US Politics Thread |OT| THE DARKEST TIMELINE

[Human Snorenado]

Raise your hand if you thought AiA actually read any of that report.

[Tasty]

I'm not voting for either. I'm writing in Putin just to piss Tasty off   

[Human Snorenado]

If you really wanted to piss Tasty off, you'd write in Bill Gates or J Allard

[Tasty]

If you really wanted to piss Tasty off, you'd write in Bill Gates or J Allard

I admire Bill Gates more than most public figures and J Allard's a nobody.

If you really wanted to piss me off you'd write-in John Gruber or MG Siegler.

[Tasty]

http://www.vox.com/2016/6/28/12051226/benghazi-house-republican-report-paragraph

The House Select Committee’s report finds that there were no American forces in range, the same conclusion as previous reports. Yet it positions this fact as evidence of the Obama administration’s failures:

The assets ultimately deployed by the Defense Department in response to the Benghazi attacks were not positioned to arrive prior to the final lethal attack on the Annex. The fact that this is true does not mitigate the question of why the world’s most powerful military was not positioned to respond; or why the urgency and ingenuity displayed by team members at the Annex and Team Tripoli was seemingly not shared by all decision makers in Washington.

In other words: The facts find the administration wasn’t responsible for failing to stop the Benghazi attack, but the report tries to spin this evidence in a way that’s bad for Team Obama anyway. You see similar attempts to spin non-damning facts as damning in other parts of the report as well.

Yet nine different bodies have investigated Benghazi: the State Department's Accountability Review Board and eight separate congressional committees or staff reports. Each report has identified problems with the way the incident was handled by US government agencies — which are serious and worth raising — but none has uncovered real evidence of an administration cover-up or failure to properly respond to the attacks.

It would have been shocking if the House Select Committee had found new facts to support this narrative.

It didn’t.

[Kara]

This report cost millions of dollars to compile (7, IIRC), BTW.

The party of fiscal responsibility.

[Tasty]

AiA and the GOP: "I told you guys! BENGHAZI IS BACK! HILLARY IS GONNA BURN!"

Everyone:




Can someone make a "X will save the PS3!" chalkboard of "X is gonna sink Hillary Clinton"? It's getting farcical at this point.

[Human Snorenado]

AiA and the GOP: "I told you guys! BENGHAZI IS BACK! HILLARY IS GONNA BURN!"

Everyone: (Image removed from quote.)




Can someone make a "X will save the PS3!" chalkboard of "X is gonna sink Hillary Clinton"? It's getting farcical at this point.

I have a folder of nothing but bookmarks to AiA posts predicting doom for Hillary in November that I plan on using for mocking purposes once the election actually happens. I'm sure I'll be told that he has a lot of money and I'm a loser, which is, when you think about it, a very Trump way of dealing with things.

[Tasty]

I have a folder of nothing but bookmarks to AiA posts predicting doom for Hillary in November that I plan on using for mocking purposes once the election actually happens. I'm sure I'll be told that he has a lot of money and I'm a loser, which is, when you think about it, a very Trump way of dealing with things.

Trump is actually the lesser of two evils.

It all makes sense.

[Phoenix Dark]

The military doesn't really throw forces into random attacks abroad without intelligence on the size of the threat, situation reports, etc. "The fact that the world's most powerful military couldn't..." is not a good argument here.

I remember Dakota Meyer, who won the Medal Of Honor a few years ago, mentioning that the military higher ups refused to send backup to help his men while they were under attack. He lobbied to change US military procedures on sending backup and iirc it went nowhere. It sucks for the guys on the ground but I understand why the military isn't keen on purposely sending forces into traps/assaults/etc without weighing the potential for further loss of personnel.

[TVC15]

The House Benghazi Committee issued their long-waited final report on Tuesday morning, concluding that the Obama administration - including then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton - failed to sufficiently protect American diplomats in the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack.

The 800-page report is the culmination of a two-year investigation that has haunted the 2016 Democratic front-runner on the campaign trail

(Image removed from quote.)

notto disu shitto agen

This pic represents the exact moment I realized I'd have no problem voting for Hillary.

[Mandark]

If there's one thing you can credit the Republican Party in its current incarnation with it's playing the normative game. I would dry a line from their previous strategy of undermining the administration / the executive branch by refusing to confirm appointments (the ATF director saga being the obvious example) to their present behavior of claiming the presidency loses its powers of office for around 25% of its elected term because they say so. The beauty of making things normative is people accept them as normal without regard for evidence.

True that.  How quickly did we all start repeating "the Senate requires 60 votes for something to pass" as if we'd learned that back in our HS civics class?

