I was rather surprised that Bolton was hired in the first place, because if someone insists on subservience the way Trump does, Bolton would seem like the last guy to hire.
Bolton is fucking dangerous even in a moderate, reasonable administration, but put him in an environment where he’s unchained and sitting next to a president who’s unhinged, and all bets are off on what happens next. Just having him in the White House greatly increases the possibility for war.
I never in a million years thought I’d say anything remotely positive about the bow-tied fuck stick, but he just might be the one to put an end to this madness – at least with regard to Iran.
Remember, folks, whatever someone on FNC says > than whatever any of Trump’s aides say, even if some of his aides used to be guests on FNC. Trump lives in TV Land.
I saw a post on Twitter’s #MAGA thread (a shitshow in itself) where a guy said “Bolton should go - we can #MAGA without the Globalist agenda!”
Bolton - a GLOBALIST?!? :dubious:
It could be something as simple as not allowing American forces to use their territory as a staging area.
That’s always been a major factor in American wars in the Middle East. We need some local country to allow us to locate our airbases and supply depots in their territory. Otherwise we’re trying to fight a war with very limited air support and supplies.
The scary part is that while most Presidents would hesitate before sending American troops into combat under such vulnerable circumstances, I worry that Trump would jump in. And by jump in, I mean he would be willing to send other people in. Old Bone Spurs himself would stay safe in Washington and tweet about the parade he was planning.
Bolton’s a globalist in the sense that he’s aware other countries exist (even if he mostly regards them as targets). That awareness puts him a step ahead of many Trump supporters.
It’s a pretty safe bet. Trump claimed there was massive voter fraud in 2016 and he won that election.
Not much of either one. I don’t really care very much what Merkel thinks. There’s a tiny bit of pride in reading things like “the U.S. dominance of technology” and a tiny bit of sadness at the talk of a trade war (I favor / value free trade more than President Trump).
Hari Selden linked to a page which addressed my question. Based on that I’m changing my estimates: There’s a 10% chance that the Ds will win the EV on Election Day, but GOP malice will cause a reversed result to be passed to Congress. In many or most of these scanarios Scotus will decide: Chief Roberts will cast the deciding vote if RBG is still alive, Kavanaugh the deciding vote if RBG has passed.
If it goes to the House, contrary to what some might assume, the Republicans would have the advantage. They have a majority of state delegations with each having one vote. That’s what I was referring to when I said they might try “crazy shit” next year. Their goal is to block Democrats from getting to 270. If it’s within a few electors, they will contest the results and try to send it to the House. If the Dems can still win but win by just a slim majority, they will try to politically poison the next president and cast doubt on his/her legitimacy. They might even incite violence. I don’t put anything past these people anymore.
I like this one sentence all by itself like this; it totally fucking rocks!
Constitution of Pennsylvania, Article IV § 15
§ 15. Approval of bills; vetoes.
Every bill which shall have passed both Houses shall be presented to the Governor; if he approves he shall sign it, but if he shall not approve he shall return it with his objections to the House in which it shall have originated, which House shall enter the objections at large upon their journal, and proceed to re-consider it. If after such re-consideration, two-thirds of all the members elected to that house shall agree to pass the bill, it shall be sent with the objections to the other House by which likewise it shall be re-considered, and if approved by two-thirds of all the members elected to that House it shall be a law; but in such cases the votes of both Houses shall be determined by yeas and nays, and the names of the members voting for and against the bill shall be entered on the journals of each House, respectively. If any bill shall not be returned by the Governor within ten days after it shall have been presented to him, the same shall be a law in like manner as if he had signed it, unless the General Assembly, by their adjournment, prevent its return, in which case it shall be a law, unless he shall file the same, with his objections, in the office of the Secretary of the Commonwealth, and give notice thereof by public proclamation within 30 days after such adjournment.
