This has the potential to kick off big time.
Quote:The US has called for "calm" after Iraqi government forces seized the northern city of Kirkuk and key installations from Kurdish control.
State department spokeswoman Heather Nauert urged all parties to "avoid further clashes".
Iraqi soldiers moved into Kirkuk three weeks after the Kurdistan Region held a controversial independence referendum.
They are aiming to retake areas under Kurdish control since Islamic State militants swept through the region.
Residents of Kurdish-controlled areas, including Kirkuk, overwhelmingly backed secession from Iraq in a vote on 25 September.
While Kirkuk is outside Iraqi Kurdistan, Kurdish voters in the city were allowed to take part.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi had denounced the vote as unconstitutional. But the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) insisted it was legitimate.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-41646806
This is not Trump praising the first miles of the wall against Mexico ...
... but a waxwork displayed by one of the remaining sections of the Berlin Wall.
The figure will go on display at Madame Tussauds. (Only the wax figure, to clarify.)
@snood,
snood wrote:For a long time I have held an overall bad opinion of John McCain
Me too. What a gutless surrendering coward!
snood wrote:But the last year - and especially the last few months, he has reclaimed my respect and even admiration.
Liberals always heap superficial praise on McCain when he stabs his fellow Republicans in the back.
snood wrote:Today he received the prestigious Liberty Medal. In his acceptance speech, he tears into Trump and Bannon. What's so striking about the choices McCain has been making is that he knows this might be his last few days on earth, and he has no ulterior motive - no political agenda. He's just doing things he thinks will best serve the country. It should be instructive that in his dying days, he's choosing to tell the world just what kind of a disgrace sits in the Oval office.
That is incorrect. Coward McCain very much has a political agenda. He has always enjoyed the superficial praise that liberals give him for stabbing his fellow Republicans in the back. This is just more of his usual backstabbing crap.
@oralloy,
oralloy wrote:Trump Just Captured Raqqa From Islamic State
Commanding the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces certainly is an alternation of playing golf.
@Walter Hinteler,
I see History's repeating itself again.
@Walter Hinteler,
Walter Hinteler wrote:
oralloy wrote:Trump Just Captured Raqqa From Islamic State
Commanding the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces certainly is an alternation of playing golf.
Just more realFakeNews! Golf score too....
@BillW,
Fake news ...
America's richest may be getting richer but Trump's fortune has slid, ranking him only in 248th place on Forbes magazine's list of the 400 richest Americans, down from 156th place last year.
"I've been amazed and disappointed by so much of what this President had said, and his approach to running this country, which seems to be one of just a never ending divisiveness. But his comments today about those who have lost loved ones in times of war and his lies that previous presidents Obama and Bush never contacted their families, is so beyond the pale, I almost don't have the words.
This man in the Oval Office is a soulless coward who thinks that he can only become large by belittling others. This has of course been a common practice of his, but to do it in this manner–and to lie about how previous Presidents responded to the deaths of soldiers–is as low as it gets. We have a pathological liar in the White House: unfit intellectually, emotionally, and psychologically to hold this office and the whole world knows it, especially those around him every day. The people who work with this President should be ashamed because they know it better than anyone just how unfit he is, and yet they choose to do nothing about it. This is their shame most of all."
-Gregg Popovich, San Antonio Spurs Coach
@snood,
It's a very powerful statement.
@blatham,
blatham wrote:
Quote:oralloy wrote:
Trump Just Captured Raqqa From Islamic State
Brain salad.
...or, should that be - ass pudding? Considering the source.
@snood,
Quote:But the last year - and especially the last few months, [John McCain] has reclaimed my respect and even admiration.
As with Corker, the personal situation of no longer having to please the rabid corners of the base that determine who is primaried and how much money will be dedicated to defeating GOP candidates who speak honestly and responsibly has granted these two men exactly the sort of liberty which a truly democratic society (and political party) ought to celebrate.
@snood,
And just to prove he's the absolute sleaziest of opportunistic dirtbags.. he pushes it further, using his chief of staff's dead son in his own defense:
Quote:"As far as other presidents, I don't know, you could ask Gen. Kelly, did he get a call from Obama? I don't know what Obama's policy was,"
Kelly's son Robert died when he stepped on a landmine in Afghanistan in 2010. Kelly, a retired four-star Marine general, was a lieutenant general at the time.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/17/politics/president-donald-trump-john-kelly-obama-phone-call/
But hey, he has worked hard to ensure that a few dozen certain "sons-of-bitches" respect our military
I think Tax Reform is doomed. There's no bill, there's no way that the 'cutting out the State deduction' will even pass the House let alone the Senate, so there's no way they'll be able to qualify it for Reconciliation.
Even if they could, McCain and Corker will almost certainly be No votes and Thad Cochran is out indefinitely with illness. This doesn't even begin to count moderates and people like Heller who face tough re-election. How are they going to whip up votes on what is essentially a shitty tax bill, given all the problems and Trump's penchant for fighting with his own party? I have a hard time seeing this one get to a yes.
Cycloptichorn
@blatham,
Hopefully the tide will turn where the entire lot agree to distance themselves from him. The guy's knack for saying some of the most indefensible things has got to wear thin at some point.. right?
Over the last year, I've been coaxing folks to recognize the danger that Mike Pence poses to the US. Jane Mayer has just done a huge story on exactly this subject. It's
available here.
Or if you want to begin with the Vox piece on Mayer's reporting,
that's here
Quote:The power struggle between populist hardliners and moderate generals in the Trump White House is well documented. Vice President Mike Pence has largely stayed out of the drama, while quietly becoming one of the most powerful people in the Trump administration, according to a new profile of Pence from the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer.
Mayer’s piece shows that behind the scenes, the vice president has made a huge mark on President Trump’s policy agenda, while putting himself in a good position for his own presidential ambitions. Mayer writes that Pence’s influence has shaped White House policies far more than that of other important members of the administration, including Breitbart executive chair Steve Bannon or Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. In particular, Pence’s longstanding connection to libertarian megadonors Charles and David Koch — former political enemies of Trump — has helped shape the current White House.
Pence is a Koch loyalist — and he’s not the only one in the White House.
...Pence has been closely affiliated with the Koch brothers since he was a Congress member from Indiana. He helped boost the “No Climate Tax” pledge by their political advocacy group, Americans for Prosperity, convincing other politicians to sign on. Many of Pence’s former political staffers have gone on to work for Koch Industries and their affiliated advocacy groups, and some have come back to work in the White House; a former Pence staffer named Marc Short now serves as the head of legislative affairs in the White House, and has close ties to the Koch brothers. Pence also helped boost Cabinet members including DeVos and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, both Koch favorites.
@BillW,
BillW wrote:
...or, should that be - ass pudding? Considering the source.
Many liberals side with terrorists and hate America, and so are outraged over our great victory this morning.
