Concessions in the trade dispute with China have already been won in a very small amount of time, a far cry from the sky-is-falling rhetoric heard from so many.
Currently we just have a non-binding pledge from Xi; not an in-effect concession of any kind. The article mentions that China has made these promises in the past and then failed to make good on them.
Getting concessions from China would be a pleasant surprise.
I was in grade school for Clinton's presidency. I certainly don't feel like I am a hypocrite for holding no opinion on issues a generation before my time. Although if we must bring that subject up, when I was liberal I remember activist orgs I followed like MoveOn were created precisely in opposition to Clinton being attacked for sexual impropriety that distracted from real issues facing the country.
I think we have a higher chance with Trump in office of real concessions, if only because he seems more determined to carry on the fight than any previous President. Did anyone else ever even bring it up, let alone campaign on it? Not often, anyway.
Pretty sure no one is shocked that Trump raw dogged a porn star just after the birth of his fourth child with his third wife. The behavior is not overly shocking after all he had cheated on his first two wives as well.
The problem is that he paid off a porn star (and a playmate and others possibly who have signed NDA and are not talking?). Any reasonable person would say that payment was made to influence the election because he didn't want the info of this affair to get out, so he had his lawyer pay her off and sign a punitive NDA about it.
This is illegal under campaign finance law and the president and his lawyer have been trying to cover it up. Also this payoff shows the president is vulnerable to blackmail, which is what the Steele dossier warned us about even more unverified things that he was at risk for blackmail about. This is verified. Those are the problems. If he admitted it and prayed for forgiveness or whatever that would be one thing but he's still lying about it to this day.
Pretty sure no one is shocked that Trump raw dogged a porn star just after the birth of his fourth child with his third wife. The behavior is not overly shocking after all he had cheated on his first two wives as well.
That's exactly it--only evangelicals find this sort of thing reprehensible anymore and even they are apparently trying to give him a pass on it. The rest of us stopped caring about this sort of thing years ago, instead adopting a policy of anything goes.
In fact, he will HAVE to fire Rosenstein to get to Mueller anyway, because Rosenstein probably won't do it.
Couldn't he fire Sessions instead?
I could be wrong here, but I dont think it exactly works that way.
If Trump were to fire Sessions, then I believe Rosenstein would become acting AG. If Rosenstein were fired (and not Sessions), then I believe the Solicitor General would become acting deputy AG.
The point being - I dont think Trump can simply fire someone from the DOJ and then fill his position immediately with a crony that would kill/muzzle the investigation. It just goes down the line of established people.
Now - he would get to nominate a successor to that person, which would need to go through the confirmation process. Maybe the GOP would run whomever he picks through really quick and the situation goes on (but my guess is that this would take awhile, and would be politically costly on its own... ignoring the enormous fallout of firing anyone from the DOJ over the probe).
Now - playing backroom politics, it's possible Trump would have already make sure the Solicitor General was ready to kill/muzzle the investigation before firing Rosenstein, and the end result is the same -- but that's far from a for-sure thing.
My understanding is that Trump could appoint an interim director under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, as long as it was someone who has already been confirmed by the Senate, e.g., Pruitt.
Re: Stormy Daniels, having had an extramarital affair does not disqualify someone from leadership. In this case, though, I see Trump's many affairs as pieces in the mountain of evidence demonstrating that he is an overall bad person. As far as I can tell, every other president since Nixon, at least, generally cared about doing the right thing. They've been flawed people, and other priorities (ego, expediency, libido...) have often taken precedence, but I still believe that they all possessed -- and sometimes consulted -- moral compasses. It frightens me that Trump apparently does not.
I would say that an extramarital affair indicates a certain lack of empathy and/or a certain lack of self-control. Studies have found that taking a position of power for even a brief period of time is enough to suppress one's sense of empathy, so an affair while in office does not necessarily mean that politician has a weaker sense of empathy than any normal person who was elevated to that position. If the affair happened before taking public office, or if the sex while in office was nonconsensual, that would be a stronger clue that the politician was genuinely a scumbag at heart--those acts could not be blamed on power's negative effect on empathy.
