DJL

You are kidding, right? https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-turns-mar-a-lago-club-terrace-into-open-air-situation-room/2017/02/13/c5525096-f20d-11e6-a9b0-ecee7ce475fc_story.html You're right, I was off in la-la land for a minute giving him the benefit of the doubt that a President has enough common sense. "I encourage all awesome dangerous behavior." - Jeffro Fincher

Anyone here have an issue with the trend of people secretly recording interactions with the President of the United States. Fair use in an open forum is one thing but recording devices behind closed doors is entirely different. Nope. Not in the least. Trump is a lying con man. He says something, denies he said it, accuses the people who repeat what he really said of lying, all that. Gaslighting and then some. The Trumpettes fall for it, but not a whole lot of other people. The President used to have a team of stenographers to document everything that was said. Both for accuracy and for posterity. Trump (somehow not surprisingly) didn't know they existed, and largely refused to use their services. So they quit. Now, the serial liar has no documentation of what he said, so he can tell his supporters he really didn't say that. It's textbook demagougery. Also stupid as hell. Someone else can say "Trump said..." and there's no proof one way or the other. I get the need for a stenographer and I don't think Trump would be talking about national security issues around Amarosa but this is a real security issue and it doesn't matter who the President is or whether he's an ass. Now...if that President is secretly trying to do something illegal that's a different issue, it becomes a whistleblower situation. "I encourage all awesome dangerous behavior." - Jeffro Fincher

Private citizens should have more leeway than police officers. Professionals should be held to a much higher standard. "It was a stressful situation and I was fearful for my safety" should carry no weight with a jury when it comes from a LEO. It was known that the job was stressful and dangerous prior to taking the role. In the US, both private citizens and cops have far too much leeway. But I think he raises a good point. If someone comes up to me and wants to fight because he thinks I was looking at his girlfriend should I be able to kill him? Have we abandoned the concept that a penalty for assault is what should be the deterrent? Take this case for example: https://abc13.com/sheriff-parking-spot-shooting-fits-stand-your-ground-law/3800933/ "I encourage all awesome dangerous behavior." - Jeffro Fincher

The more sophisticated way to put it is that we can interpret anything as attempted murder and act to protect ourselves with lethal force. Somehow private citizens in some states have more leeway than police officers in this regard. "I encourage all awesome dangerous behavior." - Jeffro Fincher

Anyone here have an issue with the trend of people secretly recording interactions with the President of the United States. Fair use in an open forum is one thing but recording devices behind closed doors is entirely different. "I encourage all awesome dangerous behavior." - Jeffro Fincher

You can't in one breath defend Trump and in the next blame Obama. Trump is going on two years now and he's spent much of it working against the investigation and claiming that Putin and his government is not to blame. "I encourage all awesome dangerous behavior." - Jeffro Fincher

All my friends with black children say that at some point they need to have what's being called "the conversation" where even though they live in a nice neighborhood with nice houses, nice cars, they get good grades, church, whatever cliche of being an upright citizen, that the moment they show anger in a situation that they immediately become a criminal and risk being arrested or killed. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/17/opinion/a-conversation-with-my-black-son.html "I encourage all awesome dangerous behavior." - Jeffro Fincher

This is the latest bit making the right wing news rotation. Why didn't he stop it? Who was going to stop it, what were they going to stop and how were they going to stop it? Go look up the timeline of events and remember that it was this January and JUST now that the investigators had proof as to exactly who what doing what. What was Obama going to do, tell them to stop (which he did)? And what was the intelligence community going to do, take over the DNC servers as government property (they warned them and the DNC hired a company to secure their equipment after the fact.) "I encourage all awesome dangerous behavior." - Jeffro Fincher

There is only one "m" in Ramstein. "Rammstein" is the name of a band (named after the Frecce Tricolori mishap in 1988). There are plenty of places in Eastern Europe that will gladly pony up. There's been an offer to fund an entire installation (Poland). The Bear (tm) is up to his dirty old Cold War tricks, and the former East Bloc countries, having escaped Soviet hegemony, would very much like to keep it that way. mh . Yeah, knew about the other 'M' but...you know....Du HAST! So I let the error stay. "I encourage all awesome dangerous behavior." - Jeffro Fincher

