a]

1/8/2020 5:09:17 PM

1) he’s really not at all liberal (more libertarian than anything);

2) are you serious? The military is a wide/ranging group of people with diverse religious, cultural, ethnic and ideological backgrounds.

1/8/2020 5:56:04 PM

jesus christ, imagine wanting to join the military after witnessing the last 20 years of illegal perpetual war and seeing how we constantly fail our veterans

quality life choices

1/8/2020 6:11:20 PM

its not really as much of a "choice" when its seemingly the best path towards acquiring security in regards to basic rights like education and healthcare. Poverty has long been the military's best recruiter but in today's age of insanely high tuition, rent and health costs, I think its unfair and privileged to blame people for seeking the long-term security associated with joining. They are societal victims just as much as the homeless and incarcerated.

[Edited on January 8, 2020 at 6:40 PM. Reason : might be why iran didn't want to kill them.]

1/8/2020 6:36:49 PM

Mike lee pissed and rand Paul unhappy at the lack of clarity and the daftness of the trump admin with dealing with congress:
https://twitter.com/ndrew_lawrence/status/1215023947370110976?s=21

[Edited on January 8, 2020 at 6:41 PM. Reason : ]

1/8/2020 6:40:43 PM

https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/08/politics/iran-briefing-senators/index.html

adding to your post ^

They can both fuck off after three years of worshiping Trump.

1/8/2020 7:10:54 PM

Quote :

"I would like to hear theduke talk about his experiences of being a bit liberal and in the military. I think that this is an interesting point because I've never met somebody in the military, or someone that wanted to enlist, that wasn't a raging far right conservative."

So...I think you will generally find more extreme and tribal people in the enlisted ranks, although that is a generalization--there are certainly savvy and nuanced and educated enlisted personnel.

Among the officer class, I think you would find me to be more the rule than the exception. You will find a handful of hard-left and hard-right nuts (i'd say definitely more hard-right than hard-left types...there are left-leaning people but not a whole lot of wacky-ass Bernie Sanders types in the military). Anecdotally, my gut feeling is that if you graphed military officers on a simple left/right scale, with -10 being Ocasio-Cortez or Bernie, and +10 being Jim Jordan or Matt Gaetz, you'd have the great majority in the -2 to +5 range. A libertarian bent is also not uncommon, and those in that +1 to +5 range, even if not exactly ideologically libertarian, are rarely the moralistic types--they aren't motivated by who's fuckin' who, or smoking what, or having abortions.

In short, though: The military is a wide/ranging group of people with diverse religious, cultural, ethnic and ideological backgrounds. I will add that, albeit irreverent and often utterly politically correct and un-"woke" in many ways, the military is far, far better than society at large in many ways in terms of not being tribally exclusive of "others." It's definitely a good model regarding race, and my gut feeling is that it's better than average on sexual orientation. Regarding gender--these few females who have successful completed Ranger school, Marine infantry, and other rigorous courses are generally celebrated, but there is a fierce backlash against any whiff or suspicion of anyone let past the gates on affirmative action or compromised standards. In aviation, most everyone is totally on board with female aviators, but there is an expectation that they assimilate into the "boy's club."

Quote :

"might be why iran didn't want to kill them.] "

hahaha, Iran didn't kill them because it would have virtually guaranteed a devastating escalation.

Quote :

"jesus christ, imagine wanting to join the military after witnessing the last 20 years of illegal perpetual war and seeing how we constantly fail our veterans quality life choices"

Oooooook, dude. I initially signed up before 9/11, and I certainly haven't agreed with all of our foreign policy since, even some of the ones I was a direct part of, and there were plenty of things in the military that were gigantic pains in the ass...but the military has been a great experience for me, broadly speaking.

I got paid very well. I worked with a ton of extremely capable people, traveled a ton, learned a lot about a wide variety of things, got to have pretty significant professional responsibility at a young age, and got to do a bunch of cool shit (flying in a $60M attack jet through the mountain valleys, at a few hundred feet, at ~600 mph, sometimes inverted, pulling 4-5 Gs...or breaking the sound barrier, or supporting black SOF missions in combat, or nerding out on solving some very immediate and pressing problems with the engineers from Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory or JIEDDO or NSWC Crane, or learning some really cool classified stuff from Redstone Arsenal or TOPGUN...definitely a cool job.)

After I left active duty and joined the Reserves, I used to joke that I liked to go do USMC Reserve duty as a break from my engineering job (at the time), because I got to go hang out with smart people. It was a braintrust--the 2 other Majors I checked into that Reserve unit with on day one--one was working on his Master's from Harvard at the Kennedy school, and the other one had one Master's in maritime policy and another Master's in European politics or something, spoke a bunch of different languages fluently, worked in Europe as some sort of consultant as his "day job", and held some sort of maritime license for large ships (don't think it was a Captain's license, but it was something.) Two others I met there worked as either investment bankers or hedge fund guys, and another lived out in Silicon Valley as a startup CEO.

So yeah...quality life choice. A+, would do again.