I would say that an extramarital affair indicates a certain lack of empathy and/or a certain lack of self-control. Studies have found that taking a position of power for even a brief period of time is enough to suppress one's sense of empathy, so an affair while in office does not necessarily mean that politician has a weaker sense of empathy than any normal person who was elevated to that position. If the affair happened before taking public office, or if the sex while in office was nonconsensual, that would be a stronger clue that the politician was genuinely a scumbag at heart--those acts could not be blamed on power's negative effect on empathy.
It remains amazing that Trump's flat-out ADMISSION on tape to systematic sexual assault as his modus operandi just kind of floats in the ether with no one addressing it for months upon months at a time. But maybe not for long, as reporting today suggest part of what was seized from Michael Cohen's office was related to the Access Hollywood Tape.
The two things worst things Trump has been accused of thus far are not liberal conspiracies or wishful thinking of those looking for a scandal to take him down. He ADMITTED to firing to Comey to shut down the Russia Investigation in a live interview with Lester Holt, and he described to a tee what he does to women he finds attractive, while he didn't know he was being taped, and what he described was EXACTLY what the dozen or so women who have come forward to accuse him of sexual assault said happened to them. Trump is Jack Nicholson at the end of "A Few Good Men". He long ago admitted to ordering the Code Red in BOTH cases, and anyone can go watch the tape or listen to the audio.
That access hollywood tape or this should have been a clue to Republican voters that they were making a yuge mistake and it would cost their party as we're seeing now
His scandal hasn't been mentioned much here, but from reporting tonight it would seem the GOP Governor of Missouri is being accused of rape, or at least something that is walking RIGHT up to the line of rape:
That governor read "Fifty Shades" and it piqued his curiosity. *shrug*
CNN has a brief article about who would take over if Rosenstein is forced out. The TLDR version is "no one really knows for sure"--it hinges upon whether Rosenstein is fired versus resigning as well as whether he is overseeing the Mueller Investigation as "Deputy Attorney General" or "Acting Attorney General".
Pretty sure no one is shocked that Trump raw dogged a porn star just after the birth of his fourth child with his third wife. The behavior is not overly shocking after all he had cheated on his first two wives as well.
That's exactly it--only evangelicals find this sort of thing reprehensible anymore and even they are apparently trying to give him a pass on it. The rest of us stopped caring about this sort of thing years ago, instead adopting a policy of anything goes.
I frankly do care. I think staying true to one's wedding vows says something about a man's character, and I'm far from an Evangelical.
Though Trump isn't directly in the crosshairs yet, what do people imagine it says about him that his National Security Advisor, Campaign Mananger, and personal lawyer have all either plead guilty, been indicted, and almost certainly will be indicted (respectively)?? Take however a dirty and crooked you believe a normal politician to be, and multiply it by 25. Drain the swamp?? Trump is the swamp. All indications are that he may be one of the most corrupt businessmen in the entire country, who has a knack for BARELY insulating himself from everything enough to skate by. But as I've said before, there is simply no way the last couple decades of Trump's dealings can stand up to serious legal scrutiny. He has never been truly looked at before, and attaining the Presidency comes with the biggest spotlight in the world. He was an utter fool to seek this job knowing what is lurking in his closet.
And yes, as the article mentions, for a Magistrate to sign off on raiding the office and hotel room of the lawyer of the President of the United States, an EXCEPTIONALLY high bar would have had to have been met.
I was talking to a family member who I hadn't seen in a while who is an old trump supporter the other day and he seemed surprised when I said I'd prefer Hillary Clinton. He was like "but she is so corrupt!" hahahaha dude what we have with trump is already 10000x times worse corruption than whatever we would have got with Clinton.
But emails! Ok but bribes to pornstars and Trumps had all kinds of people without security clearances and just damn poorly vetted people such as Rob Porter and Sebastian Gorka having access to classified data. Michael Flynn an agent of foreign countries was put by trump in charge of classified information. Now insane john Bolton will be in charge of national security agency. That's worse than some emails might have spilled some classified on a private server isn't it?