A quick check on Ballotpedia shows that the Pennsylvania State Senate is split 22D/26R with 2 vacancies, while the Pennsylvania House of Representatives is split 93D/109R with 1 vacancy. In order to overcome a veto from Governor Wolf (D) there would need to be 6 Democrat defectors in the Senate and 26 Democrat defectors in the House. These defectors would almost certainly be disowned by the national Democratic party if they literally voted to award electoral votes to the Republican candidate. That’s not to say it’s impossible, but it’s a stretch. Each defector would need to represent a region that voted heavily for the Republican candidate, and would need to have little fear about losing national party support. I think a law splitting Pennsylvania’s electoral vote might be a more amicable option.
~Max
Except it’s not just Merkel, it’s Germany and the European Union.
I am floored that you shrug off the loss of the American moral high ground. I may not have known that term as a child, but growing up in Canada in the 60’s, I knew that it was the US that was on the side of liberty. Now, not so much. And I feel sick about it.
It’s stunning and sad when you consider that Republicans were once known as the foreign policy party, but they’ve traded in globalism for a ethno-nationalist oligarchy, so through that prism, it’s to be expected.
Vladimir Putin and the world’s authoritarians/oligarchs continue to reap their rewards from what happened here on November 8, 2016. The US is losing its influence on global dominance. There will be some who believe that we can be fine by being insular and nationalist, but I don’t think they’ve calculated the consequences correctly.
try being a citizen 
Remember what happened in World War II? Once one country starts acting crazy and everyone else feels threatened, they put aside their differences. So there would be meetings between representatives of Russia, China, the EU, Japan, South Korea, India, etc. and the common topic would be “Listen, I don’t like you and you don’t like me but we both want to keep on living. America has apparently gone crazy and none of us know who they’ll attack next. So we all have to work together to defend ourselves. Once we’ve made sure America is no longer a possible threat, we can go back to hating each other.”
Of course, an idiot like Trump and the lesser idiots who support him won’t care. They’ll all be yelling “USA! USA! USA!” because they think America can beat every other country on Earth even if they all join together. They’ll be too dumb to understand the situation they were dumb enough to get us into.
There’s probably not a single action that Trump could do that would substantially weaken the United States. What’s clear, however, is that in multiple ways he is isolating the United States from other countries in our trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific alliances. Going nationalist plays into the hands of countries like China and Russia. By isolating ourselves, we weaken our power to have other countries follow our lead on things like the Magnitsky Act, international trade, and climate agreements. We weaken military alliances; after all, if we become more nationalist and insisting that we act in our own interests, then other countries inevitably do the same. The US military is powerful, but not nearly as powerful if it can’t use foreign air space, foreign air force bases, foreign ports of call.
With regard to China, a unilateral China hurts China now and in the next 12-36 months maybe, but over time, it will hurt us far more. We cannot stop China from becoming the world’s largest economy and eventually the world’s most powerful nation. They’ve mapped out an economic strategy to make that happen, and there’s probably not much that can be done to prevent their ascent. What would be a better approach is for us to try to make China less authoritarian, less corrupt and more open. Nobody’s naive: they’ll never be a Western democratic society, but they can be better than they are now. What should concern us is that by taking them on one-on-one we lose the collective power that Western (and even Eastern) democracies and open societies have to be an influence for good. We might even desire to build a League of Democratic Nations as a kind of 21st Century global version of NATO, not necessarily with missile batteries aimed at China and Russia but as a strong, robust political commonwealth that works together to influence countries for the better, using economic and political pressure if/when necessary - that kind of thing.
Unfortunately, Trump is trying a strategy that has led to two world wars and failed miserably for the countries that have tried the nationalist approach.
Yeah, but that’s just history! Who the hell pays attention to history? Next you’ll be dredging up Smoot-Hawley or something! :rolleyes:
#Allstate2020
Edited: Sorry, thought you were referring to another fuckstick. There are a lot of them in the admin.
Anyway, Dotard, the Firstest of All Individuals, thinks you and Carlson are wrong:
Don’t feel bad, JohnT. I’m also having trouble juggling all the fucking fuck sticks in my mind. Just too many to handle.