Senate would approve of Dick Cheney to replace Bolton in a heartbeat and maybe even 99 to 1 (everyone but Bernie).
(is Dick Cheney still alive?)
You canāt be serious. Boltonās one of the worldās worst humans, but I for fucking sure do not want Trump dictating to his NSA what they should do. All Trump wants are sycophants, and theyāre almost all the way there. Itās laughable that you think having an intelligence vacuum is good because you hate the idea of intelligence gathering, when the president is actively selling out the country to anyone who will listen. We need to know when this is happening, no matter what you think of intelligence services.
The person who was handpicked to succeed Coats (career) was asked by him to resign. This happened, like you know, right when the whistleblower was going through the chain. The Trump people only want people who will do what they want. Weāre absolutely fucked as a country because of stuff like this, but youāre like hurr durr bla bla bla. Standard Keeed.
And might I remind you that the acting DNI tried to cover up the whistleblower complaint that he was required to deliver to the intelligence committees by law (took 11 days after he failed to meet the 7 day requirement for the Intelligence Committee to even know a finding had been made). He went to the lawyers who were implicated in the crime to ask their advice. Then he asked the subject of complaint for his advice. He was referred to another subject of the complaint for additional advice. He then listened to bad advice, and didnāt do his job. So, yeah, I have a problem with the idea of some non-confirmed Trump lackey who is so incompetent that he would do all of that when the president has committed a crime.
I donāt mind humble bragging that Iāve been saying exactly this for years now. A 1L should know this. Lolmueller forever and ever
1 Like
Bolton is one of the worst humans but replacing him hurts our ānational securityā? Hahaha ok man.
All this worship of the national security state is frankly nauseating. Our ānational securityā was hurt by dismissing Bolton? OK. How? How is the US weaker today than it was in July? What happened in subsequent months to hurt the country that only heros like Bolton or Coats could have valiantly prevented? And how would they have prevented it?
Yeah, but hereās a counterpoint for you. Mueller recommends President Crimes be indicted. Barr says, āhahā. Congressās authority/jurisdiction is undermined. Thereās no recourse. What then?
He was in an unwinnable situation, but what he did still kept the Congressās jurisdiction intact. He does nothing, itās people criticizing him, but Congress still has jurisdiction. He charges him, itās overruled. And remember, Barr was not required to give anything related to the report. So, Barr overrules Mueller and then buries the report saying ānothing to see hereā. What then?
jesus.
GEEZUS.
like, JFC what is the point of anything? literally anything at all? this might be my first or second post here, but i read this thread and a couple others every day. sometimes to keep up with everything going on (this thread is a news-aggregator, or at least it is to meā¦i get updates, the mfāing bot, the analysis, etc. that reflects my views and values), sometimes like this morning, to remind myself that we, the normal-thinking citizens of the US, ARE ABSOLUTELY at war right now.
i have no idea how it ends. strategy and logistics of winning this war are above my intelligence. i just know that we are, definitely, in a war for the present and future, and iām invested in being on the winning side.
that essay/articleā¦ yall can stop arguing about what āWAAFā means, bc if people like that ādemocratā win this war, that abbreviation will disappear bc history will stopā¦
āthere will only be an endless present in which the Party is always rightā.
happy fucking monday morning. ugh
7 Likes
The pro-Assad people on twitter Iāve seen have been talking up getting the US out of the country, which makes sense as far as it goes.
Maybe thereās a belief or a hope that pressure can be managed and it forces Rojava to do a deal which satisfies Assad and Erdogan, but that still seems pretty far fetched to me. Lots of moving parts and the possibility of a 3+ way conflict.
Also it could be Iām just naive and over estimating the possibility and desire to resolve things (relatively) peacefully. If Assad and Russia thought it was always going to be a fight, maybe they just want to get on with it. But, even then, it seems weird they would choose to kick it off when Idlib is unresolved.
US involvement in Syria has been so bad strategically for so long I honestly donāt know what they could now be aiming for. For the last year or so the only stated purposes have been to combat Isis and to frustrate Assad.
