monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

@Finn dAbuzz,

http://assets.amuniversal.com/d04a99d0f99001351a22005056a9545d

@Lash,

He didn't stop anything. Kim continued testing and developing nuclear missiles despite Trump's bellicose rhetoric, right up to the point they had a feasible nuclear weapon capable of hitting mainland America.

Kim stopped because it suited him, because he's already got what he wanted.

Trump has carried out Putin's orders to the letter. American representation in the Asia Pacific region has been reduced to a minimum. All countries in said region know that the only show in town is China. Trump is launching a pointless trade war in which there will be no winners. He's specifically targeting the EU, thus increasing anti American feeling and as a result increasing Russia's influence. That's why the Russians feel free to murder people over here.

Throughout his presidency it's been Putin first while flushing America's reputation and credibility down the shitter.

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@Lash,

Lash wrote:

So, THIS will be interesting.

Stormy Daniels is suing Trump. But, can you sue someone for paying you for sex?

Her reputation is now mired in sleaze. Nobody, not even someone who makes a living by being filmed having sex, wants to be known as someone who would have sex with that slobbering orange creep.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Quote:

Lord knows Trump isn't perfect, and his contributions to the unfounded and dangerous paranoia about vaccines is based on ignorance and is a disservice to the country, but you guys made us choose between him and the utterly corrupt Hillary Clinton...

Hey, we were counting on you guys to impeach her and then we could have all moved on...sheesh!

Quote:

Between this and her expectation that God will tell her to run for president if he so desires it of her...

I thought that reference was a joke, not a real "expectation", and it was mocking Pence's claim that he converses with Jesus.

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@Lash,

So you think he's an idiot, yet you believe the bullshit he spouts.

What does that say about you?

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Quote:

We further know that eliminating guns will not eliminate mass murders like...

Thanks for the list. One of those that makes us proud to be human. Look, no one expects that attempting to address gun violence is going to do anything other than effect a possible lessening of, guess what, gun violence.

Quote:

You and your fellow gun-control advocates religiously use the term "assault weapon" and for obvious reason.

Hysterical.

I've taken the effort to use the approved term, "assault-style" or "military-style" in this discussion. And it's really disingenuous of you to insist there's no difference between an AR15 lookalike and a lever action 30-30 in terms of rate of firing speed, velocity of the projectiles, and the potential number of rounds shot per each loading event.

Quote:

Dead is dead and the size of an exit wound in the case of a fatal shooting is only germane to the mortician who has to prepare the body for a possible open coffin wake.

Ridiculous.

The concern is not over the aesthetics of the dead people's wounds, but the damage to the bodies of those poor victims who survive.

Quote:

What is firepower in an attack like this but killing power, and if that was what the kid wanted he would have found it with a backpack loaded with pipebombs?

Off the rails.

Cruz wanted the drama that accompanies these student-turns-on-students events. We know that the Columbine killers' deeds were regularly celebrated in the adolescent sub-culture of potential shooters and wannabes. Chasing students down a hall waving a machete is not going to do the same thing. Plotting a pipe bomb attack and going to the trouble of assembling the materials, transporting them to the school, setting up the timers etc — come on, old boy, no glory in that sort of thing.

Quote:

If what he was really looking for was not actually increased lethality, but to play a real bad-ass in his personal video game, should we outlaw all the firearms that look bad-ass? And what about the video games and movies that glorify that persona far, far more than the NRA or responsible American gun owners?

Missing the point.

It's not a "personal video game", it's a particular variety of mass murder. And yes, we should be studying the effect of gun ads, violent video games, and movies. But not with the idea of prohibiting or outlawing them. We need to come to a wide understanding of their role in our culture. Why do parents buy toy guns for kids so they can play at killing their friends? Why do we have this fascination with killing? Only with a shift in public behavior based on a shift in social values will we be able to get a pistol grip on this problem. Surprisingly, sometimes things do change and at some point our preoccupation with violent murder may be questioned the way we are now questioning the harassment and abuse of women that men felt was their prerogative for millennia, or the way society moved to accept homosexuality after millennia of persecution. But no, the call to outlaw should not be the first thing that comes to mind.