[Phoenix Dark]

I used to think this was all Obama exclusive, ie an attempt to deem his presidency invalid by any means necessary*. But yea, it's clear this is instead the new normal for congressional relations with a democrat president. Hopefully democrats take a page from Scott Walker and just jam shit down their throats if they win back the senate and (lol) house.


*this is not to suggest republicans didn't also treat Clinton and Carter like shit, or foster hatred towards JFK.

[Great Rumbler]

The military doesn't really throw forces into random attacks abroad without intelligence on the size of the threat, situation reports, etc. "The fact that the world's most powerful military couldn't..." is not a good argument here.

I remember Dakota Meyer, who won the Medal Of Honor a few years ago, mentioning that the military higher ups refused to send backup to help his men while they were under attack. He lobbied to change US military procedures on sending backup and iirc it went nowhere. It sucks for the guys on the ground but I understand why the military isn't keen on purposely sending forces into traps/assaults/etc without weighing the potential for further loss of personnel.

Yeah, I mean, people have this image in their head of a spec-ops team halo jumping into a live-fire situation, blowing away the bad guys with pin-point accurate head shots, and then hauling the wounded to safety like it's just another day on the job, but that's not really how it works in the real world. You drop more troops into a situation that you don't know anything about and you're likely to end up with more dead Americans. It sucks for the guys already on the ground, but the people in charge can't make decisions based solely on emotion in the heat of the moment.

[Madrun Badrun]

Wait you guys can't do that?  Sucks to be the world's most powerful military.   

[benjipwns]

The thing is, the consulate got backup, from the PMCs at the Annex which they weren't supposed to leave but did anyway. Within half an hour. And then when they retreated to the Annex they got serious from the nominal Libyian military after a few hours of locking down the streets around the Annex.

That's what the Michael Bay movie is about, the initial rescue attempt for the consulate and then holding the Annex overnight.

Okay, the real thing is, the GOP has been demanding for four years that it be recognized as a terrorist attack. And it was, and it was over like most of them. You've got a short window of action.  IIRC, further attacks of the extent of the initial one never came. The attack on the Annex was ten minutes of mortar fire. It killed the two PMC guys because they were on the roof and wounded others because well, they were having mortar's dropped on them.

They couldn't save Stevens and the other fella because they were already dead when they got to the consulate from the Annex, and then the other guys got injured because they got delayed retreating.

And they were all PMCs who got backup from Libyan "state" forces.

The only plausible U.S. military response would have been an air strike on the mortar locations, which nobody knew were there, which nobody on the ground had the ability to locate and which were presumably abandoned after the ten minutes. I would assume the CIA has authority to order such resources up.

That said I should probably skim the report, I assume somewhere in there is a nice long accounting of what was going on at the Annex that could cause an Islamist militia to want to target a related building and then it for an attack. I assume there was too much freedom going on inside.

Robert Gates, former CIA director and Defense Secretary under Republican Presidents and then President Obama until stepping down in July 2011, has said that some critics of the government's response have a "cartoonish" view of military capabilities. He stated that he would have responded with equal caution given the risks and the lack of intelligence on the ground, and that American forces require planning and preparation which the circumstances did not allow for.

What B.S. lies.

Committee Chairman Mike Rogers wrote in an op-ed piece, "The Obama administration’s White House and State Department actions before, during, and after the Benghazi terrorist attack on September 11, 2012, ranged from incompetence to deplorable political manipulation in the midst of an election season."

That's my former Congressman who "left Congress to do a radio show" that never materialized, his leadership is sorely missed.

[benjipwns]

The thing is, the consulate got backup, from the PMCs at the Annex which they weren't supposed to leave but did anyway. Within half an hour. And then when they retreated to the Annex they got serious from the nominal Libyian military after a few hours of locking down the streets around the Annex.

That's what the Michael Bay movie is about, the initial rescue attempt for the consulate and then holding the Annex overnight.

Okay, the real thing is, the GOP has been demanding for four years that it be recognized as a terrorist attack. And it was, and it was over like most of them. You've got a short window of action.  IIRC, further attacks of the extent of the initial one never came. The attack on the Annex was ten minutes of mortar fire. It killed the two PMC guys because they were on the roof and wounded others because well, they were having mortar's dropped on them.

They couldn't save Stevens and the other fella because they were already dead when they got to the consulate from the Annex, and then the other guys got injured because they got delayed retreating.

And they were all PMCs who got backup from Libyan "state" forces.

The only plausible U.S. military response would have been an air strike on the mortar locations, which nobody knew were there, which nobody on the ground had the ability to locate and which were presumably abandoned after the ten minutes. I would assume the CIA has authority to order such resources up.

