President Trump: Making America Great Again...

[Walter Sobchak]

For sure. Germany, Italy, UK, Spain, Japan, Korea, Bahrain. That's almost 90% of overseas deployments. Those are real basket cases.

Ay, there's the rub.

Ron Paul 2012!

T-shirt still fits!

[myboynoah]

Ay, there's the rub.

Oh, so you're picking cherries.

Picking Cherries.jpg

[Walter Sobchak]

Oh, so you're picking cherries.

Let me explain math: 90 < 100 and 7 <<<< 150. YW.

[BlueK]

If you're keeping score at home, here is your trade war scoreboard. The China related tariffs imposed by both countries go into effect by the end of this week, and could be rather significant given the size of the two economies.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/tr...ned-2018-06-22

Companies that use steel are being hurt already by the existing tariffs, already leading to layoffs for some:

http://money.cnn.com/2018/06/29/news...ons/index.html

Finally, Trump got his staff to draft a bill (the US Fair and Reciprocal Tariff Act) he'd like to see Congress pass. It would give him basically unlimited authority around trade and tariffs. Apparently almost everyone who worked on it warned him it was DOA in Congress but he's insisted. It has appropriately been given the acronym "FART." Even with Trump it gets so crazy you can't even make it up.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/le...ort-2018-07-02

[PaloAltoCougar]

Let me explain math: 90 < 100 and 7 <<<< 150. YW.

I don't know which is more impressive: that with less than 10% of its overseas deployments the U.S. was able to do so much harm to 143 nations that it caused portions of their respective populations to want to come to the U.S., or that your cynicism about the U.S. is so severe that you believe that happened.

[Commando]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlo...=.f26c756079b9


Here’s a pretty succinct demolition of some of the dumber fake-racist-mormon arguments floating around social media re: the righteousness of asylum seekers.

[Walter Sobchak]

I don't know which is more impressive: that with less than 10% of its overseas deployments the U.S. was able to do so much harm to 143 nations that it caused portions of their respective populations to want to come to the U.S., or that your cynicism about the U.S. is so severe that you believe that happened.

From Yemen to Iraq to the Banana Wars, I can't imagine where my cynicism comes from... can you?

[frank ryan]

From Yemen to Iraq to the Banana Wars, I can't imagine where my cynicism comes from... can you?

I don't remember your opinion on Trump re. the Iran Deal.

[Eddie]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlo...=.f26c756079b9


Here’s a pretty succinct demolition of some of the dumber fake-racist-mormon arguments floating around social media re: the righteousness of asylum seekers.

You lost me. Are fake racist mormon's saying that asylum seekers are righteous?

As for the article - thanks for sharing it. I honestly believe that most of the asylum seekers (maybe all of them, I don't know) fear for their lives and are trying to escape. I don't have any faith in or trust of the legal systems in really any of those countries they are coming from to protect them - or even pretend they are trying to protect them. There is so much corruption among law enforcement and in the judicial system that isn't impossible to know where they can get justice or safety. I get that.

I think the problem is - as you have indicated - there is a lack of education. And it's past articles coming from other perspectives that have driven some of this. Here's just one example:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news...fear-of-home-/

Nearly one out of every 10 illegal immigrants crossing the southwest border is now demanding asylum, using “magic words” to claim they fear their home country, and turning a program intended to be a humanitarian lifeline into a new path for unauthorized migrants to gain a foothold in the U.S.

It’s a major change over just the last five years as lax Obama administration policies entice ever-more migrants to try to exploit the loophole, which the Border Patrol’s chief calls a “fail in policy.”

In 2010, less than 1 percent of those at the border were requesting asylum from the agents or officers who nabbed them. Now it’s 9 percent, according to statistics the Immigration Reform Law Institute pried loose from the government through an open-records request and provided to The Washington Times.

The migrants are being coached by friends and family or smugglers, who collect thousands of dollars per person for their efforts, on the “magic words” to say to get put on the asylum track, border officials say.

“We know that they’re coaching individuals on specifically what to say when they come here, that they just rattle off and they memorize the magic words that they need to say so that they’ll fall within the statute of credible fear,” Border Patrol Chief Mark Morgan told the Senate Homeland Security Committee in a hearing last week.