1 Reply

@hightor,

hightor wrote:

Look, no one expects that attempting to address gun violence is going to do anything other than effect a possible lessening of, guess what, gun violence.

How is a silly focus on pistol grips an attempt to lessen gun violence?

hightor wrote:

I've taken the effort to use the approved term, "assault-style" or "military-style" in this discussion.

What does it matter what term you use to refer to rifles that have pistol grips? It's still a pointless focus on pistol grips.

hightor wrote:

And it's really disingenuous of you to insist there's no difference between an AR15 lookalike and a lever action 30-30 in terms of rate of firing speed, velocity of the projectiles, and the potential number of rounds shot per each loading event.

I looked for where he compared AR-15s to lever action .30-30s. Did I miss it?

The cosmetic features that you are focusing on have nothing to do with the functional differences between an AR-15 and a lever action .30-30.

hightor wrote:

Off the rails.

Cruz wanted the drama that accompanies these student-turns-on-students events. We know that the Columbine killers' deeds were regularly celebrated in the adolescent sub-culture of potential shooters and wannabes. Chasing students down a hall waving a machete is not going to do the same thing. Plotting a pipe bomb attack and going to the trouble of assembling the materials, transporting them to the school, setting up the timers etc — come on, old boy, no glory in that sort of thing.

So why did the Columbine shooters devote so much effort to doing just that?

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@Olivier5,

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@glitterbag,

I was wondering how long it might take for Trump to rain down glorious vengeance on Panama by boycotting sales of the the Panama hat. "Obama disses me at the correspondents' dinner and now this! I will rain down righteous vengeance upon them that's awesomer than history!"

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@izzythepush,

If Trump's rhetoric and pressure has forced Kim to alter his drum beating and missile firings, Trump has accomplished one thing none of his predecessors could.

The inability to say that is a severe handicap.

Try it.

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@glitterbag,

That's just brilliant, GB. Thank you very kindly!

Trump, of course, sits outside of the set of normal humans. He would run in to confront the villain, he's sure he would, and he would not merely save the lives of countless kids and teachers and janitors, he would raise school marks too!

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@Lash,

Trump's rhetoric has done absolutely nothing, only a gullible idiot would think otherwise.

America has disengaged with Asia, Trump hasn't even appointed an ambassador to S Korea, America's top expert on N Korea has resigned with no replacement.

Everyone, except Trump's lickspittles, can see he's full of hot air and nothing else.

Kim has got his missile, he got it while Trump was blowing hot air. Trump has achieved nothing in Korea, save to diminish America's influence and standing.

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@Lash,

Lash wrote:

Try it.

I don't like the taste of bullshit. You can keep it.

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@izzythepush,

I still can't figure out exactly why she's suing. Something about ...he didn't sign her non-disclosure document?

Someone behind the scenes is working overtime just to give Daniels air. It'll be interesting to see how it plays.

Maybe trying to break up the evangelical support or get a divorce brewing.

1 Reply

@Lash,

Lash, what you're ignoring is the progress that was made by the DRNK in the last two years.

izzythepush wrote:

Kim continued testing and developing nuclear missiles despite Trump's bellicose rhetoric, right up to the point they had a feasible nuclear weapon capable of hitting mainland America.

Previous US administrations were dealing with substantially less threatening weapons and deployment systems. Not facing the same sort of threat, past administrations had more policy options. Plus, the last ROK president was a hardliner on the DRNK with whom a peninsular detente of any sort would have been impossible.

Lash wrote:

(...)Trump has accomplished one thing none of his predecessors could.