That said I should probably skim the report, I assume somewhere in there is a nice long accounting of what was going on at the Annex that could cause an Islamist militia to want to target a related building and then it for an attack. I assume there was too much freedom going on inside.

Robert Gates, former CIA director and Defense Secretary under Republican Presidents and then President Obama until stepping down in July 2011, has said that some critics of the government's response have a "cartoonish" view of military capabilities. He stated that he would have responded with equal caution given the risks and the lack of intelligence on the ground, and that American forces require planning and preparation which the circumstances did not allow for.

What B.S. lies.

Committee Chairman Mike Rogers wrote in an op-ed piece, "The Obama administration’s White House and State Department actions before, during, and after the Benghazi terrorist attack on September 11, 2012, ranged from incompetence to deplorable political manipulation in the midst of an election season."

That's my former Congressman who "left Congress to do a radio show" that never materialized, his leadership is sorely missed.

Maybe you should wait until the contents of Hillary's e-mails and speech transcripts are released before you start talking about a subject as if you know anything about it outside of the bits and pieces you picked up from the DemOp media.

[Samson Manhug]

I use the “try to support your position in a room full of 100 people who know a lot more about it than you” line as a rhetorical device sometimes, but even I don’t talk about Bengazi with a bunch of other military dudes.

[Phoenix Dark]

Donald Trump said Tuesday that the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal was a “rape” of the United States.

“The Trans-Pacific Partnership is another disaster done and pushed by special interests who want to rape our country — just a continuing rape of our country,” the likely Republican presidential nominee said at a rally in St. Clairsville, Ohio.

“It’s a harsh word but it’s true,” he said.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jun/28/donald-trump-compares-trans-pacific-partnership-ra/

here we goooo

[zomgee]

Donald Trump said Tuesday that the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal was a “rape” of the United States.

“The Trans-Pacific Partnership is another disaster done and pushed by special interests who want to rape our country — just a continuing rape of our country,” the likely Republican presidential nominee said at a rally in St. Clairsville, Ohio.

“It’s a harsh word but it’s true,” he said.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jun/28/donald-trump-compares-trans-pacific-partnership-ra/

here we goooo

About 45 minutes from Steubenville, too. Those people understand raping.

[Trent Dole]

Donald Drumpf said Tuesday that the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal was a “rape” of the United States.

“The Trans-Pacific Partnership is another disaster done and pushed by special interests who want to rape our country — just a continuing rape of our country,” the likely Republican presidential nominee said at a rally in St. Clairsville, Ohio.

“It’s a harsh word but it’s true,” he said.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jun/28/donald-trump-compares-trans-pacific-partnership-ra/

here we goooo

Well the TPP is a fucking shit show. I really wish Trump wasn't right about trade stuffs so I could just full on hate him but alas, he is right on about this. Certainly not the best word choice here, but hey that's everything he's ever said ever for you.

[jakefromstatefarm]

How is Trump right about trade?

[Kara]

True that.  How quickly did we all start repeating "the Senate requires 60 votes for something to pass" as if we'd learned that back in our HS civics class?

That was fairly alarming, too. Without submitting an opinion as to the truth of this, I had always been taught that actual filibuster (as opposed to the threat of using it, i.e. soft power) was an extreme tactic and a hallmark of eras when the world had passed by certain groups (the Civil Rights era being the obvious example) who simply would not see the writing on the wall.

[Kara]

benji, why don't you want justice for Vile Rat? TEST Alliance capsuleers, smh.

[Trent Dole]

How is Drumpf right about trade?

Our deals like NAFTA are ultimately not very good for american workers/factory jobs. It's the one thing I'll remotely consider giving him.

[Oblivion]

Here's one question I've had for the past 4 years: When did the Secretary of State suddenly gain the authority to deploy military units? 

[Cerveza mas fina]

Free trade is good.

But the playing field has to be even.

So if China wants to export shit to the US Chinese workers need to get living wages, paid holidays, healthcare, 32 hour working week, same safety rules etc. as in the US.

The products should be made with the same regard for people, nature etc.

[Phoenix Dark]

True that.  How quickly did we all start repeating "the Senate requires 60 votes for something to pass" as if we'd learned that back in our HS civics class?

That was fairly alarming, too. Without submitting an opinion as to the truth of this, I had always been taught that actual filibuster (as opposed to the threat of using it, i.e. soft power) was an extreme tactic and a hallmark of eras when the world had passed by certain groups (the Civil Rights era being the obvious example) who simply would not see the writing on the wall.

So republicans should have sat by and watched Obama re-instate slavery with the passage of Obamacare? Extreme measures were required.