Bengahzi! After 17 republican investigations I think we've learned that Yeah more could have been done and that's about all you can blame hillary for. Trump is hiring pro torture people to run the CIA and stuff and indiscriminately using drones that are killing civilians.
What else? The Clinton Foundation! Trump Foundation had to be shut down lol because it was totally corrupt. It was totally shut down in New York prior to shutting down for good. At worst I believe we've seen stuff that might have the appearance of impropriety but on the other hand the foundation did a lot of charitable work apparently with the money they got. Trump's foundation seemed to be a front for laundering money so that he can buy statues of himself (srsly).
It's clear that guy had been watching nothing but fox news. He even said something about Trump keeping his promises lol which he only could have got there. Look I'm not even a big clinton supporter either. I guess if we had Clinton, then a lot of the standard political corruption and maybe even metoo and stuff wouldn't have happened. So I guess it's good in some respects that the country isn't asleep anymore with a normal boring politician. Because Trump is so bad he's making people take action.
As with all such foundations, had Hillary become President the Clinton Foundation would have allowed deep-pocketed individuals or organizations to have a direct line of access to the Oval Office--if you donate enough you will get to meet with the POTUS for one hour but for a lesser amount the White House would push for legislation or regulation which favored you or your business. Some of the controversial donations while she was SecState were from Russian oligarchs....
Bush began the drone program and Obama kicked it into high gear. Drone strikes under Trump are just cases of "business as usual".
Worry not, though--I already told everyone that Trump won't win reelection in 2020 so at worst you have only 2.5 years of him left...presuming he makes it that long and isn't impeached or resigns first.
- Wait, China is against TPP?! - Yes, Mr. President. - No one knew that! - If you say so, Mr. President. - But that little Chinese guy I golfed with said he liked TPP! - Shinzo Abe is the Prime Minister of Japan, Mr. President. - Yeah, Shinzo! Great little Chinese guy. You know, golfing is a skill, it's a skill, like, some guys can just sink a putt, bing bing bong, but other-- - Mr. President, Prime Minister Abe is not Chinese. Japan is not part of China. - No one had any idea!
The verdict is in for the Liberal aide who hit delete on emails regarding the cancelation of two power plants at a cost of $1 Billion to save two liberal seats. He is going to jail for 4 months, with 12 months of probation and 100 hours of community service.
And if you think $1 Billion is a lot, allegedly it is chump change for the amount of money wasted by the Liberals have wasted when it comes to power and attempting to stay... well in power. This article breaks it down nicely. I am fortunate enough to have my hydro covered in my rent but these costs effect everyone from pensioners to international businesses looking to do business in the province. Its sad they have been given this long to utterly destroy something that use to be an strength for Ontario.
I would say that an extramarital affair indicates a certain lack of empathy and/or a certain lack of self-control. Studies have found that taking a position of power for even a brief period of time is enough to suppress one's sense of empathy, so an affair while in office does not necessarily mean that politician has a weaker sense of empathy than any normal person who was elevated to that position. If the affair happened before taking public office, or if the sex while in office was nonconsensual, that would be a stronger clue that the politician was genuinely a scumbag at heart--those acts could not be blamed on power's negative effect on empathy.
A couple thoughts:
- Why would you be quick to jump to the conclusions that ordinary politicians commit affairs as a result of a loss of empathy upon taking office in the first place? Is that a necessary prerequisite for the desire to have an affair?
- Wouldn't the status of celebrity endow someone with the same sense of power and prestige the status of a politician would, leading to a similar loss of empathy? I tend to see a connection here.
I guess if we had Clinton, then a lot of the standard political corruption and maybe even metoo and stuff wouldn't have happened.
I agree the MeToo stuff probably wouldn't have happened because Clinton and Obama and their ilk were such good friends with Weinstein and all the other Hollywood elites i'm sure they were content to know and keep it swept under the rug. How much money did he raise for them again? Maybe it's the conspiracy theorist in me but I think it's possible Trump's win and the dam on this stuff breaking at the same time are not unconnected events.
As for political corruption, seeing all the hugely unethical moves that were done on the part of her and her cronies in 2016 I can only be amazed by that statement.
