People aren't convicted on dictionary definitions. Are you wondering what type of legal jeopardy the presidents people are in? It must be significant because they keep lying to investigators about their actions like a traitor would do. If they think it's better to lie to investigators than tell the truth they must realize they've done something wrong.
Actually, I don't care what sort of legal jeopardy Trump's people might be in--I didn't vote for him so they aren't "my" people. I do care about using the words "traitor" or "treason" when that hasn't been an indictment against anyone, much less even a suggestion. Only people who thoroughly dislike Trump are using that word. Those words should be reserved for *actual* treason, not as a euphamism for "I don't like him or his policies".
I place Saudi Arabia in the "not an enemy" category rather than "friendly". Those are different things altogether.
While "I don't like him or his policies" that is not the reason for the treason label. It is not a euphemism.
The reason he and his goons are called treasonous is because they met with multiple foreign powers with the express purpose of getting material help from those foreign powers to win the Presidency. In particular, they conspired with Russian intelligence agents. Jr. said he really hoped the Kremlin spies had dirt on Clinton. That's not even in dispute.
Team Trump conspired with multiple foreign powers besides Russia in order to alter the election in his favor. His team's actions were meant to ensure American voters voted his way instead of another way that they might have voted without the foreign aid and influence. They sought help from foreign spies to gain votes.
Would he have won anyway? We have no idea because he did in fact have his most important people meet with foreign agents to tip the scales in his favor. How much did he know? We don't publicly know for sure, I think it's safe to say he knows more than he has admited so far.
Is this the legal definition of collusion, treason, or what have you? I don't know but it meets the common sense definition of treason.
In addition Trump has very publicly been covering up, interfering and trying to stymie the investigation.
His actions have been those of a traitor. I'm not saying that just because we don't like the guy, but because of the actions and words of he himself and those around him.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines treason as:
1 : the offense of attempting by overt acts to overthrow the government of the state to which the offender owes allegiance or to kill or personally injure the sovereign or the sovereign's family 2 : the betrayal of a trust
The first definition is the legal one and I agree that Trump can't realistically be accused of that. The second, however, is what most people would regard as treason in ordinary conversation and I think it's perfectly reasonable to regard Trump as betraying trust. While not trying to overthrow the government he's clearly done a lot to undermine the norms and values that the government has historically tried to uphold, e.g. - free press (refusal to hold press conferences or give free access to press, use of social media to bypass other routes, vendetta against certain newspapers, limiting TV interviews to certain stations etc). - neutral justice system (refusal to resolve personal conflicts of interest, failure to appoint judges in a timely fashion, regular calls to take action on certain issues where the executive should have no role etc).
There are lots of other areas I could review as well, but I don't think I need to here. The point is that it's not at all unreasonable to regard Trump as betraying trust (of course from a different political standpoint it's also not unreasonable to say that historic values need shaking up and Trump is doing exactly what he always said he would in that regard).
I think @Mathsorcerer was making a technical point about the use of language and suggesting that stating something as treasonous was not a good idea as it implies the speaker believes Trump is aiming to overthrow the government. While I understand that concern I think it's overblown and the vast majority of readers / listeners would understand that 'treason' is being used in its everyday meaning rather than its legal one.
With Pompeo's open threatening of European companies in the Iran sanction issue he managed to piss off a lot of people (and I don't quite like it myself, but they already pissed me off when putting me on a VISA list for visiting the concerned country a couple of years ago). Now thanks to him, Europe is likely to work harder on finding loopholes to blow the sanctions. Not to mention the EU is not some backwater economy, it's the largest single trading block on earth. Not to mention Trump's tearing of the Iran deal only tells everyone the US words mean balls, you can negocy with them at the end they won't respect it anyway.
They're also throwing Iran in the hands of anti-west radicals. Think they're going to bend the knee? Now those who say you can't trust the USA are right and in their perspective there's no point in negociation.
Seriously, who needs ennemies with allies like Trump's USA?
With Pompeo's open threatening of European companies in the Iran sanction issue he managed to piss off a lot of people (and I don't quite like it myself, but they already pissed me off when putting me on a VISA list for visiting the concerned country a couple of years ago). Now thanks to him, Europe is likely to work harder on finding loopholes to blow the sanctions. Not to mention the EU is not some backwater economy, it's the largest single trading block on earth. Not to mention Trump's tearing of the Iran deal only tells everyone the US words mean balls, you can negocy with them at the end they won't respect it anyway.
