Senate The US Politics discussion

When did I blame Carter for the shah's fall? I was simply stating that dealing with brutal dictators and have friendly relations with them is not a new or just conservative thing.
"The president used the occasion of the state dinner given by the shah in his honor to dub Iran, at the time a reliable U.S. ally, “an island of stability in one of the more troubled areas of the world.” Clicking glasses with his host, Carter attributed the nation’s purported solidity to the shah’s “great leadership,” adding: “This is a great tribute to you, your majesty, and to your leadership and to the respect and the admiration and love which your people give to you.”

 

Again, who cares what happened in the past. Yes, both sides have dealt with horrible people. No, it's not wrong to attempt to work towards peace with a dictator. But yes, it IS wrong to outright praise that dictator without reservation, and to basically help prop him up by careless words and actions. That's what Trump has done.

Stop with the "but other people also screwed up!" nonsense. Those other people aren't currently the President. This is a discussion of current US Politics, not a history thread.

 

As early as Reagan with Iran-Contra the Republican response to law-breaking was pretty much we'll stick to our guy (plus he's the president, he should have the power to conduct foreign policy without interference from Congress), if illegal it wasn't a high crime.
And with Clinton perjury and accused obstruction of justice the Democratic response was it was a lie but immaterial and the whole investigation was stupid, partisan, wasteful, perjury about an affair isn't a high crime.
And with Bush Jr. illegal spying, pretty much from both parties, well not good but not illegal enough (and maybe not unjustified), not a high crime worth the hassle of trying to get impeachment.

I do think impeachment is very interesting in that it is associated with being for both on the one hand committing a crime and on the on the other hand (or even moreso) committing the worst crime a president ever has, the latter obviously a much higher and rarer standard. As presidents, including recent ones, have gotten away with a lot that was known, the latter, higher standard does seem more widely held.

 

Well, if you want to get picky, the title of the thread is US Politics not current US Politics

 

There is a debate among some that, if Watergate hadn't ruined Nixon, then Iran-Contra would have been a considered a big enough deal to ruin Reagan.

I'm sorry for the lack of posts lately. Some friends in Dallas were going through some terrible stuff, and I was busy with work and trying to help them despite being out-of-state.

Yes, it is true, CLee that both parties have engaged in illegal spying. Clinton really should be viewed more of a corporatist, since that was his worst mistake. Obama's foreign policy was worse than Clinton's, but it's hard to decide who was better economically. For the life of me, I'll never understand why moderate Democrats think they have to be almost as extreme as Republicans in foreign and economic policy. It's a poisonous pattern. I understand the historical precedent. But as Solojones says, who cares what happened in the past? Just to tweak that a bit, some people learn from it, while many do not. We need to be concerned about the future, since the economic and environmental issues really ought to be breaking news instead of all this infotainment.

At any rate, I liked Mueller's speech. He did the best he could to present that Trump should be impeached, and people like Barr have lied about it. Barr is the Dick Cheney of lawyers, as I once said, but I didn't quite think he would cozy this close to Trump. I thought he would do the usual detrimental crap that hurts Americans, as many Republicans in power do (a la McConnell and the Supreme Court Republicans). The problem is that Trump wants to be a despot. He doesn't want accountability to anyone. His predecessors like Bush and even Obama gave him a number of tools that he could use to become de facto above and beyond the reach of the law. He's pretty stupid and he undermines himself a lot, but we can't always count on that. What we need are more people elected to Congress who will render him toothless. The real challenge is fixing the Supreme Court, given how many corrupt, misogynistic, phobic fools dominate it. These abortion bans are dangerous because if the Supreme Court strikes down abortion, they will come after other women's rights and reproductive rights, just as Trump has undermined rights for trans people. What this society needs to learn is that the more freedom and education women have, the better off this society can be. Else, Pence will love to see America turn into the Handmaid's Tale.

 

I think Mueller's speech will push the Democrats over the edge and impeachment proceedings will begin before the year is out.

 

A lot of the outrage against Trump for being cordial to and/or negotiating with dictators does make it seem, implied or more directly, as if it's unprecedented.

I wouldn't consider Clinton extreme in his economic policy but it does make sense that he would skew to the center on that since a lot of the middle class, especially at that time and maybe or maybe not today, don't feel positively to the poor, think that most things done for them would be at the expense of the middle.

 

I hope so!

 

Sometimes, moderates can be just as extreme as those on the right- or left-wing. Clinton's issue, much like Tony Blair's, was moving his party to the right. Imitating the Republicans left out lot of people. What I was alluding to was a debate a couple of years go that some folks had when they debated whether Clinton's economic policies were worse than Obama's, or Obama's foreign policy was worse than Clinton's. Personally, I don't know why Obama tried to negotiate and find moderates among the Republicans as long as he did. I will say that Clinton would have destroyed himself if the Republicans hadn't been so jealous of him as to have spent all that time opposing him. However, I do largely agree with what you said. I just think that the working class needs to be a check to make certain that the corporations don't steal from and starve a country. People hate it when white collar-corporate crime classes say that white collar-corporate crime does more damage to society than street crime, but it's true (forest vs. trees).

Some history folks like to say that the era of "divided government" began with Nixon or Reagan, but it seems like it's so postmodern and dysfunctional that I can see why Trump's followers and others would want a dictator. People don't know what the Supreme Court is, they haven't read the Constitution and seen its good things and its flaws, and they don't force the Congress oppose a power-hungry president. Thankfully, there are some people who are electing reps to do just that. We just need more.