We should *never* desire to try and rejoin the TPP, for a variety of reasons. Reason number 1: Congress was going to be able to read it--mostly--but not recommend any changes--they could either accept it as written (the parts they could read, anyway) or reject it. Reason 2: it was going to set up the international tribunal, with judges picked by corporate interests, which could overturn national laws which could hinder corporate profits--the corporations were going to take over the world, for real. Go check Democracy Now for a whole slew of insight into how/why the TPP was, and still would be, a disaster if implemented.
The rejection of the TPP by Trump was one of my biggest points in favor of him, in contrast to Clinton's glowing praise of it and subsequent dishonest flip-flopping. If he decides to go ahead on a deal that includes those corporate rule provisions it would be an astoundingly dumb move politically and for the country.
- Why would you be quick to jump to the conclusions that ordinary politicians commit affairs as a result of a loss of empathy upon taking office in the first place? Is that a necessary prerequisite for the desire to have an affair?
- Wouldn't the status of celebrity endow someone with the same sense of power and prestige the status of a politician would, leading to a similar loss of empathy? I tend to see a connection here.
A lack of empathy isn't necessarily a prerequisite for having an affair. It's just a contributing factor. You can always blame part of the affair on basic lust rather than a lack of empathy. Maybe the politician was typically a good person and only cheated on his wife because power affected his brain and corrupted him; maybe the politician was a scumbag at heart and would have cheated on his wife regardless of whether he ever took office. Having an affair doesn't necessarily mean you're a sociopath--it's just that a sociopath would be more likely to cheat. It's an indicator rather than a proof.
After all, Martin Luther King Jr. cheated on his wife. Yet few would claim he had a poor sense of empathy.
I have little doubt that celebrity has the same mental effects as political power, since you see a lot of the same scandals among both celebrities and politicians. Fame persuades people that they are above the rules and it blinds them to the needs of others. It gives the celebrity the impression that they're better or more important than other people.
Fame, power, and money don't necessarily make somebody a bad person. But they do encourage people to be selfish, because a famous, powerful, or wealthy person is more likely to get away with misconduct.
I hope the conversation can stay where it is for the moment, as it is preferred to hearing that Russian and US forced have killed or bombed each other (on purpose or inadvertently) over the matter of chemical attacks. I keep hearing supposed outrage at the use of gas, calling it a humanitarian disaster all of a sudden. That coming after what, 1/2 million dead and millions more displaced? What was that, plantin corn or something. ?
The stupid rationalizations of war rules continue to confound me. You can kill with hands, knives, guns, piano wire, little bombs, BIG bombs, but "Oh lawd, woe to the one that chucks out a can of Raid into people, we gotta do something NOW." Gimmi a break. Sounds more just like an excuse to get into a real war, and say 'See, it's justified because of a chemical, we couldn't before, cause they were just blowing up cities n such". Last time I checked, bombs were chemicals as well, and can kill just as indiscriminately as gas attacks (nuclear even worse), with the addition of leaving cities junkyards that might as well be bulldozed and rebuilt from the ground up. As far as the Geneva Protocol's regarding gas and bio-weapons use in warfare. Do people really expect others to take options off the table when fighting to win? "You can't kill like that, that ain't right."Yeah right. Maybe the news should start showing more people burned alive and have limbs that were blown or shot off with accepted allowed and conventional method's along side the folks having trouble breathing with added blisters. That got old, so the news has gotten something new to be up in arms about and get good coverage.
The takeaway I guess is I find war pretty much a crap situation, but to get up in arms after sooo long regarding the Syrian conflict over gas, at this point, is just flat out, a crock. Red lines? If 500 people affected by gas is the red line, then the red line makes no sense whatever (other than the excuse to really get serious and have other countries agree).
On a side note, Russia has a much greater knowledge of offensive AND defensive uses of bio-weapons and chemical attacks, as they continued the research on this long after the US supposedly stopped. With good offensive research there is also better knowledge of how to defend against such things as well.