They're also throwing Iran in the hands of anti-west radicals. Think they're going to bend the knee? Now those who say you can't trust the USA are right and in their perspective there's no point in negociation.
Seriously, who needs ennemies with allies like Trump's USA?
I think many here in the US simply dismiss just what kind of damage he is doing to our relationships with our long-time allies. He is not just burning bridges, but napalming them, often for no discernible reason.
As much as the USA may have some points and the ayatollah's are no angels, this kind of diplomacy is the worst ever. It's even turning long term allies against them.
As someone who's been to Iran the US past regarding this country is awful. Overthrowing a democratic government for a dictatorship from which the country has not yet recovered. Protecting and supporting mass killers even after the fall of the Shah regime, shooting down a civilian airplane with hundreads aboard (flight 655). The American diplomatic record with Iran is just awful, would I be Iranian, I would hate the USA for what they've done to the country. Not to mention the double standard, supporting Saudi? The country is one of the worst human right offender on earth, and it's not just me saying so, it's all NGOs... and I won't buy the interference card, Saudi financed salafist mosques all accross europe including France (and what is it if not ingerence).
Progresses were made, the supreme guide of Iran knew he couldn't keep the country on a leash and had to allow for more moderate parties to access power (like Rohani). Now, these moderates look stupid and fooled by the USA. What is likely to happen now, I see only one possibility, the Iranians see there is nothing to expect from the USA, whatever they'll do, they'll always hurt them (and history gives them a strong case here) so we may see the hard line gaining foothold and sending us back decades earlier in term of stability.
And that's just from Iran, Russia is already pissed at him (and to us to here, to be fair), he's pissing China off with his trade war, he's pissing Japan off with tariffes on steel, he's pissing western europeans off with threatening them like if they were some rogue state, he pissed off mexicans with his wall nonsenses (as if a wall would stop immigration anyway, ask us here, we have the best one, the mediterranean sea, and it doesn't work)... at this rate the next president will be in a very difficult position to fix that.
I don't know IF the next president would be able to fix this. The most likely scenario is that we either try to fix Trump's mess, fail, and accomplish nothing. Or we pull out of the world stage for awhile, and laser focus on our own problems for awhile.
Not to mention Trump's tearing of the Iran deal only tells everyone the US words mean balls, you can negocy with them at the end they won't respect it anyway.
This is actually Obama's fault...to a degree. If the JCPOA had been a treaty rather than a handshake deal then it would still be in effect. Of course, the Republican-controlled Senate at the time would *never* have ratified such a treaty just to thumb their nose at Obama like they did over Supreme Court nominations, but at least Obama would have tried to get it to work. Trump's ending of our involvement in that plan sets up the situation where Iran can come out with a better reputation than ours only by continuing to adhere to the agreement with all other involved parties. Trump spent so many years in business that he cannot see past this quarter's bottom line--he thinks only in the short term.
The Federal Reserve is thinking about rolling back the Volcker Rule, part of the Dodd-Frank Consumer Protection Act which prevents banks from making risky investments with customer deposits. *sigh* If they do, it will be 2006 through July 2008 all over again--we don't need another bubble to burst right now. I certainly don't need that--it has been only in the last two weeks that we realized that our house, for which we paid x and currently owe 0.918x, has accrued value/equity up to 1.5x because of rising property values/property development in our area.
My brother in law is Iranian. He's lived in England since soon after the Iranian revolution in 1979 and, since his family lost their business in that revolution, you can probably imagine he's not too keen on religious extremism. In fact in most ways he's the model of British moderation. One way in which that is not true however, is his strong anti-US feelings. That goes back to the replacement of the democratic government of Mossadeq in 1953 in what was a prototype for what came to be known as CIA dirty tricks operations - here is a brief summary of the documents declassified on this only last year (though many were previously destroyed). Obviously there have been a number of further interventions in Iran and neighboring countries since then.
I'm not trying to make a point about the behavior of the US (and I recognize that the UK was at least as culpable over initiating the 1953 coup). However, I think it is necessary to understand that when people in other countries say they dislike and distrust the US they may well have excellent reasons for that. One of the things that was pretty remarkable about the arrangement of the Iran deal in the first place was that it was able to overcome that distrust. It's not a surprise the deal took a long time to negotiate, but it is a surprise it was successfully done in the end.