[zomgee]

Free trade is good.

But the playing field has to be even.

So if China wants to export shit to the US Chinese workers need to get living wages, paid holidays, healthcare, 32 hour working week, same safety rules etc. as in the US.

The products should be made with the same regard for people, nature etc.

And it's not like the our representatives don't know about it, either.

[Am_I_Anonymous]

Free trade is good.

But the playing field has to be even.

So if China wants to export shit to the US Chinese workers need to get living wages, paid holidays, healthcare, 32 hour working week, same safety rules etc. as in the US.

The products should be made with the same regard for people, nature etc.

100% agree. However the problem is the Americans who enjoy paying people 25 dollars a week to make 600 dollar items have more control of congress than Obama does.

[Tasty]

[Am_I_Anonymous]

(Image removed from quote.)

So wait, you guys can have one and we can't? Seems unfair     

[Tasty]

Yeah where's white history month for that matter

[Am_I_Anonymous]

Yeah where's white history month for that matter

That's every month.

[Tasty]

Yeah where's white history month for that matter

That's every month.

Exactly.

[Kara]

Stan for trade diversion brehs.

[Am_I_Anonymous]

Stan for trade diversion brehs.

Stan for the Labour party, brehs.

[Kara]

The American Party of Labor.

[Am_I_Anonymous]

The American Party of Labor.

error: Does not exist.

Did you mean the American Job Creator party?

[Kara]

I vote for the Democratic Party when circumstances force my hand, yes.

[Am_I_Anonymous]

I vote for the Democratic Party when circumstances force my hand, yes.

Interesting, I pictured you more quasi libertarian with marxist leanings.

[brawndolicious]

California's not going to have anymore libertarians if weed gets legalized this year.

[Tasty]

Watch out, Crooked Hillary!



Assorted GAF posts:

Clinton is projected to have a better chance to win Florida than Trump has of winning Texas.

For comparison, 538 gave Obama a 61.8% chance of winning in June 2012.

By November it was over 90%.

"But she's on a downslope!" "Trump's pivoting! ...any day now!"

[Phoenix Dark]

Trump is doing really bad in Florida. IIRC Obama won the state by like 1% or so and the polls were relatively close there for awhile. Without Florida there is virtually no path to the WH for republicans. Hopefully Trump does bad enough there to also ensure Rubio loses his senate seat.

[benjipwns]

These polls that include Johnson and Stein need to be outlawed. Their share of the total has doubled over the last month, while CorruptHillary and President Trump's hasn't budged.

People are going to start thinking there's more than one option on the ballot. Democracy can't survive that.

[benjipwns]

"Rocky" Roque De La Fuente Guerra paid the $10,440 qualifying fee to run for the Democratic nomination of the 2016 Senate election in Florida

De La Fuente has founded the American Delta Party as a vehicle for him to potentially continue his campaign into the general election as a third-party candidate.

[HyperZoneWasAwesome]

yeah, without Florida, Pennsylvania, and Ohio he's toast. That its also possible that he could lose the entire east coast is kinda nuts.

[Am_I_Anonymous]

"Rocky" Roque De La Fuente Guerra paid the $10,440 qualifying fee to run for the Democratic nomination of the 2016 Senate election in Florida

De La Fuente has founded the American Delta Party as a vehicle for him to potentially continue his campaign into the general election as a third-party candidate.

yeah, without Florida, Pennsylvania, and Ohio he's toast. That its also possible that he could lose the entire east coast is kinda nuts.

No worries, he'll lose Ohio at the RNC.

[benjipwns]

That map is almost the same as 2008's:


Minus the home state advantage for McCain.

[Tasty]

That map is almost the same as 2008's:
(Image removed from quote.)

Minus the home state advantage for McCain.

Difference is the states that go for Trump are more pink than red this time around. Trump barely hanging onto Texas is incredible.

[benjipwns]

Trump barely hanging onto Texas is incredible.

It's based on three polls, one from February, one with Johnson at 7%...that still gives him a 72% chance of winning Texas in the model.

The model has the popular vote as 48-43-8. McCain won Texas 55-44-1 in 2008.

[jakefromstatefarm]

How is Drumpf right about trade?

Our deals like NAFTA are ultimately not very good for american workers/factory jobs. It's the one thing I'll remotely consider giving him.

manufacturing jobs were in steady decline prior to NAFTA, they actually increased between 93-98 and then continued to decline in 2001. Real wages increased in all 3 countries (marginally in the US). Ultimately, NAFTA was a net benefit for the average American worker. If an economic consensus can be gleaned, it was a negligible net gain for the US and a larger gain for Mexico. Trump's economic rhetoric has less to do with empirical reality and everything to do with accentuating (fabricating? cf. his comments on the unemployment rate) the negative. In an electorate that thinks a national economy is just a household writ large, this tactic has a lot of political purchase.