I agree the MeToo stuff probably wouldn't have happened because Clinton and Obama and their ilk were such good friends with Weinstein and all the other Hollywood elites i'm sure they were content to know and keep it swept under the rug. How much money did he raise for them again? Maybe it's the conspiracy theorist in me but I think it's possible Trump's win and the dam on this stuff breaking at the same time are not unconnected events.
The standard hypothesized Trump -> MeToo link is that electing an admitted serial sexual assaulter as president provoked anger and shock that led more women to share their stories and more people to believe them.
The two biggest pieces of reporting on Weinstein were in the New York Times and The New Yorker, and they were by people who are very much of the Obama-Clinton "ilk." One of the reporters on the NYT story wrote The Obamas. The New Yorker story was by a Hollywood-adjacent liberal whose boyfriend has been a speechwriter for both Clinton and Obama.
I don't understand what the proposed conspiracy would be here. Are you suggesting that these people decided to stop covering for Weinstein because Trump got elected? Or that they lost the ability to cover for him because they no longer hold the White House?
I don't understand what the proposed conspiracy would be here
The proposed conspiracy would be that people felt emboldened having the highest office in the land being occupied by someone who feels insulted and slighted by Hollywood rather than someone who was literally taking donations and fraternizing with the alleged abusers. Who would be more likely to act against the abusers and who would be more likely to defend the abusers?
You don't have to take it seriously, it is admittedly a suspicion without evidence, but you would never trust someone who was on the payroll of your abuser to rectify the situation.
So former Trump doorman who was paid off by the national enquirer to kill his story said the story he's not telling was that Trump fathered a kid with his housekeeper. Defender of Christian valuez.
“Today I awoke to learn that a confidential agreement that I had with AMI (The National Enquirer) with regard to a story about President Trump was leaked to the press,” Sajudin said in the statement Thursday.
“I can confirm that while working at Trump World Tower I was instructed not to criticize President Trump’s former housekeeper due to a prior relationship she had with President Trump which produced a child.”
The AP reported that American Media Inc. (AMI) had given Sajudin $30,000 in exchange to the rights “in perpetuity” for the story of the former doorman.
It is starting to sound more like a reality show--or a soap opera--with every passing week. Now this doorman needs to put up or shut up--produce the former housekeeper, including child, and let's get a DNA test. This will never happen, of course, because Trump, like most politicians, denies everything.
Comments
Getting concessions from China would be a pleasant surprise.
I think we have a higher chance with Trump in office of real concessions, if only because he seems more determined to carry on the fight than any previous President. Did anyone else ever even bring it up, let alone campaign on it? Not often, anyway.
The problem is that he paid off a porn star (and a playmate and others possibly who have signed NDA and are not talking?). Any reasonable person would say that payment was made to influence the election because he didn't want the info of this affair to get out, so he had his lawyer pay her off and sign a punitive NDA about it.
This is illegal under campaign finance law and the president and his lawyer have been trying to cover it up. Also this payoff shows the president is vulnerable to blackmail, which is what the Steele dossier warned us about even more unverified things that he was at risk for blackmail about. This is verified. Those are the problems. If he admitted it and prayed for forgiveness or whatever that would be one thing but he's still lying about it to this day.
If Trump were to fire Sessions, then I believe Rosenstein would become acting AG. If Rosenstein were fired (and not Sessions), then I believe the Solicitor General would become acting deputy AG.
The point being - I dont think Trump can simply fire someone from the DOJ and then fill his position immediately with a crony that would kill/muzzle the investigation. It just goes down the line of established people.
Now - he would get to nominate a successor to that person, which would need to go through the confirmation process. Maybe the GOP would run whomever he picks through really quick and the situation goes on (but my guess is that this would take awhile, and would be politically costly on its own... ignoring the enormous fallout of firing anyone from the DOJ over the probe).
Now - playing backroom politics, it's possible Trump would have already make sure the Solicitor General was ready to kill/muzzle the investigation before firing Rosenstein, and the end result is the same -- but that's far from a for-sure thing.