George Will charges that Trump colluded with Putin http://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/397821-george-will-charges-that-trump-colluded-with-putin In George Will’s latest column, the conservative columnist charged collusion between Trump and Putin: “We shall learn from special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation whether in 2016 there was collusion with Russia by members of the Trump campaign. The world, however, saw in Helsinki something more grave — ongoing collusion between Trump, now in power, and Russia. The collusion is in what Trump says (refusing to back the United States’ intelligence agencies) and in what evidently went unsaid (such as: You ought to stop disrupting Ukraine, downing civilian airliners, attempting to assassinate people abroad using poisons, and so on, and on).”... It raises profoundly ominous questions about why Trump refused to permit any senior American to attend this meeting, what may have been discussed in this meeting and whether any secret deals may have been reached that were kept secret from the secretary of State, secretary of Defense, national security adviser and White House chief of staff.... Will is trying to defend America from Putin, and to save conservatism from Trump, and for that, patriotic Americans and principled conservatives should be eternally grateful. Yeah, namely this: Putin Tells Diplomats He Made Trump a New Offer on Ukraine at Their Summit. What this boils down to is that he proposes there be a vote within the region. FROM THE HELSINKI SUMMIT: REPORTER (Jonathan Lemire from AP): A question for President Putin, thank you. Two questions for you, sir. Can you tell me what President Trump may have indicated to you about officially recognizing Crimea as part of Russia? PUTIN: President Trump — well, the posture of President Trump on Crimea is well known and he stands firmly by it. He continues to maintain that it was illegal to annex it. Our viewpoint is different. We held a referendum in strict compliance with the UN Charter and international legislation. For us this issue --we put [unintelligible] to this issue. AND Trump's quote about Crimea: “Crimea is Russian because everyone who lives there speaks Russian.” Which RT did not hesitate to capitalize upon: https://www.rt.com/usa/429778-trump-crimea-is-russia/ I would not be surprised if we soon see some very quick action in that region as Putin transitions from conflicted control, to issuing a referendum which he will control, to defacto control. "I encourage all awesome dangerous behavior." - Jeffro Fincher

I don't think you'd call this (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/26/central-american-refugees-costa-rica-obama-administration) a "blanket call" for anyone to "come on up". That was a very specific instance and consistent with what we've talked about before regarding the need to address the issue at the source, which is upheaval in Central and South America. "I encourage all awesome dangerous behavior." - Jeffro Fincher

I find it very interesting that you don't have a problem with all of this if Hillary had one. Remember Obama said that there's no way that anybody could affect the elections. But since Trump won the whole thing changed now didn't it. The two-faced double standard is appalling disgusting and obviously evident anybody who cares to pay any attention to the bullshit that you parrot here daily. But please keep it up. Actually, and cross-referencing your other post, I think we're all very fortunate that you were not in the military because if your unit came under fire you would argue with everyone about how it's a double standard if you return fire. "I encourage all awesome dangerous behavior." - Jeffro Fincher

You're making excuses by advocating for our enemy in the form of justifying their actions. We take actions against other countries even within their elections to project our national interests. In the past these things HAVE resulted in bloodshed and I'll say that those things are not morally excusable. We've settled down to helping those who stand up against dictators and tyrants or who are proponents of democracy and peace. I think we can all agree that is a noble course but I'm sure somewhere in the world there's a US agent slipping something in a drink or doing something morally repugnant on our behalf. We fight for our place in the world and there are those who fight against us. US citizens should not be supporting or making excuses for our enemies. "I encourage all awesome dangerous behavior." - Jeffro Fincher

No, I'm making the point that when a country takes actions against us that we thwart those actions and respond. "I encourage all awesome dangerous behavior." - Jeffro Fincher

Yes, it is SOP in today's world. If we attempt to interfere in other countries we have to expect the same back at us. Ron, I could give a fuck less if they tried to influence us or if we tried to influence us but it's our fucking country and our fucking team. When they come at us we nip it in the fucking bud and put the fuckers down for the count. Are you in or are you out because I will not stand here and listen to you make excuses for actions that other countries take against ours. "I encourage all awesome dangerous behavior." - Jeffro Fincher

Here's a pretty good timeline of events relating to the election and between campaign members and Russian interests. I haven't looked over it thoroughly but one thing I'll say is that this should be taken as more of a factual report rather than causal, someone trying to do business with Russians doesn't make them bad and doesn't prove collusion. https://themoscowproject.org/collusion-timeline "I encourage all awesome dangerous behavior." - Jeffro Fincher