1/8/2020 7:47:50 PM

^To be fair, Officer Corp is a whole different experience from enlisted life. Enlisted life is probably going to be a lot more on the extremes with regards to political leanings, especially on the right, as enlisted in general are less well educated and younger, many with it being the first time they left mom and dads house. Salaries are lower and the men and women earning them have little fiscal training and piss it away on muscle cars, big trucks and other frivolities.

Of course I'm generalizing like a motherfucker. Two of my oldest friends were enlisted and both pretty damn smart and liked their time in the military. Speaking more on the military preying on those with fewer options for education and the political affiliations of those people in general.

[Edited on January 8, 2020 at 9:18 PM. Reason : ]

1/8/2020 9:16:19 PM

I was enlisted, most people were pretty center left or center right, a very very vocal minority was hardcore right

1/8/2020 9:36:24 PM

fwiw
https://citizentruth.org/sanders-top-recipient-of-donations-from-military/

1/8/2020 9:39:18 PM

I can think of only one enlisted person I regularly talked politics with and he was center right. Most struck me as apolitical. I had voting assistance officer as a collateral duty for a couple of years, and a lot of the guys I interacted with (officer and enlisted) had never voted and quite a few weren't even registered to vote.

Also, this: " The military is a wide/ranging group of people with diverse religious, cultural, ethnic and ideological backgrounds."

1/8/2020 10:03:12 PM

^^^, ^^^^ yep.

Enlisted pay is pretty decent nowadays, though. Also, I had an E-3 who had saved up $70k by the time he got out. One of my E-5s got out and got his mech engineering degree and works for Bath Ironworks on the Zumwalt destroyer programs now. One of my E-4s got out, got his degree, manages an airport now and is running for city council. Another got out and became a deputy sheriff, but quit after a couple of years because he couldn’t abide the corruption he saw. My E-7 had a master’s degree—after retirement, he got hired by Northrop-Grumman; he rose through the F-35 program and is now some sort of director of Operations. Some of my guys stayed in. Some got out and are doing fine in blue-collar work (aircraft mechanics, racecar fabricators, etc).

I would say that most of them fell within that -2 through +5 territory, too, as best as I know (I know more by being connected on FB with many of them nowadays—I didn’t talk politics with them much when they worked for me.) Out of the 30 or so Marines who worked for me, I would say that there were a few in that +7-8 range, and really only 1-2 were true hard-right, do-or-die. A couple of others just knew what they’d heard their entire young lives, but if you explained to them the nuances of an issue, they would have probably leaned right still, but would have “gotten it” and moderates their position.

I had a Sgt (E-5) from Saipan, another Sgt from Sweden (you’d never know, though—he’s the one who’s an engineer now), a couple of black junior Marines (“dark green”, in USMC parlance). My E-7 with a Master’s degree was a Mexican guy who I’m pretty certain grew up running in a gang in LA (and I had another Hispanic guy who kept going up in tank meritoriously and down punitively, haha).

[Edited on January 8, 2020 at 10:04 PM. Reason : Sanders now? Gary Johnson was the runaway favorite the last 2 times]

1/8/2020 10:03:21 PM

Quote :

"Oooooook, dude. I "

I think he was referring to banjo not you

Quote :

"It's definitely a good model regarding race, and my gut feeling is that it's better than average on sexual orientation. Regarding gender--these few females who have successful completed Ranger school, Marine infantry, and other rigorous courses are generally celebrated, "

Isn't there a huge problem with white nationalism and rapes/sexual assaults/harassment in the military?

1/8/2020 10:26:04 PM

There's a huge problem with those things outside the military.

1/8/2020 10:29:11 PM

It's a good thing I didn't just post that the good race relations and treatment of women in the US, bc that would have been a devastating comeback instead of a totally useless comment.

1/8/2020 10:35:43 PM

If you wanna be judgy, asking if problems that exist within a population also exist within samples of that population isn't exactly insightful.

1/8/2020 11:26:49 PM

Quote :

"The only consistent thing is this all seems wildly unplanned with no long term objectives or over-arching strategic vision."

It doesn't fucking matter, because even presidents who did have "long term objectives or [an] over-arching strategic vision [for the ME]" in the past, they all more or less failed. While it is always better to have objectives when starting a project, Americans are extremely fucking biased (pro-Israel above all else) outsiders in the ME, and so anything they do will pretty much fail, other than making Israel stronger.

1/8/2020 11:50:52 PM

Quote :

"If you wanna be judgy, asking if problems that exist within a population also exist within samples of that population isn't exactly insightful."

1/9/2020 6:39:58 AM

You guys are dense. The guy put forward his job as a model, which implies it's better then just a sample of the population bc of the people and/or culture.

Also, I think the rape/harassment problem in the military is significantly worse then average

[Edited on January 9, 2020 at 7:01 AM. Reason : E]

Pedophilia is a problem in the catholic church
"but pedophilia is a problem everywhere!"

[Edited on January 9, 2020 at 7:21 AM. Reason : E]

1/9/2020 7:01:25 AM

Quote :

"It doesn't fucking matter, because even presidents who did have "long term objectives or [an] over-arching strategic vision [for the ME]" in the past, they all more or less failed. While it is always better to have objectives when starting a project, Americans are extremely fucking biased (pro-Israel above all else) outsiders in the ME, and so anything they do will pretty much fail, other than making Israel stronger."