The scrapping of that deal (at least on the part of the US) will reignite historic levels of distrust and make achieving any international deal very difficult for the US in future. That's obviously particularly pertinent to North Korea where I'm moving rapidly from optimism to pessimism. Initially I was pleased by the idea of talks on the grounds that, though a quick positive outcome was unlikely, it was a good idea to keep channels of communication open and lay the basis for a long-term dialogue. The problem is that I don't believe that Trump has any interest in long-term dialogue and he is likely to actively sabotage any attempts by officials in his administration to prepare for that. I now think the best-case scenario from the upcoming talks is that they take place and produce an agreed program of action that then fails to be implemented, i.e. effectively a repeat of what has happened several times before with N. Korea. Unfortunately I can easily see much worse scenarios occurring where an embarrassing public failure is acknowledged, resulting in escalating rhetoric from the leaders and leading on to regrettable actions.
Since your friend live in UK since 1979 he probably didn't live in Iran during the Iran-Iraq war which left the country scared. In many places you can see buildings, housings and everything, bombed by the western backed (and particularly US backed) Iraqi armed forces. And I'm not just talking of conventional weapons but also chemical ones.
People I met, they all lost relatives in this war. And they're not quite forgetting.
The scrapping of that deal (at least on the part of the US) will reignite historic levels of distrust and make achieving any international deal very difficult for the US in future.
This is actually Obama's fault...to a degree. If the JCPOA had been a treaty rather than a handshake deal then it would still be in effect.
You're talking about legislative, bureaucratic, issues internal to the USA. It doesn't matter if its the work of a single man, a political establishment, or a moronic legislative system.
All that matters is that people will only see, and rightly see, you can't trust a deal with the USA.
This is actually Obama's fault...to a degree. If the JCPOA had been a treaty rather than a handshake deal then it would still be in effect.
You're talking about legislative, bureaucratic, issues internal to the USA. It doesn't matter if its the work of a single man, a political establishment, or a moronic legislative system.
All that matters is that people will only see, and rightly see, you can't trust a deal with the USA.
If anyone wanted to know, they should have just asked nearly ANY Native American tribe.
I do not consider the anti-American sentiment in Iran to be "fair." The CIA's involvement in the overthrow of Mossadegh and the imposition of the Shah is a decades-old event from the Cold War era by a small group of people acting with neither the approval nor even the knowledge of the American people. I have never heard anyone in America today speak of the puppet Shah government in positive terms; everyone has condemned the decision. Yet Iran acts as though the United States is fundamentally equivalent to a group of unelected officials who have been dead for two generations.
People may say Iran has a reason for feeling the way it does, but the reality of the matter is that this anti-American sentiment is nothing more than a stereotype based on wildly outdated information. We should not attempt to defend or justify ignorance. There is no excuse for bigotry.
I don't believe the sentiment is the result of bigotry: - the 1953 coup was something approved by the elected US government and whether or not the American people generally knew of that is not relevant to those affected by the decision. - that coup was not a single one-off event tied to the Cold War, but part of a decades-long pattern of power politics in pursuit of control over resources rather than the defense of American values. - the US directly encouraged and supported the invasion of Iran by Iraq in 1980. As @Matthieu mentioned earlier, that 8 year war included considerable use of chemical weapons supplied to Iraq by the US. Given this is well within the memory of many Iranians it is not surprising that they are sceptical about the 'red lines' now being proclaimed over the use of chemical weapons in Syria. - the Iran contra affair has been referred to in this thread before. While that action was not directed against Iran it still demonstrated to them the way in which the US was willing to undermine democratic values. - since the 1990s there have been ongoing disputes over a number of issues, including the development of nuclear weapons. There have been clear double standards applied by the US on this issue to Iran and Israel, which you really shouldn't expect Iran to be happy about.
I'm not trying to suggest that everything the US has done is bad and certainly not that everything that Iran has done is good. I do think though it is important to appreciate that there really are serious and legitimate grievances that Iran has against the US. Portraying Iranian views and actions as being just motivated by ignorance or bigotry is to ignore the recent history of relations between the countries.
but the reality of the matter is that this anti-American sentiment is nothing more than a stereotype based on wildly outdated information. We should not attempt to defend or justify ignorance.
I don't think it's outdated. I'm of this generation who entered professional world during one of the biggest lie of the 21th century, the rationale of the invasion of Iraq. It's another subject, but we're talking about the trustability, the credibility, of the US administrations.