Because after taking office he faced a situation which hadn't confronted previous administrations — advances in nuclear weapons technology coupled with the successful development of an ICBM. Pointing fingers at previous presidents would be like blaming the Clinton or Bush II for not overthrowing the Taliban before 9/11.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Quote:

It is indeed worse than foolish for parents to refuse to vaccinate their children. What do you propose we, as a nation, do about it?

This starts off reasonably well, posing a rhetorical question. But then...

Quote:

How about forced entry into the homes of these fools by armed police with a licensed MD in tow? While the cops hold the parents at bay, the doctor's assistants can put the kids in restraints and allow him to go about his business unmolested.

Notice how quickly an authoritarian solutions occurs! And then it gets even worse:

Quote:

Maybe the federal government or the State of Texas should just remove the kids from their home and bring them to a facility where they can be put in restraints and then vaccinated. The parents can have the kids back when they prove they are not members of the modern conservative/evangelical/populist axis.

Face reddening, veins popping with libertarian fervor, he shares his vision of jack-booted thugs hauling off screaming kids to secret medical facilities...

Quote:

You could do your civic duty and volunteer to be a member of the panel that decides whether or not the parents' claim is sincere and whether or not they should get their kids back.

You're slipping — I doubt there'd be any volunteering. We'd be conscripted to do this job.

Really, Finn, did you ever see any vaccination proponent suggest anything remotely similar to this dystopian fantasy? You asked what we might do about the problem — why not foster an atmosphere where science and medical knowledge are respected? Why not have a nationwide presidential address, accompanied by the Surgeon General, where the need for vaccination is made clear and people's doubts dispelled? Expose the charlatans and the mystics and share the facts. Instead we have a culture where idiots like Alex Jones spread destructive lies about vaccination and Trump appeals to this misled audience in hopes of further destroying public trust in government, medicine, and science itself.

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@hightor,

Your characterization of how previous presidents responded to Kim’s development of nuclear weapons is far too benevolent. You seem to imply problems with NK didn’t exist before Trump.

Clinton paid $4 billion to Kim. His error was worst, imo. He showed Kim that threats paid very well. Bush tried to step away from pay-offs, create a network of aligned countries, but didn’t have much success. Obama ramped up tough rhetoric by degrees, but again, Kim prevailed. These men formed the situation that led to our current reality. They don’t get a pass. How they acted had direct results.

I think Clinton set up the lopsided situation, and the other administrations didn’t handle it effectively.

I am satisfied that we’re no longer bankrolling the whims of Kim.

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/the-conversation/sd-north-korea-obama-past-presidents-20170810-htmlstory.html

Excerpt:
Soon after Clinton took office in 1994, North Korea threatened to abandon its commitment to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty behind. North Korea refused an international inspection related to the treaty. This led the Clinton administration to seek to bring the nation back into the fold.

Former President Jimmy Carter was secretly sent to Pyongyang to pave the way for a diplomatic agreement.

Clinton’s administration successfully established a deal known as the Joint Framework Agreement which offered $4 billion worth of nuclear, energy, economic and diplomatic benefits in exchange for the halting of North Korea’s nuclear program in 1994. The deal also included two light-water nuclear reactors, which were believed to be more difficult to use to make weapons than Pyongyang’s plutonium reactor.

The International Atomic Energy Agency was set to oversee all of this and do routine inspections.

"This agreement will help achieve a longstanding and vital American objective -- an end to the threat of nuclear proliferation on the Korean Peninsula,” Clinton said at the time.

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The ranting fanatics of the right have been busily attempting to destroy public confidence in science for at least a generation. It would be silly to expect anyone from that group to propose reasonable, intelligent solutions to such a problem.

Finn, of course, indulges extreme straw man fantasies all the time, in the hope of suckering the unwary into defending policies they have never advocated. I'm sure you know that by now.

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@Lash,

That's hilarious--your source, the San Diego Union-Tribune absolutely fails to support your claim. You crack me up.

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By the way, it is worth pointing out that, as usual, Sofia Lash Goth would rather discuss the Clintons, rather than Plump.

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