Free trade is good.

But the playing field has to be even.

So if China wants to export shit to the US Chinese workers need to get living wages, paid holidays, healthcare, 32 hour working week, same safety rules etc. as in the US.

The products should be made with the same regard for people, nature etc.

even pretending that this is politically feasible, you'd be holding hostage the ~100 million people in China who have managed to find a way out of poverty at the expense of the ~800 million who haven't. The welfarist's choice right now is not between American or Chinese living standards, it's between employment or starvation. In light of a third option*, I'd favor long term Kaldor-Hicks efficiency.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

*What is to be Done? you know who you are

[close]

[benjipwns]

Real wages increased in all 3 countries (marginally in the US). Ultimately, NAFTA was a net benefit for the average American worker. If an economic consensus can be gleaned, it was a negligible net gain for the US and a larger gain for Mexico

Exactly, the big sucking sound! Mexico WINS, getting a bigger gain than the U.S. probably in part because of their exporting their rapists and murderers and welfare cases to the U.S. so they can sit around and collect disability and public schooling and Social Security and Medicare. Meanwhile, those left in Mexico are rolling in the big bucks and organizing even more Communist Party USA members who have been taught that the U.S. belongs to Mexico and was stolen from them to export for free to the U.S.

even pretending that this is politically feasible, you'd be holding hostage the ~100 million people in China who have managed to find a way out of poverty at the expense of the ~800 million who haven't.

It's not fair that Mexico and China get to operate on old standards that the United States and Europe used to. They need to immediately compete with ~150 years of advances or deal with it.

[Kara]

Interesting, I pictured you more quasi libertarian with marxist leanings.

You're not far off.

[Kara]

RE: free trade among equals - I'd add to benji's point about the necessary privations of primitive accumulation that (1) funny innit that agriculture (one of the only other viable methods of primitive accumulation available to the economic periphery) is consistently shut out of global trade agreements by the labor aristocracies of the world forcing those people into icky Dickensian nightmares and (2) maximizing the extraction of surplus value by exploiting wage and regulation arbitrage is not solely the reason why the economic core loses the presence of industries to the periphery when barriers to trade aren't present. Good governments in developing economies understand that they are partners in fostering development, probably because they actually had to bootstrap instead of looting the Third World (and its predecessors) to get ahead. (The Republic of China and the composite materials industry comes to mind here.)

[Great Rumbler]

Straight up flaunting 

http://www.abc15.com/news/region-phoenix-metro/central-phoenix/loretta-lynch-bill-clinton-meet-privately-in-phoenix

 

[benjipwns]

Bill told her to indict Hillary on something, anything, to insure his legacy as the Best President Clinton.

[VomKriege]

Straight up flaunting 

http://www.abc15.com/news/region-phoenix-metro/central-phoenix/loretta-lynch-bill-clinton-meet-privately-in-phoenix

Hopefully at least one Republican or Bernout has a rage-induced heart attack reading this 

H. A. Goodman ‏@HAGOODMANAUTHOR 2 hil y a 2 heures

Remember, Loretta Lynch met with Bill Clinton and DEFINTELY DID NOT TALK ABOUT HILLARY'S PRIVATE SERVER that only 3 people could access.

https://twitter.com/HAGOODMANAUTHOR/status/748270122507239424

[Mandark]

even pretending that this is politically feasible, you'd be holding hostage the ~100 million people in China who have managed to find a way out of poverty at the expense of the ~800 million who haven't.

It's not fair that Mexico and China get to operate on old standards that the United States and Europe used to. They need to immediately compete with ~150 years of advances or deal with it.

Point taken, but those "old standards" included chattel slavery, which is p uncool.

[recursivelyenumerable]

Real wages increased in all 3 countries (marginally in the US). Ultimately, NAFTA was a net benefit for the average American worker. If an economic consensus can be gleaned, it was a negligible net gain for the US and a larger gain for Mexico

Exactly, the big sucking sound! Mexico WINS, getting a bigger gain than the U.S. probably in part because of their exporting their rapists and murderers and welfare cases to the U.S. so they can sit around and collect disability and public schooling and Social Security and Medicare. Meanwhile, those left in Mexico are rolling in the big bucks and organizing even more Communist Party USA members who have been taught that the U.S. belongs to Mexico and was stolen from them to export for free to the U.S.

this is a bit one-sided, surely there are some negatives too?