Sadam Hussein was no angel, he was a criminal. We all agree on that. But what everyone saw is an explosive area with states which all were ready to blow and sink in chaos. I'm not talking of regimes, I'm talking of countries, let that be clear.
I am one of these people who saw an American president lying to the face of the entire world (claiming he had proofs of the presence of WMD in Iraq when ultimately there were none, that not telling the truth, that's telling the opposite of it and it's the definition of a lie in every dictionnary). I am one of those who saw an entire country invading a sovereign country of false evidences, false claims and in total disregard of all international laws and treaties the USA themselves contributed to establish.
I will discard the French veto thing, the USA failed to gather enough vote to even present their resolution to the security council. The last time France cast a lone veto it was on Mayotte and very few of us here were born. The USA faced no obstruction beyond their own failure to present substantial evidences, which we know retrospectively did not exist so they couldn't have anyway.
I very well remember, as someone following financial news, that the USA cancelled financial and humanitarian (depending on the level of devellopment) helps to emerging economies who refused to support them. Oman for a starter, in Europe you have Croatia, in every dictionnary you could call that a blackmail. So we have liars and blackmailers. Don't believe me? Check it up.
I very well remember that, despite claiming taking no interest in Iraq companies from countries who refused to support the invasion were barred from public procurement from the Iraqi government by the occupying power. That was a memo signed by Richard Perle if my memory serves me well (and it certainly does) and it was applied.
So... the massive distrust of the USA is outdated? No, it's not, it's very actual, very present. And I don't buy the "ignorant public" thing. The USA have a rather (I'm saying rather, it's not 100% free and here again it's not just me saying so but also professional NGOs like say Reporters Without Border) free access to information. I don't understand that "our country did shits but we didn't know" thing, we get it served all the time and it's always others facing the consequences.
Sorry, nothing is outdated, nothing has changed. Presidents left, were replaced, but the behaviour won't ever change.
How do you say in US laws? It is no longer possible give trust beyond the reasonable doubt.
PS: about the ignorance thing, despite everything above, George W. Bush was reelected...
Anyway, enough shitting on the US administrations/political system/establishment.
It's so much easier to just shit on Trump, guy's a magnet for these things.
He is a major source of the failures of the US administrations/political system/establishment these days - along with the Republicans in Congress.
Their strategy seems to be "be evil continously" They seem to think reasonable people will eventually give up and be like "well that's enough complaining about that I guess I'll just leave them to it".
So Leslie Stahl of 60 Minutes was participating in an interview with Judy Woodruff of PBS, and she flat-out says that this is what Donald Trump said to her when she asked about his attacks on the press, which I am assuming is a direct quote (or fairly close to it): “At one point he started to attack the press. And it’s just me and my boss and him, in— He has a huge office. And he’s attacking the press. And there were no cameras. There was nothing going on, and I said, ‘You know, that is getting tired. Why are you doing this? You’re doing it over and over, and it’s boring, and it’s time to end that. You’ve won the nomination (sic). Why do you keep hammering at this?’
“And he said, ‘You know why I do it? I do it to discredit you all and demean you all, so when you write negative stories about me no one will believe you.”
No shit. Anyone who has read "1984" figured this out 2 years ago. The real question is WHY anyone would have ever pretended this wasn't the case, or WHY anyone would take anything he says seriously given such an admission. Again, we are dealing with someone who uses pathological lying as a deliberate tactic. And OF COURSE it works to a certain degree. It always has. In fact, there will be plenty of people who assume Leslie Stahl is lying PRECISELY because of how Trump conducts this campaign on a daily basis, probably even some people in this thread. Which frankly just goes to show how easy a game this is to rig. When there are no consequences, a person willing to lie as easily as he breathes is ALWAYS at the advantage. Always.
@jjstraka34 I dunno, those are awfully big words for Trump.
Honestly, when you go back and listen to Trump in interviews from 20 years ago, he sounds completely lucid and is able to at least feign intelligence. It's almost like he has devolved. He doesn't even speak the same way anymore. The regression in his language and speaking skills is actually quite stark. Whether it is physical and mental or done on purpose is another matter.
@jjstraka34 I dunno, those are awfully big words for Trump.