Now - the reality may be that these people were ALWAYS appropriate asylum seekers who simply didn't know the process, or what to say, or how to describe things. I've worked with abused and neglected kids enough to know that because that's the way life has always been - their normal, per se - they don't necessarily recognize it as being wrong or out of place. And it wouldn't surprise me to hear that many people seeking asylum come from places where their norm is so horrific that they don't know any different - and don't understand what asylum means or what it means to not be in a place where their lives are constantly in danger. So I get that too. Chances are they were always appropriate to seek asylum, just didn't know it or the process.

Unfortunately - articles like this one, that make it seem like the increase of people seeking asylum is more related to the exploitation of some loophole for others to make a buck off of, put the whole asylum aspect of immigration in a bad light. And that is what you're fighting.

[Walter Sobchak]

I don't remember your opinion on Trump re. the Iran Deal.

President Trump made a colossal mistake. Why?

[Jeff Lebowski]

I don't know which is more impressive: that with less than 10% of its overseas deployments the U.S. was able to do so much harm to 143 nations that it caused portions of their respective populations to want to come to the U.S., or that your cynicism about the U.S. is so severe that you believe that happened.

Never underestimate the depth of Walter's cynicism.

[Walter Sobchak]

We're not perfect, but we're still not Russia or Putin. What bothers me is the thought that Trump says nice things about the world's thugs and insults countries that are friendly to us. Bullies unite! I don't want this kind of insane world view from our president to come back to hurt our country. Doesn't matter much if the crazy old man who lives down the street talks like that and lives in a world of fake news sources. It does when it's the President.

Like I said before, those that live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. Must we really plumb the depths of moral depravity in this way? "Oh, we aren't as bad as Russia. How dare President Trump?!"

How about we hold ourselves to our own (crumbling) standards? Is that too much to ask?

Russia bombs Chechnya. Russia does this, Russia does that. That is an OUTRAGE!!!

We systematically torture prisoners in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. We obliterate a village in Yemen last week. Ah, shucks. Oopsies!

I'm no fan of Russia. It's just that I think the USA is an exceptional country, the most successful country in world history. Hands down. But where I part ways with many (and you perhaps) is that I don't feel that our "exceptionalism" burdens us with the special quasi-religious mission to police the world and "liberate" it from its immoral leaders. Unfortunately, our recent pursuits to this end (Iraq, Libya, Syria, and now Yemen) have ultimately deprived us of what makes us exceptional. We have sunk, by degrees, to a diminished moral status. That's the unvarnished truth that our imperfect President has laid bare.

President Trump's vision is a double-edged sword though. I've said this also. On the one side, he condemned the Iraq War and criticized the interventionalism of President Obama's administration in Syria and Libya. Yet, on the other side, he belligerently saber rattles with Iran and the MAGA nationalism of his hard-core base (and their neoconservative Republican party cheerleaders) will view any attempt to reach out to old enemies (e.g. Russia) as appeasement and a sign of "weakness".

I don't have any idea which way President Trump will fall (and it's hopeless to make any predictions), but hopefully this President Trump will:

Unlike other candidates for the presidency, war and aggression will not be my first instinct. You cannot have a foreign policy without diplomacy. A superpower understands that caution and restraint are really truly signs of strength. Although not in government service, I was totally against the war in Iraq, very proudly, saying for many years that it would destabilize the Middle East. Sadly, I was correct…

My goal is to establish a foreign policy that will endure for several generations. That’s why I also look and have to look for talented experts with approaches and practical ideas, rather than surrounding myself with those who have perfect résumés but very little to brag about except responsibility for a long history of failed policies and continued losses at war. We have to look to new people.

If one of these "new" people is Elliott Abrams (rumored for the position of Deputy SoS), then the belligerent side of Trump's sword will likely consume the other. gg..

Effing cynics.

[wuapinmon]

Never underestimate the depth of Walter's cynicism.

Like an unfunny Don Rickles.

[Walter Sobchak]

Like an unfunny Don Rickles.

It has been said that I'm funny 5% of time.

[Jeff Lebowski]

It has been said that I'm funny 5% of time.

Hey come on. Don't sell yourself short. 10% at least!