Early on the US wanted regime change and were not fussy about who they backed, then Isis forced its way to bogeyman no. 1 and the military seemed to choose the SDF as the only effective force to bother with. Tactically combating Isis and overthrowing Assad ended up completely distinct, so when Isis was largely defeated they were in a fairly useless position to frustrate Assad - beyond just sitting there. However, instead of being honest about that and helping their ally, they talked nonsense, had internal power struggles and have now stabbed them in the back for want of something to do. Iām not sure thereās anything more than incompetence and cowardice.
2 Likes
This is a bad time to be worshipping at the altar of the establishment. Nunnās multi paragraph screed about how most of us are converted Republicans rubbed me the wrong way pretty badly.
The annoying thing for me personally is that I was a hardcore centrist/establishment type until 2016. Then I realized that they could lose to Donald Trump. It was a moment of cognitive dissonance so powerful that I had to honestly reassess my entire world view. What I came up with during that process was that centrism made sense before the establishment completely sold out to special interests, but that that had happened a couple of decades prior and we needed massive structural reform.
Itās OK to change your mind about stuff. Itās the sign of being a smart person. Nothing about the Trump presidency has made any establishment politician look good. Muellers investigation was a sham, Pelosi is a coward whose husband is a VC/PE guy and her net worth is low-mid 9 figures, and pretty much everyone who isnāt for the fillibuster being utterly obliterated is a traitor.
Itās time for massive reform. Itās time to blow a lot of shit up and start over unfortunately. Most of the centrist policies were barely doable 10 years ago and their window has completely closed. In particular a slow approach to climate change is just Boomers hoping to put off doing anything (or paying anything) until after they are dead. The healthcare system is completely broken and has to be scrapped and rebuilt on a new foundation. And the way we run elections and decide how districts are laid out needs to be changed completely. I donāt care if we need constitutional amendments to get this stuff done at this point. Itās either do all of this or watch the entire system really collapse which would probably mean armed conflict.
Capitalism itself is at risk if it doesnāt shape up basically. Weāre way past the point where we can do āreasonableā stuff that just barely keeps the pot from boiling over. Itās already boiling over and the time for those options is over.
2 Likes
Iām not going to get in the weeds with you in your typical stupid contrarian takes, but let me lay out a simple scenario for you based on how this administration has been coalescing around the dotard in chief.
Bolton: I want to bomb Iran.
Trump: Iāll get back to you.
Trump: No.
You know whoās in āchargeā of the super secret system that Trump was illegally storing phone calls on? The NSA. Itās quite possible that Bolton resigned because he was essentially implicated in crimes by allowing this to happen. If he didnāt get out, he for sure would have been implicated. He saved his own skin.
Now thereās a new NSA, a guy that Trump says ālooks the partā.
Trump: Is there any reason why we canāt just nuke California?
New NSA Guy: Iāll look into it for you.
I think a guy who rubber stamps or doesnāt think anything is wrong with Trumpās worst impulses is much worse than a guy who is calculating how to manipulate Trump into wars he wants to get in.
āWorship of the national security stateā is the most laughable thing Iāve ever heard. How is it weaker? Now any deal that has been constructed in Trumpās time especially in the last few months has the stench of a quid pro quo. I wonāt trust any deal with another country anymore as long as he is in office. And thatās not a good spot to be in. Heās selling our country out, and this is no defense of the intelligence community. Oh, and let me guess, you still donāt think he should be impeached over this, and you donāt think there was anything wrong on that call, right? Youāre just in to watch it burn, admit it.
You just got snoped. That thing was attributed wrong, and suzzer corrected that.
Lol at Trump using āquagmireā
But itās true. You even said as much yourself about yourself. Arenāt your parents Republicans? Iām not making up what I said about most peopleās former political bent here, and itās something you should own as a badge of honor that youāre not that anymore.
He was only in an unwinnable situation because doing the right yhing wasnāt an option for him. And because of that, fuck Mueller.
https://twitter.com/olgaNYC1211/status/1180928712767889409?s=19
Turkey invades Syria and Russian troop movements seem to have increased. Non zero chance Putin uses Syria as a distraction to ramp up aggression in Ukraine.
1 Like
Who do you think would have been a better appointment as Special Counsel for this investigation? That would have been okay with the GOP, and that Dems wouldnāt have flipped over?