There has been absolutely zero strategic or long term objective developed or applied by any US administration. Every single one has started out tactical and evolved into "how do I stay president."

[Edited on January 9, 2020 at 8:17 AM. Reason : A]

1/9/2020 8:16:57 AM

What's the point of even drafting a long-term solution to that region when you only have a maximum of 8 years to carry out your vision? Politics are so divided now, after you leave office, the following president (unless of the same party, and when was the last time we've seen subsequent presidents of the same party elected) will just undo everything you did out of spite.

The legislative branch was supposed to be a check on presidential whims. But now that a large majority of policy actions are performed through executive orders (thank you for that Bush and Obama) they can be just as easily un-performed by the next POTUS.

1/9/2020 9:06:49 AM

Quote :

" It doesn't fucking matter, because even presidents who did have "long term objectives or [an] over-arching strategic vision [for the ME]" in the past, they all more or less failed."

I can only partially agree with this. Obama started out really poorly but towards the end of his administration he was leaning heavily on diplomacy and the Iran deal showed how this would work. People were mad about the cash transfers but this was still cheaper than military conflict. And the outcome was a far more stable accountability measure than what any military solution could give you. People like to cite WW2 as the standard of what military strength can accomplish but it was the diplomacy after ww2 that made it a victory. We had plenty of leverage from the years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan we didn’t need any more. I can’t see how trumps actions have been anything but a setback in making things better for everyone living in the region now. It’s truly sad when you think about it.

1/9/2020 10:17:40 AM

Quote :

"The legislative branch was supposed to be a check on presidential whims. But now that a large majority of policy actions are performed through executive orders (thank you for that Bush and Obama) they can be just as easily un-performed by the next POTUS."

blame congress

1/9/2020 10:31:13 AM

https://twitter.com/nycsouthpaw/status/1215309630697623557?s=21

Ayatollah Reagan

1/9/2020 11:32:55 AM

Apologies if this is posted elsewhere, but it's pretty much confirmed the highly disciplined and well trained Iranian military shot down a commercial airliner taking off from an Iranian airport with Russian anti aircraft missiles.

Every SINGLE person in that chain of command needs to be imprisoned.

1/9/2020 7:04:20 PM

Entire chain? Nah.

The crew manning the SA-15 saw something suddenly appear on scope and fired. They most likely didn't wait for anyone besides the area commander to authorize it.

Realistically the fault lies with whatever the Iranian FAA equivalent is. Air traffic should have absolutely been suspended

1/9/2020 7:19:08 PM

Possible video of the missile strike on the plane.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/09/video/iran-plane-missile.html

1/9/2020 7:52:27 PM

Quote :

"Entire chain? Nah."

Haha, I meant the confirmation aspect, not that it was a possible cause.

Also I absolutely agree - how on earth was that country allowing commercial air traffic after attacking the strongest nation on the planet???!

And also, why on earth was Ukraine letting their planes fly???

[Edited on January 9, 2020 at 8:18 PM. Reason : a]

1/9/2020 8:17:48 PM

Quote :

"So yeah...quality life choice. A+, would do again."

Wow thanks for all of the quick feedback, duke, and for the others that replied to this topic as well. I think that it is very thread-worthy.

1/10/2020 12:49:05 AM

He presumably went in as an officer right out of college, is that your plan?

1/10/2020 12:42:24 PM

nope. I honestly never thought about joining the military previously, and I kind of just stumbled on the opportunity while I was applying for government jobs as a civilian scientist in the military. It wasn't my original plan.

1/10/2020 1:12:28 PM

https://www.funker530.com/ukrainian-investigator-crash-site/

1/10/2020 8:07:04 PM

https://apnews.com/21f4a92a2dfbc38581719664bdf6f38e

Who would have ever guessed?

1/11/2020 8:08:13 AM

Very good thing they admitted it, especially since Russia was already publicly lying about it.

1/11/2020 9:53:33 AM

Russia has still never admitted and culpability in MH17's downing in Ukraine.

1/11/2020 10:57:47 AM

It was a Russian air defense system get too.

1/11/2020 12:12:29 PM

I suspect Russian air defenses just automatically shoot Ukrainian airliners by default, configuration be damned.

I read somewhere the flight was an hour late in departure. had it not been delayed it might have made it out before the Iranian strike retaliation was expected and the resulting "highest alert possible". Which is a plausible explanation for why the mistake happened: they scheduled the missile strike to be when there were no commercial flights scheduled. No need to order the closure of an airport when it is already closed for the night...unless something unexpected happened.

This goes to show: often the best response to stupidity is to do nothing. Had we actually been retaliating for the missile strike, this situation would have been way more muddled than it is.

[Edited on January 11, 2020 at 12:49 PM. Reason : .,.]

1/11/2020 12:43:55 PM

Quote :

"Russia has still never admitted and culpability in MH17's downing in Ukraine. "

This is such a double standard. When has the US admitted culpability when the weapons it provides to 3rd parties are used against civilians?

1/11/2020 2:33:09 PM