Re: Stormy Daniels, having had an extramarital affair does not disqualify someone from leadership. In this case, though, I see Trump's many affairs as pieces in the mountain of evidence demonstrating that he is an overall bad person. As far as I can tell, every other president since Nixon, at least, generally cared about doing the right thing. They've been flawed people, and other priorities (ego, expediency, libido...) have often taken precedence, but I still believe that they all possessed -- and sometimes consulted -- moral compasses. It frightens me that Trump apparently does not.
The two things worst things Trump has been accused of thus far are not liberal conspiracies or wishful thinking of those looking for a scandal to take him down. He ADMITTED to firing to Comey to shut down the Russia Investigation in a live interview with Lester Holt, and he described to a tee what he does to women he finds attractive, while he didn't know he was being taped, and what he described was EXACTLY what the dozen or so women who have come forward to accuse him of sexual assault said happened to them. Trump is Jack Nicholson at the end of "A Few Good Men". He long ago admitted to ordering the Code Red in BOTH cases, and anyone can go watch the tape or listen to the audio.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/11/us/missouri-greitens-house-impeachment-inquiry.html
CNN has a brief article about who would take over if Rosenstein is forced out. The TLDR version is "no one really knows for sure"--it hinges upon whether Rosenstein is fired versus resigning as well as whether he is overseeing the Mueller Investigation as "Deputy Attorney General" or "Acting Attorney General".
https://www.popehat.com/2018/04/09/the-search-of-trump-lawyer-michael-cohens-office-what-we-can-infer-immediately/
And yes, as the article mentions, for a Magistrate to sign off on raiding the office and hotel room of the lawyer of the President of the United States, an EXCEPTIONALLY high bar would have had to have been met.
But emails! Ok but bribes to pornstars and Trumps had all kinds of people without security clearances and just damn poorly vetted people such as Rob Porter and Sebastian Gorka having access to classified data. Michael Flynn an agent of foreign countries was put by trump in charge of classified information. Now insane john Bolton will be in charge of national security agency. That's worse than some emails might have spilled some classified on a private server isn't it?
Bengahzi! After 17 republican investigations I think we've learned that Yeah more could have been done and that's about all you can blame hillary for. Trump is hiring pro torture people to run the CIA and stuff and indiscriminately using drones that are killing civilians.
What else? The Clinton Foundation! Trump Foundation had to be shut down lol because it was totally corrupt. It was totally shut down in New York prior to shutting down for good. At worst I believe we've seen stuff that might have the appearance of impropriety but on the other hand the foundation did a lot of charitable work apparently with the money they got. Trump's foundation seemed to be a front for laundering money so that he can buy statues of himself (srsly).
It's clear that guy had been watching nothing but fox news. He even said something about Trump keeping his promises lol which he only could have got there. Look I'm not even a big clinton supporter either. I guess if we had Clinton, then a lot of the standard political corruption and maybe even metoo and stuff wouldn't have happened. So I guess it's good in some respects that the country isn't asleep anymore with a normal boring politician. Because Trump is so bad he's making people take action.
Bush began the drone program and Obama kicked it into high gear. Drone strikes under Trump are just cases of "business as usual".
Worry not, though--I already told everyone that Trump won't win reelection in 2020 so at worst you have only 2.5 years of him left...presuming he makes it that long and isn't impeached or resigns first.
- Yes, Mr. President.
- No one knew that!
- If you say so, Mr. President.
- But that little Chinese guy I golfed with said he liked TPP!
- Shinzo Abe is the Prime Minister of Japan, Mr. President.
- Yeah, Shinzo! Great little Chinese guy. You know, golfing is a skill, it's a skill, like, some guys can just sink a putt, bing bing bong, but other--
- Mr. President, Prime Minister Abe is not Chinese. Japan is not part of China.
- No one had any idea!
The verdict is in for the Liberal aide who hit delete on emails regarding the cancelation of two power plants at a cost of $1 Billion to save two liberal seats. He is going to jail for 4 months, with 12 months of probation and 100 hours of community service.
And if you think $1 Billion is a lot, allegedly it is chump change for the amount of money wasted by the Liberals have wasted when it comes to power and attempting to stay... well in power. This article breaks it down nicely. I am fortunate enough to have my hydro covered in my rent but these costs effect everyone from pensioners to international businesses looking to do business in the province. Its sad they have been given this long to utterly destroy something that use to be an strength for Ontario.
