The Trump Organization is telling Congress that determining exactly how much of its profits come from foreign governments is simply more trouble than it’s worth. The company says it can’t keep track of which of its clients are foreign and which are not, and so just won’t do it, despite the law saying that they have to do so.
That’s a tough question because I really disliked the press that the totalitarians of the day were getting. It was hard to feel sympathy for Saddam and sons with the constant news about their torture, rapes, and murders. Combine that with the gassing of the Kurds and chemical weapons being a WMD it was hard to not want to see Saddam gone.
I also don’t expect complete honesty from politicians. However, when it comes to war doctoring evidence is not a good look. All that said, the octopus of the early 2000s would have been in favor of deposing Saddam. Again, I had no idea that the occupation was going to be handled so ineptly, if I am being charitable, or so dastardly if I am being cynical.
Of the past 30 years I think that was the US’s second biggest blunder domestic or foreign. The largest being trying to exploit the breakup of the USSR instead of sincerely helping to transition the former Soviet republics into modern democratic states.
Sometimes you seem reasonable! 
I thought that Bush-41 in his Gulf War should have kept military pressure on for a few more days, signalling that bombing would end when Saddam was deposed. Don’t attempt to install democracy; just have them come up with a different Baathist dictator — almost anyone would have been tolerable compared with the monstrous Saddam.
Something like that was also possible prior to the Bush-43 Gulf War. Iraq was under tremendous pressure and there was support to let Saddam pack a billion bucks as pocket money and go into exile somewhere. This would have benefited the Iraqi people hugely without any need for Friedmanist experiments. Cheney and company rushed into War to avoid such a capitulation: they wanted a blood war with the associated opportunities for glory, graft and propaganda.
I agree with you about the breakup of the USSR. “Breaking up is hard to do” and efforts might have failed anyway, but it was shameful that the U.S.A. didn’t try harder to instill democratic values in Russia. Instead, as was the case during Iraq reconstruction, another country’s tragedy was used as a playing field for America’s right-wing kleptocratic ideologies.
Well you gotta be understanding, it’s gotta be a PITA to know where each suitcase filled with $20 notes with nonsequential numbers came from. And you gotta have a little faith to understand each of them was obtained strictly above board, OK ? The question you have to ask yourself is : who you gonna trust ? The smearing, biased liberal IRS ; or the Best President Ever ?
Sigh.
Rick, I must needs point out to you that the article is TWO YEARS OLD. While it is a fair bit of clusterfucking, I truly wish you would LEARN TO READ DATES (or have somebody read them for you) so (1) you don’t post old stuff or (2) that you UPDATE the old stuff by doing (gasp!) some research.
Your credentials as an Anti-Trumpist are safe; your reputation as someone who seriously scans your sources are in some doubt.
Press on.
Are you kidding? Rick did that AGAIN?
The first dozen times I assumed it was just a mistake. The second dozen? Well, maybe he’s scatter-brained… but by now it’s hard to believe. Actually, I can’t stop chuckling, so maybe it’s his comedy schtick.
it’s because I get these old posts in my Facebook feed, and I forget to check the dates on them.
What do you mean “would have been”? Don’t you know whether you supported the Iraq war or not? Or are you saying that you would have supported it if you’d had an opinion on the matter but for some reason or other (not having been born yet, not having any interest in political/military issues, or whatever) you didn’t have an opinion?
Because the way you put it, it sounds like you’re trying to tapdance around the admission that you supported the invasion of Iraq back in 2003 but are embarrassed about your support for it now.
:mad:
Check.
Due diligence, bruh.
I’m pretty sure he’s saying hindsight is 20/20.
I was answering eschereal’s specific question so you have to read the answer in context to that.
There is nothing in it that suggests that I am embarrassed about how I felt in 2003 based on what I knew in 2003 or eschereal’s hypothetical that I knew the evidence was doctored. No, I was pretty thrilled to see Saddam gone.
My main problem was how the post invasion occupation was conducted.
Deutsche Bank, the money-laundering German investment bank, lent $2.5 billion to Trump projects over the past two decades.
Something about that pairing is making my eyes hurt. Then again, I had a PoliSci teacher who referred to economists as “technocrats” and the World Bank as a “leftist institution”… it’s been almost ten years and my head still hurts when I think of him.
I have wondered whether there wasn’t a way we could have come to some sort of understanding with Saddam Hussein - probably not. The problem Saddam had was that, internally, he was a ethno-nationalist dictator supported mostly by an Arab minority. He had made mortal enemies of Shiites and Kurds. He needed to show his enemies that he had some fangs, which is why he was coy about his weapons stockpiles. He wanted the outside world to believe that he didn’t really possess anymore active stockpiles, but he probably saw some value in making his internal enemies believe that he actually did possess them or that he could easily manufacture them. His chem weapons were a symbolic form of terror and he used that symbol over and over again.
Your excuse makes it worse.
You get your news from facebook?
And you repeat that shit without any research?
You are the problem.
Yeah, I was prodding him about his fucking awful fact-checking back around the time of the 2016 election. Not long after that, I simply began to take for granted that he’s an unreliable source of information, and treat his posts accordingly.
His problem is that while his facts usually aren’t bad (usually from fair-to-good sources), they are usually woefully out of date and he does NOTHING to improve or update them.
OK, I’m done abusing Kitchen, so I’ll take the heat off them…
Press on.
You’re full of shit. I don’t post unreferenced comments, I post links to news stories. So you can go away now.
Some amusing twittery going on. Memorial Day '16, CFSG wondered whether Obama ever discusses the Pearl Harbor attack while meeting with Japanese leaders. Since he is in Japan this Memorial Day weekend, others have wondered the same about the guy who brought up the subject 3 years ago.
The sad thing is that there is a non-zero possibility that he did bring it up, even without Twitter egging him on.