Honestly, when you go back and listen to Trump in interviews from 20 years ago, he sounds completely lucid and is able to at least feign intelligence. It's almost like he has devolved. He doesn't even speak the same way anymore. The regression in his language and speaking skills is actually quite stark. Whether it is physical and mental or done on purpose is another matter.
It's a little of both I'd think.
He's gotten older and a bit less sharp but so practiced at lying (psychopathic) that he doesn't even believe the truth anymore.
Everything. must. be. spun. By spun I mean slanted towards whatever lie suits his purpose. He's like a lie filter - stuff goes in his ears and then in real-time it comes out his mouth where everything bad is not his fault or if it's good then he alone did it.
Say what you will about the UK Royal Family, they have finely honed survival instincts. While the country's political parties struggle with Brexit, Grenfell, and the Windrush scandal (concerning the status of immigrants from countries like Jamaica who have been in the country for 40 years).... those cunnin' aristos get ahead of the curve by having a celebration of multiracial harmony with a potential sequel in the works. (Births, deaths, & weddings are the premier products of this brand.) Fascinating that the hereditary parts of the body politic like the Lords and the monarchy are currently on the progressive side of Britain's schizophrenia while the main political parties try to cautiously outflank each other on immigration & anti-globalisation.
We will never know the truth, but, these Bavarian Royals make sure their children always marry Royal Bloodlines. Her mother's side being from slaves is just the PR dream that the Royals wanted. Icing on the Wedding cake, if you will.
While Trump is not directly implicated in illegality by the story, Cohen most definitely is. With his future looking anything but rosy I presume Trump is weighing up what's the most dangerous course of action: - leave things alone and risk Cohen co-operating with prosecutors and letting them know where all the bodies are buried, or - provide a pardon for someone that clearly doesn't deserve to be pardoned and hope that doesn't stretch support from Republicans in Congress to breaking point.
Comey comes across as just another disgruntled ex-employee, though. Is he ever going to own up to his role in helping get Trump elected? The mishandling of Hillary's e-mail server issue looked like amateur hour for the Keystone Cops--we are investigating...well, no we aren't...well, yes maybe we are.
Comey comes across as just another disgruntled ex-employee, though. Is he ever going to own up to his role in helping get Trump elected? The mishandling of Hillary's e-mail server issue looked like amateur hour for the Keystone Cops--we are investigating...well, no we aren't...well, yes maybe we are.
If you'd heard him or read his book he's explained his role in helping Trump get elected. He announced the reopening of the Clinton email case based on new evidence - Weiner had thousands of emails and his teams told him they couldn't possibly get through them all before the election. He had testified to Congress that the case was closed. There was a chance that Clinton would be elected and then he'd turn around a couple months later and say oh yeah that case that was closed, well we had reopened it and found x,y, z... He didn't want to call into question the integrity of the FBI and Justice Department that way (lol in hindsight, Trumps attacks have done way worse damage).
So he deliberated, with staff, whether to "conceal" that the investigation was reopened or to "disclose" that it was reopened. There was some concern that leaks might happen if he said nothing. This was a real concern since Rudy Giuliani had been on Fox News with seeming prior inside knowledge of the Clinton case with details that had not been public. So Comey decided to disclose that the case was reopened.
People can say in hindsight it was a monumental mistake since it did help lead to President Trump. But he seemingly acted as best he could at the time under the pressures he was under from Congressional Republican during their Clinton email witch hunts.
The irony is that fumbling that case *caused* the FBI's integrity and credibility to be called into question. Once more e-mail messages were found on Weiner's laptop the inquiry should have been made *quietly*, not shouted to the evening news. Comey did a fine job at the FBI for years but he fumbled that one case so badly that that is all he will be remembered for.
I never bother wasting my time reading someone's autobiography or collection of personal anecdotes, primarily because I don't care about their life that much.
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I see Kushner got his security clearance restored. I am uncertain where to go with that other than to wonder what sort of closed-door back room deal got made.
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An employee at the United States embassy in China has suffered a sonic attack much like the ones which happened in Havana. Now that we know what caused them--listening devices were placed too closely to each other and tuned to different frequencies, leading to an interference pattern (for example, 8000 Hz and 8007 Hz would lead to two resonances at 7Hz and 16007 Hz)--we are going to start seeing those listening devices weaponized in this manner. Ultrasonic frequencies can lead to headaches and disorientation while infrasonic frequencies can case central nervous system problems, organ failure, and possibly even death.