 

Robert, for soneone who incessantly complains that all the posts about Trump are negative, you go out of your way to not talk about him.

The "outrage" about Trump dealing with dictators is that he treats them much, much better than actual democracies , and he does little to disguise his admiration for them; which clearly is derived from his desire to emulate them.

 

For what it's worth Madonna has repudiated the stories of Penn physically abusing her.

 

Didn't he tie her to a chair? Pretty sure that counts as physical abuse whether she thinks it is or not.

 

She says that didn't happen.

 

Ah, well, good to know. I still hate Sean Penn, though. Just seems like an ass.

 

Hate Sean Penn? Yeah, I know what you mean. Sometimes do-gooders are actually pretentious pricks. Or oftentimes. Pharisees praying and showing off for the crowd.

i don't know what to make of Madonna's statement. I believe her, of course. But I never read much about her outside of enjoying some of her '80s and 2000s music.

Back to the dictatorship thing. Trump doesn't know the difference between authoritarian and totalitarian. Anyhow, to make a long story short, the Democrats could use a number of things along with Mueller's recommendations to impeach him. I just wish more people besides the Justice Dems were interested in his financial crimes. While he won't be convicted by the senate, I think that an impeachment by the House would do one of two things in the eyes of the public....but to the cut to the case...

If Biden is the nominee, Trump will win. If Bernie is the nominee, Trump will lose. The impeachment will make Trump look sympathetic next to Biden, who somehow appears more arrogant than Trump. (I mean, he's not more arrogant than Trump. Don't get me wrong. It's just that establishment Democrats just are so salty and shallow that Trump nails them easily. His idiocy and madness appear substantive compared to them.) The impeachment would be a good talking point that Bernie and his fellows, like Warren, could use. I really wish we could get Warren. I may agree with Bernie and Tulsi more than her, but I wish more people respected her as a person. So, yeah. Biden is Hillary 2.0. John Kerry is wiser than Hillary and Biden, and I'm not sayin' that because he was my first vote.

 

Postscript [add to above if necessary]: I don't usually like to make predictions like that. I'm not a sportscaster. But if the economy is lagging or nearing recession, the rust belt and swing states will deny Trump a second term.

On a more personal level, I didn't like Hillary, but I preferred her over Trump. Even though I hated some of her corporate policies and her past work defending a child abuser (and laughing about it on tape), still, I didn't think she was as vile as trump. Somehow, I couldn't never bring myself to hate her during Fall 2016. I was like, "She's a good speaker. She knows bureaucracy. she's on point." Biden...I hate. My feelings toward Biden were neutral during his vice presidency. I obviously voted for Obama, and I liked Obama mainly for his social policies, how he treated women, LGBTQ kids and adults (you know, he treated us as human, which was good). Biden has left a sour taste in my mouth. He feels like he's entitled. Yeah, Hillary felt like she would be a great president, but she didn't seem as arrogant as Biden. If Hillary were president for four or eight years, I'd be like, "Eh. Doesn't bother me." Biden, it's like, ugh, he's like that RA of one of my university's three dorms who thinks he's God.

Also, I apologize if I came off as ageist in previous posts. Anakinfan mentioned something about older voters, and I didn't mean to use that term in any derisive manner. I love my former professors, and I consider them uncle- and aunt-figures. My Dad is 80 and my 73, but they look 50. They're liberal as heck. I'm just concerned about how many of establishment democrats worship Biden and don't want to vote for anyone else. Feel free to debunk those polls for me. They annoy me.

 

But Richard Gere definitely stuck hamsters up his bum and Walt Disney was a Nazi and his head is frozen, right?

 

No collusion, no obstruction.

Oh, wait...

I thought that was Jerry Penacoli (a local news anchor in Philadelphia back in the late ‘80’s).

 

I think the trade war is what will break the Senate and get them to start talking impeachment. It won’t be Russia and it won’t be Stormy. It won’t be the obstruction. It will be the hit to their wallet. It’s always the economy stupid. If Trump breaks that, look for his protectors to leave him to twist in the wind.

 

Don’t worry, he’ll reverse course before that happens, then claim victory and blame the Democrats for whatever consequences have occurred.

 

Update from Chad O'Carroll of Korea Risk Group:

This should be a lesson on how easy it is for a professional influencer in the intelligence community to leak a story to a friendly news outlet, and have it uncritically repeated from the NYT to the Guardian within the day. Any updates to the contrary will hardly be front page news.
I do hope there's another talk and he shows up; might be high-profile enough to get noticed and cause some reflection.

 

Another mass shooting, this time in Virginia. Im sure Trump's first question was "Is the shooter an illegal immigrant?"

 

He can be very condescending when he talks about politics which rubs me the wrong way even when I agree with him, which is fairly often, I guess. And he's not nearly as good an actor as he thinks he is. His best performance is still Spicoli in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. And I don't even like that movie.

I've never understood the love for him in "inspirational" roles. I have no idea why he was so acclaimed for Milk. He's really at his best playing characters that are reprehensible and weaselly. Carlito's Way, The Game, U Turn . . . if you want an audience to really be rooting for somebody to get his comeuppance at the end, Penn's a good cast. God, U Turn; hadn't thought about that movie in a while. What a weird movie; time for a revisit on that one. Maybe Nick Nolte's best performance in that movie. Looking at Oliver Stone's career, it's a hell of a follow-up to Nixon. To bring it back around to politics, I guess.