US Politics Thread 2016-2020

[u crank]

Originally Posted by Oberon

One would hope that presidents would learn from the errors of their predecessors...

One would think that employees of Presidents would learn from the errors of their predecessors..

[Catfish]

^ "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
(George Santayana)

"No human has ever remembered his past."
(Me)

[ikalugin]

https://warisboring.com/how-putin-mi...93f#.195bzteux

[Platapus]

The problem is people who remember history but believe that this time "it's different"... when it ain't.

[August]

Originally Posted by Oberon

One would hope that presidents would learn from the errors of their predecessors...

What, firing insubordinate employees? If anything he needs to start firing more of them.

[Bilge_Rat]

Trump appoints Lieutenant-General H.R. McMaster as National Security Adviser:

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/0...adviser-235212

not sure if this is a good or bad move.

McMaster is well known to anyone who follows the Pentagon. His credentials are impeccable. He was a troop commander at the now legendary battle of 73 EASTING in 1991 when a U.S. armored unit ran into and destroyed a Iraqi Republican Guard Armored division.

OTOH, he is a Russia Hawk who has been pushing for an increase in the Army's budget to counter the Russian threat:

The story was recalled to me a few weeks ago by a senior Pentagon officer in citing the April 5 testimony of Army leaders before a Senate Armed Services Subcommittee. The panel delivered a grim warning about the future of the U.S. armed forces: Unless the Army budget was increased, allowing both for more men and more materiel, members of the panel said, the United States was in danger of being “outranged and outgunned” in the next war and, in particular, in a confrontation with Russia. Vladimir Putin’s military, the panel averred, had outstripped the U.S. in modern weapons capabilities. And the Army’s shrinking size meant that “the Army of the future will be too small to secure the nation.” It was a sobering assessment delivered by four of the most respected officers in the Army—including Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, his service’s leading intellectual. The claim is the prevailing view among senior Army officers, who fear that Army readiness and modernization programs are being weakened by successive cuts to the U.S. defense budget.

But not everyone was buying it.

“This is the ‘Chicken-Little, sky-is-falling’ set in the Army,” the senior Pentagon officer said. “These guys want us to believe the Russians are 10 feet tall. There’s a simpler explanation: The Army is looking for a purpose, and a bigger chunk of the budget. And the best way to get that is to paint the Russians as being able to land in our rear and on both of our flanks at the same time. What a crock.”

The Army panel’s assessment of the Russian danger was reinforced by an article that appeared in these pages two days later. The article reported on an expansive study that McMaster has ordered to collect the lessons of Ukraine. It paraphrased Army leaders and military experts who warn the Russian-backed rebel army has been using “surprisingly lethal tanks” and artillery as well as “swarms of unmanned aerial vehicles” to run roughshod over Ukrainian nationalists. While the reporting about the Army study made headlines in the major media, a large number in the military’s influential retired community, including former senior Army officers, rolled their eyes.

“That’s news to me,” one of these highly respected officers told me. “Swarms of unmanned aerial vehicles? Surprisingly lethal tanks? How come this is the first we’ve heard of it?”

http://www.politico.com/magazine/sto...-budget-213885

Not saying Russia is not a threat, but many in the Pentagon, including McMaster have been, let us say, exaggerating the threat to get a bigger budget out of Congress.

Not sure why Trump would pick him, unless he wants to pick someone who absolutely none of his critics can accuse of being soft on Russia, in which case, he is the perfect guy!

Let's just hope he does not get us into WW3.

[Mr Quatro]

Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat

Let's just hope he does not get us into WW3.

It's not our time yet ... Israel has to be surrounded, but May 2018 is just around the corner which will mark the 70th anniversary of the Statehood of Israel and oddly enough Israel stopped being a state in 70ad with the destruction of the temple.

Maybe just a little war though with Mexico

[Rockstar]

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by August

What, firing insubordinate employees? If anything he needs to start firing more of them.

It's a Catch-22, if you fire everyone who openly disagrees with you then you encourage a 'Yes-man' atmosphere which will completely skew your outlook on matters.

Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat

Trump appoints Lieutenant-General H.R. McMaster as National Security Adviser:

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/0...adviser-235212

not sure if this is a good or bad move.

McMaster is well known to anyone who follows the Pentagon. His credentials are impeccable. He was a troop commander at the now legendary battle of 73 EASTING in 1991 when a U.S. armored unit ran into and destroyed a Iraqi Republican Guard Armored division.

OTOH, he is a Russia Hawk who has been pushing for an increase in the Army's budget to counter the Russian threat:

Not saying Russia is not a threat, but many in the Pentagon, including McMaster have been, let us say, exaggerating the threat to get a bigger budget out of Congress.

Not sure why Trump would pick him, unless he wants to pick someone who absolutely none of his critics can accuse of being soft on Russia, in which case, he is the perfect guy!