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The reason he and his goons are called treasonous is because they met with multiple foreign powers with the express purpose of getting material help from those foreign powers to win the Presidency. In particular, they conspired with Russian intelligence agents. Jr. said he really hoped the Kremlin spies had dirt on Clinton. That's not even in dispute.
Team Trump conspired with multiple foreign powers besides Russia in order to alter the election in his favor. His team's actions were meant to ensure American voters voted his way instead of another way that they might have voted without the foreign aid and influence. They sought help from foreign spies to gain votes.
Would he have won anyway? We have no idea because he did in fact have his most important people meet with foreign agents to tip the scales in his favor. How much did he know? We don't publicly know for sure, I think it's safe to say he knows more than he has admited so far.
Is this the legal definition of collusion, treason, or what have you? I don't know but it meets the common sense definition of treason.
In addition Trump has very publicly been covering up, interfering and trying to stymie the investigation.
His actions have been those of a traitor. I'm not saying that just because we don't like the guy, but because of the actions and words of he himself and those around him.
1 : the offense of attempting by overt acts to overthrow the government of the state to which the offender owes allegiance or to kill or personally injure the sovereign or the sovereign's family
2 : the betrayal of a trust
The first definition is the legal one and I agree that Trump can't realistically be accused of that. The second, however, is what most people would regard as treason in ordinary conversation and I think it's perfectly reasonable to regard Trump as betraying trust. While not trying to overthrow the government he's clearly done a lot to undermine the norms and values that the government has historically tried to uphold, e.g.
- free press (refusal to hold press conferences or give free access to press, use of social media to bypass other routes, vendetta against certain newspapers, limiting TV interviews to certain stations etc).
- neutral justice system (refusal to resolve personal conflicts of interest, failure to appoint judges in a timely fashion, regular calls to take action on certain issues where the executive should have no role etc).
There are lots of other areas I could review as well, but I don't think I need to here. The point is that it's not at all unreasonable to regard Trump as betraying trust (of course from a different political standpoint it's also not unreasonable to say that historic values need shaking up and Trump is doing exactly what he always said he would in that regard).
I think @Mathsorcerer was making a technical point about the use of language and suggesting that stating something as treasonous was not a good idea as it implies the speaker believes Trump is aiming to overthrow the government. While I understand that concern I think it's overblown and the vast majority of readers / listeners would understand that 'treason' is being used in its everyday meaning rather than its legal one.
They're also throwing Iran in the hands of anti-west radicals. Think they're going to bend the knee? Now those who say you can't trust the USA are right and in their perspective there's no point in negociation.
Seriously, who needs ennemies with allies like Trump's USA?
As someone who's been to Iran the US past regarding this country is awful. Overthrowing a democratic government for a dictatorship from which the country has not yet recovered. Protecting and supporting mass killers even after the fall of the Shah regime, shooting down a civilian airplane with hundreads aboard (flight 655). The American diplomatic record with Iran is just awful, would I be Iranian, I would hate the USA for what they've done to the country. Not to mention the double standard, supporting Saudi? The country is one of the worst human right offender on earth, and it's not just me saying so, it's all NGOs... and I won't buy the interference card, Saudi financed salafist mosques all accross europe including France (and what is it if not ingerence).
Progresses were made, the supreme guide of Iran knew he couldn't keep the country on a leash and had to allow for more moderate parties to access power (like Rohani). Now, these moderates look stupid and fooled by the USA. What is likely to happen now, I see only one possibility, the Iranians see there is nothing to expect from the USA, whatever they'll do, they'll always hurt them (and history gives them a strong case here) so we may see the hard line gaining foothold and sending us back decades earlier in term of stability.
And that's just from Iran, Russia is already pissed at him (and to us to here, to be fair), he's pissing China off with his trade war, he's pissing Japan off with tariffes on steel, he's pissing western europeans off with threatening them like if they were some rogue state, he pissed off mexicans with his wall nonsenses (as if a wall would stop immigration anyway, ask us here, we have the best one, the mediterranean sea, and it doesn't work)... at this rate the next president will be in a very difficult position to fix that.
The Federal Reserve is thinking about rolling back the Volcker Rule, part of the Dodd-Frank Consumer Protection Act which prevents banks from making risky investments with customer deposits. *sigh* If they do, it will be 2006 through July 2008 all over again--we don't need another bubble to burst right now. I certainly don't need that--it has been only in the last two weeks that we realized that our house, for which we paid x and currently owe 0.918x, has accrued value/equity up to 1.5x because of rising property values/property development in our area.