I see your point about Trump's comments. But it ain't worth the bullshit that he's getting on the media and every place else today. Could have handled it better? Absolutely. But he is not a politician now is he! So you can take your point and do whatever you want with it but he still my president needs the best that I've seen in a long time He isn't a politician... he is literally the president. Also, you're kidding yourself if you think politics aren't involved in what Trump does regarding his real estate past. He absolutely is a politician. "I encourage all awesome dangerous behavior." - Jeffro Fincher

Waiting for Florida to say, "Hold my beer." "I encourage all awesome dangerous behavior." - Jeffro Fincher

Yeah, the difficulty in Trump's claim that they need to get to 2% GDP military spending is that false premise, that GDP has anything to do with it. He even floated that they should be at 4% but we don't even average that (3.6%). They don't have global militaries and while they do have similar global national interests to ours only maintain a military for regional defense. In effect, 100% of their their military is for NATO while we maintain many overlaps. Our forces stationed at European bases may be part of the NATO defense program but we deployed them to other areas in the world and they perform missions that have have nothing to do with NATO. In effect we "pay in" way more than other countries so we can do what we were going to do anyway. The irony, and I almost don't even want to go down this road, is that Trump on one hand talks about how great Russia is and on the other hand wants other countries to spend more to defend against him. "I encourage all awesome dangerous behavior." - Jeffro Fincher

http://www.oann.com/president-trump-blames-mueller-probe-for-torn-relations-with-russia/ OAN is a self professed Trump media machine, they do no hide it at all. Their staff is under a directive to promote Trump, far right agendas and minimize accusations against Russia. They've been on the hook for several VERY fake news stories. So a Fox lite then. Fox lite on street muscle, Fox heavy on their Pro-Trump lean. I've tracked some of their stories back to Russian reporters. The owner is a huge Trump ally and appears to know that the Trump Presidency may one day end but the Trump gravy train will go on for a long time so what's the harm in outright lying. "I encourage all awesome dangerous behavior." - Jeffro Fincher

It's a USAF base that currently has some NATO admin on site. How much do you pay the Belgians to use NATO HQ in Brussels? That's not what I'm saying or asking. The "paying in" part is 100% rhetoric based upon absolutely nothing than anyone has been able to quantify and has even less to do with how the Ramstein base is payed for. "I know we run a lot of different missions through there but what if we needed to throw down the guantlet and get the other countries to pay more into NATO. " What do you mean by that? Trump has been bitching that other countries don't contribute more for the NATO alliance by direct defense spending. For some reason everyone agreed to it being 2% GDP even though that has no bearing on what we actually need to "Do NATO". Anyway, I was speaking with some people who felt as thought we should pull back our presence in Europe and I used Ramstein as an ultimate example since it's the base and hub for many operations for Europe, African, Middle East and South Asia. They (retired Army/Navy officers) thought we could do our mission just fine without dedicated bases like Ramstein so I was curious what others thought. "I encourage all awesome dangerous behavior." - Jeffro Fincher

http://www.oann.com/president-trump-blames-mueller-probe-for-torn-relations-with-russia/ OAN is a self professed Trump media machine, they do no hide it at all. Their staff is under a directive to promote Trump, far right agendas and minimize accusations against Russia. They've been on the hook for several VERY fake news stories. Oh, piffle. Ron thinks it's true. He believes its true. He wants it to be true. So, to him, it's "Real News". He even posted that. Facts, truth, reality aren't important to him. I'm not sure why I even responded to that. By telling him it's pro-Trump, pro-Putin he basically knows it's something he'll want to see more of. "I encourage all awesome dangerous behavior." - Jeffro Fincher

http://www.oann.com/president-trump-blames-mueller-probe-for-torn-relations-with-russia/ OAN is a self professed Trump media machine, they do no hide it at all. Their staff is under a directive to promote Trump, far right agendas and minimize accusations against Russia. They've been on the hook for several VERY fake news stories. "I encourage all awesome dangerous behavior." - Jeffro Fincher

It's a USAF base that currently has some NATO admin on site. How much do you pay the Belgians to use NATO HQ in Brussels? That's not what I'm saying or asking. The "paying in" part is 100% rhetoric based upon absolutely nothing than anyone has been able to quantify and has even less to do with how the Ramstein base is payed for. "I encourage all awesome dangerous behavior." - Jeffro Fincher

What do you mean by that? Trump's attempt to get other countries to pay in more. I've heard some beliefs that we do not need bases around the world that we should leave NATO to its own devices. "I encourage all awesome dangerous behavior." - Jeffro Fincher