Let's just hope he does not get us into WW3.

I think it's a good appointment, McMaster seems a smart guy, and considering he wrote a book criticising Generals for not standing up to LBJ then I should hope that he will feel free to give the Donald a full and frank opinion.

The Pentagon has been over-exaggerating the threat from Russia since 1945, remember the 'missile gap', or 'First Strike'?
Not that there isn't a need to upgrade some vital components of the 'nuclear' and the 'cyber' but I wouldn't be worried about him starting WWIII, I'd be more worried about him collapsing the US economy as he tries to Reagan the Russians, either that or he and Trump will have a big row over the Russian threat and he'll resign.

Originally Posted by Mr Quatro

It's not our time yet ... Israel has to be surrounded

Well...it's not exactly holding hands and singing Kumbaya with its neighbours...

Besides, trying to predict such things, don't forget Mark 13:32.

[August]

Originally Posted by Oberon

It's a Catch-22, if you fire everyone who openly disagrees with you then you encourage a 'Yes-man' atmosphere which will completely skew your outlook on matters.

Openly disagrees? That's what you call refusing to carry our an order from the boss? I agree that having "yes-men" isn't a good thing but that doesn't mean insubordination should be tolerated ether. She got the sacking she asked for by playing politics, simple as.

[AVGWarhawk]

How is Sweden doing today?

[Bilge_Rat]

riots break out in Sweden:

It would appear the mainstream media (along with several celebrities and Swedish politicians) is going to be apologizing to President Trump once again.

Having spent the entire new cycle trying to ignore the immigrant crisis facing Sweden, and pin the ignorant tail on Trump, both Dagbladet and Expressen reports riots breaking out in the highly immigrant concentrated Stockholdm borough of Rinkeby, Sweden with police firing warning shots as 100s of young people throw stones and burn cars.

During the evening hundreds of young people gathered in the center of Rinkeby, well known for its high concentration of immigrants and people with immigrant ancestry.

Rinkeby is a known problem area in Stockholm. It was here NRK journalist Anders Magnus was attacked with stones last spring, and here the police never go in the evenings without reinforcements from other patrols according to Dabladet. A freelancer the newspaper spoke to, described the situation as serious.

"I've been in some turmoil, but this is something extra. It looks like a war zone here", he was quoted as saying .

Freelance Photographer Janne Åkesson has also been at the site Monday night and early Tuesday. "They threw stones at police and police fired warning shots. I got out when it was at its worst" he said to Dagbladet. He added that there were many youths with hoods and hats on.

"It was very chaotic. I have seen much in Rinkeby: they burn cars all the time - unfortunately this was beyond the ordinary."

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-0...aks-out-sweden

yup, integration of refugees is going great, nothing to see here.

[Bilge_Rat]

article and video from last year (may 2016) on the rape increase in Sweden:

How did peaceful Sweden go from being a quiet, low-crime country to being the country with the second-highest incidence of rape in the world? Why has Sweden experienced a 1,472% increase in the annual number of rapes?

Here is Ingrid Carlqvist of is Gatestone Institute to explain...

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-0...emic-explained

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by August

Openly disagrees? That's what you call refusing to carry our an order from the boss? I agree that having "yes-men" isn't a good thing but that doesn't mean insubordination should be tolerated ether. She got the sacking she asked for by playing politics, simple as.

She? Re-wind a mo, I was talking about Craig Deare, not Yates.

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

How is Sweden doing today?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-39033165

[Oberon]

So...good old Sweden, the land of pillage, rape and plunder.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_...den#Sex_crimes

The high number of reported rapes in Sweden can partly be explained by differing legal systems, offence definitions, terminological variations, recording practices and statistical conventions, making any cross-national comparison on rape statistics difficult.

I think we had a similar discussion about the UK and US in regards to how violent crime is reported, and what constituted violent crime a while ago in one of the gun control threads.

But to clarify, Swedish police record every single incidence of sexual assault as an individual case, so in a case of domestic violence, every incidence of sexual assault gets its own seperate recording, which has lead to an artificial inflation of sexual assault figures which started in 2005, six years before the 2011 refugee influx.



See the sharp jump between 2004 and 2005? In short one of the reasons that the rate is so high is because in other countries the incidences would not even be counted as sexual assault, or perhaps even reported. Even the UNODC which is the oft-quoted report when it comes to the claim that Sweden has the highest sexual assault rate in the world says:

"Please note that when using the figures, any cross-national comparisons should be conducted with caution because of the differences that exist between the legal definitions of offences in countries, or the different methods of offence counting and recording."

But, it's a convenient figure, and a handy graph to use for making a point, and so that's all good.



Huh...look at the USA...that's quite a high rate there isn't it? Must be all the....Mexicans?


Fake News Sources:

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-me...on-and-sweden/

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...-a7591636.html