I'm not trying to make a point about the behavior of the US (and I recognize that the UK was at least as culpable over initiating the 1953 coup). However, I think it is necessary to understand that when people in other countries say they dislike and distrust the US they may well have excellent reasons for that. One of the things that was pretty remarkable about the arrangement of the Iran deal in the first place was that it was able to overcome that distrust. It's not a surprise the deal took a long time to negotiate, but it is a surprise it was successfully done in the end.
The scrapping of that deal (at least on the part of the US) will reignite historic levels of distrust and make achieving any international deal very difficult for the US in future. That's obviously particularly pertinent to North Korea where I'm moving rapidly from optimism to pessimism. Initially I was pleased by the idea of talks on the grounds that, though a quick positive outcome was unlikely, it was a good idea to keep channels of communication open and lay the basis for a long-term dialogue. The problem is that I don't believe that Trump has any interest in long-term dialogue and he is likely to actively sabotage any attempts by officials in his administration to prepare for that. I now think the best-case scenario from the upcoming talks is that they take place and produce an agreed program of action that then fails to be implemented, i.e. effectively a repeat of what has happened several times before with N. Korea. Unfortunately I can easily see much worse scenarios occurring where an embarrassing public failure is acknowledged, resulting in escalating rhetoric from the leaders and leading on to regrettable actions.
People I met, they all lost relatives in this war. And they're not quite forgetting. And that.
All that matters is that people will only see, and rightly see, you can't trust a deal with the USA.
People may say Iran has a reason for feeling the way it does, but the reality of the matter is that this anti-American sentiment is nothing more than a stereotype based on wildly outdated information. We should not attempt to defend or justify ignorance. There is no excuse for bigotry.
- the 1953 coup was something approved by the elected US government and whether or not the American people generally knew of that is not relevant to those affected by the decision.
- that coup was not a single one-off event tied to the Cold War, but part of a decades-long pattern of power politics in pursuit of control over resources rather than the defense of American values.
- the US directly encouraged and supported the invasion of Iran by Iraq in 1980. As @Matthieu mentioned earlier, that 8 year war included considerable use of chemical weapons supplied to Iraq by the US. Given this is well within the memory of many Iranians it is not surprising that they are sceptical about the 'red lines' now being proclaimed over the use of chemical weapons in Syria.
- the Iran contra affair has been referred to in this thread before. While that action was not directed against Iran it still demonstrated to them the way in which the US was willing to undermine democratic values.
- since the 1990s there have been ongoing disputes over a number of issues, including the development of nuclear weapons. There have been clear double standards applied by the US on this issue to Iran and Israel, which you really shouldn't expect Iran to be happy about.
I'm not trying to suggest that everything the US has done is bad and certainly not that everything that Iran has done is good. I do think though it is important to appreciate that there really are serious and legitimate grievances that Iran has against the US. Portraying Iranian views and actions as being just motivated by ignorance or bigotry is to ignore the recent history of relations between the countries.
Sadam Hussein was no angel, he was a criminal. We all agree on that. But what everyone saw is an explosive area with states which all were ready to blow and sink in chaos. I'm not talking of regimes, I'm talking of countries, let that be clear.
I am one of these people who saw an American president lying to the face of the entire world (claiming he had proofs of the presence of WMD in Iraq when ultimately there were none, that not telling the truth, that's telling the opposite of it and it's the definition of a lie in every dictionnary). I am one of those who saw an entire country invading a sovereign country of false evidences, false claims and in total disregard of all international laws and treaties the USA themselves contributed to establish.
I will discard the French veto thing, the USA failed to gather enough vote to even present their resolution to the security council. The last time France cast a lone veto it was on Mayotte and very few of us here were born. The USA faced no obstruction beyond their own failure to present substantial evidences, which we know retrospectively did not exist so they couldn't have anyway.
I very well remember, as someone following financial news, that the USA cancelled financial and humanitarian (depending on the level of devellopment) helps to emerging economies who refused to support them. Oman for a starter, in Europe you have Croatia, in every dictionnary you could call that a blackmail. So we have liars and blackmailers. Don't believe me? Check it up.
I very well remember that, despite claiming taking no interest in Iraq companies from countries who refused to support the invasion were barred from public procurement from the Iraqi government by the occupying power. That was a memo signed by Richard Perle if my memory serves me well (and it certainly does) and it was applied.