- Why would you be quick to jump to the conclusions that ordinary politicians commit affairs as a result of a loss of empathy upon taking office in the first place? Is that a necessary prerequisite for the desire to have an affair?
- Wouldn't the status of celebrity endow someone with the same sense of power and prestige the status of a politician would, leading to a similar loss of empathy? I tend to see a connection here. I agree the MeToo stuff probably wouldn't have happened because Clinton and Obama and their ilk were such good friends with Weinstein and all the other Hollywood elites i'm sure they were content to know and keep it swept under the rug. How much money did he raise for them again? Maybe it's the conspiracy theorist in me but I think it's possible Trump's win and the dam on this stuff breaking at the same time are not unconnected events.
As for political corruption, seeing all the hugely unethical moves that were done on the part of her and her cronies in 2016 I can only be amazed by that statement.
After all, Martin Luther King Jr. cheated on his wife. Yet few would claim he had a poor sense of empathy.
I have little doubt that celebrity has the same mental effects as political power, since you see a lot of the same scandals among both celebrities and politicians. Fame persuades people that they are above the rules and it blinds them to the needs of others. It gives the celebrity the impression that they're better or more important than other people.
Fame, power, and money don't necessarily make somebody a bad person. But they do encourage people to be selfish, because a famous, powerful, or wealthy person is more likely to get away with misconduct.
The stupid rationalizations of war rules continue to confound me. You can kill with hands, knives, guns, piano wire, little bombs, BIG bombs, but "Oh lawd, woe to the one that chucks out a can of Raid into people, we gotta do something NOW."
Gimmi a break. Sounds more just like an excuse to get into a real war, and say 'See, it's justified because of a chemical, we couldn't before, cause they were just blowing up cities n such".
Last time I checked, bombs were chemicals as well, and can kill just as indiscriminately as gas attacks (nuclear even worse), with the addition of leaving cities junkyards that might as well be bulldozed and rebuilt from the ground up.
As far as the Geneva Protocol's regarding gas and bio-weapons use in warfare. Do people really expect others to take options off the table when fighting to win?
"You can't kill like that, that ain't right."Yeah right.
Maybe the news should start showing more people burned alive and have limbs that were blown or shot off with accepted allowed and conventional method's along side the folks having trouble breathing with added blisters. That got old, so the news has gotten something new to be up in arms about and get good coverage.
The takeaway I guess is I find war pretty much a crap situation, but to get up in arms after sooo long regarding the Syrian conflict over gas, at this point, is just flat out, a crock.
Red lines? If 500 people affected by gas is the red line, then the red line makes no sense whatever (other than the excuse to really get serious and have other countries agree).
On a side note, Russia has a much greater knowledge of offensive AND defensive uses of bio-weapons and chemical attacks, as they continued the research on this long after the US supposedly stopped. With good offensive research there is also better knowledge of how to defend against such things as well.
The two biggest pieces of reporting on Weinstein were in the New York Times and The New Yorker, and they were by people who are very much of the Obama-Clinton "ilk." One of the reporters on the NYT story wrote The Obamas. The New Yorker story was by a Hollywood-adjacent liberal whose boyfriend has been a speechwriter for both Clinton and Obama.
I don't understand what the proposed conspiracy would be here. Are you suggesting that these people decided to stop covering for Weinstein because Trump got elected? Or that they lost the ability to cover for him because they no longer hold the White House?
“Today I awoke to learn that a confidential agreement that I had with AMI (The National Enquirer) with regard to a story about President Trump was leaked to the press,” Sajudin said in the statement Thursday.
“I can confirm that while working at Trump World Tower I was instructed not to criticize President Trump’s former housekeeper due to a prior relationship she had with President Trump which produced a child.”
The AP reported that American Media Inc. (AMI) had given Sajudin $30,000 in exchange to the rights “in perpetuity” for the story of the former doorman.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/382909-ex-doorman-i-wasnt-allowed-to-criticize-trumps-housekeeper-because
Does this story surprise anyone, though?