So... the massive distrust of the USA is outdated? No, it's not, it's very actual, very present. And I don't buy the "ignorant public" thing. The USA have a rather (I'm saying rather, it's not 100% free and here again it's not just me saying so but also professional NGOs like say Reporters Without Border) free access to information. I don't understand that "our country did shits but we didn't know" thing, we get it served all the time and it's always others facing the consequences.
Sorry, nothing is outdated, nothing has changed. Presidents left, were replaced, but the behaviour won't ever change.
How do you say in US laws? It is no longer possible give trust beyond the reasonable doubt.
PS: about the ignorance thing, despite everything above, George W. Bush was reelected...
It's so much easier to just shit on Trump, guy's a magnet for these things.
Their strategy seems to be "be evil continously" They seem to think reasonable people will eventually give up and be like "well that's enough complaining about that I guess I'll just leave them to it".
“At one point he started to attack the press. And it’s just me and my boss and him, in— He has a huge office. And he’s attacking the press. And there were no cameras. There was nothing going on, and I said, ‘You know, that is getting tired. Why are you doing this? You’re doing it over and over, and it’s boring, and it’s time to end that. You’ve won the nomination (sic). Why do you keep hammering at this?’
“And he said, ‘You know why I do it? I do it to discredit you all and demean you all, so when you write negative stories about me no one will believe you.”
No shit. Anyone who has read "1984" figured this out 2 years ago. The real question is WHY anyone would have ever pretended this wasn't the case, or WHY anyone would take anything he says seriously given such an admission. Again, we are dealing with someone who uses pathological lying as a deliberate tactic. And OF COURSE it works to a certain degree. It always has. In fact, there will be plenty of people who assume Leslie Stahl is lying PRECISELY because of how Trump conducts this campaign on a daily basis, probably even some people in this thread. Which frankly just goes to show how easy a game this is to rig. When there are no consequences, a person willing to lie as easily as he breathes is ALWAYS at the advantage. Always.
He's gotten older and a bit less sharp but so practiced at lying (psychopathic) that he doesn't even believe the truth anymore.
Everything. must. be. spun. By spun I mean slanted towards whatever lie suits his purpose. He's like a lie filter - stuff goes in his ears and then in real-time it comes out his mouth where everything bad is not his fault or if it's good then he alone did it.
Gross old manbaby.
https://www.harpersbazaar.com/celebrity/latest/a13988049/meghan-markle-royal-ancestors-royal-blood/
http://www.dw.com/en/tracing-meghan-markles-german-roots/a-41574493
Republicans are the problem, do something or continue to let this happen?
While Trump is not directly implicated in illegality by the story, Cohen most definitely is. With his future looking anything but rosy I presume Trump is weighing up what's the most dangerous course of action:
- leave things alone and risk Cohen co-operating with prosecutors and letting them know where all the bodies are buried, or
- provide a pardon for someone that clearly doesn't deserve to be pardoned and hope that doesn't stretch support from Republicans in Congress to breaking point.
^^ not his day it seems.
So he deliberated, with staff, whether to "conceal" that the investigation was reopened or to "disclose" that it was reopened. There was some concern that leaks might happen if he said nothing. This was a real concern since Rudy Giuliani had been on Fox News with seeming prior inside knowledge of the Clinton case with details that had not been public. So Comey decided to disclose that the case was reopened.
People can say in hindsight it was a monumental mistake since it did help lead to President Trump. But he seemingly acted as best he could at the time under the pressures he was under from Congressional Republican during their Clinton email witch hunts.
I never bother wasting my time reading someone's autobiography or collection of personal anecdotes, primarily because I don't care about their life that much.
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I see Kushner got his security clearance restored. I am uncertain where to go with that other than to wonder what sort of closed-door back room deal got made.
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An employee at the United States embassy in China has suffered a sonic attack much like the ones which happened in Havana. Now that we know what caused them--listening devices were placed too closely to each other and tuned to different frequencies, leading to an interference pattern (for example, 8000 Hz and 8007 Hz would lead to two resonances at 7Hz and 16007 Hz)--we are going to start seeing those listening devices weaponized in this manner. Ultrasonic frequencies can lead to headaches and disorientation while infrasonic frequencies can case central nervous system problems, organ failure, and possibly even death.