US Politics Thread |OT| SAD TRUMP

[Nintex]

Trump's Afghan policy is really annoying because he waffles so much. Just last year we were burning time, money, and lives in Afghanistan because we absolutely would not accept a peace deal with the Taliban at the table. This year, I saw multiple military talking heads go on Fox news and lie that there was no peace in Afghanistan because the Taliban wouldn't come to the table and form a joint government. Now we are up and leaving without having brokered any peace because Trump is feeling insecure about his unfulfilled campaign promises and compensating. Taliban forces will basically overrun the government or simply starve them off by attrition. I don't know enough about Afghanistan but won't Pakistan and Iran fight over influence in the region? Won't China see an opening in pursuing development of Afghan resources and tap into that trillion dollars worth of gas and minerals? Big L for the American empire, as Vidal would say.

Afghanistan wasn't stabilized by the US in 17 years and it won't be in 30.

American and UK troops patrol poppy fields and have to turn a blind eye as village elders rape little boys. The tragedy of Afghanistan has been well documented.
The Taliban was and is never going to negotiate. Entire provinces have more or less already fallen under their control. The US should have left there years ago.

What is the goal or achievement in Afghanistan? No one knows and generals and commanders have come and gone each promising a 'victory'.
The US is already fighting teenagers who weren't even born when 9/11 happened. And soon enough the US has to send their own soldiers who weren't even born when 9/11 happened to fight the war.

Sure, let China pursue it. Just watch them get stuck in the same quackmire. The Afghans won't allow the Chinese to extort their country like they handled countries in Africa.
As a 'super power' you should stay clear of Afghanistan.

[curly]

Trump's Afghan policy is really annoying because he waffles so much. Just last year we were burning time, money, and lives in Afghanistan because we absolutely would not accept a peace deal with the Taliban at the table. This year, I saw multiple military talking heads go on Fox news and lie that there was no peace in Afghanistan because the Taliban wouldn't come to the table and form a joint government. Now we are up and leaving without having brokered any peace because Trump is feeling insecure about his unfulfilled campaign promises and compensating. Taliban forces will basically overrun the government or simply starve them off by attrition. I don't know enough about Afghanistan but won't Pakistan and Iran fight over influence in the region? Won't China see an opening in pursuing development of Afghan resources and tap into that trillion dollars worth of gas and minerals? Big L for the American empire, as Vidal would say.

obama: wastes lives and resources prosecuting a losing battle in afghanistan
libtards: slay (those villagers) king
trump: wastes lives and resources prosecuting a losing battle in afghanistan
libtards: [stupid pikachu]

[curly]

but seriously I'm not really sure what to make of Trump's foreign policy moves. I don't want to fall in to the Michael Tracey/Glenn Greenwald trap of hating the libs so much you end up agreeing with the right, but at the same time drawing down our forever wars sounds pretty sweet to me.

[james]

Remind me why Russia failed in the 80s? Were they too seeking to build a liberal democracy?

[Nintex]

Who gives a shit. Let Russia and China fight over who gets to deal with road side bombs

They don't have to deal with any IEDs if there's no war. There's no war if the Taliban are mostly in charge. US's disadvantage in this affair was the insistence on having a 1) unified 2) stable 3) socially liberal nation.

Then there's still the rivalry between factions and villages.

The US made the mistake by thinking all these people have the same interests in mind.
Many Taliban ratted out their neighbours to the Americans to get the spoils, wives and daughters while their rivals rotted away in Gitmo.
Adam Curtis  touched on this in his documentary about Afghanistan. Basically if you had a dispute before you had to call a village elder and person B had to give a goat to person A or something.
But now you could simply tell the coalition force that someone was a 'terrorist' and have your local rivals or landlords arrested and deported.

[benjipwns]

I don't know any liberals who were comfortable with the war in Afghanistan and I'm pretty sure Obama was elected to end it.

Afghanistan was the "good war" breh

[james]

obama: wastes lives and resources prosecuting a losing battle in afghanistan
libtards: slay (those villagers) king
trump: wastes lives and resources prosecuting a losing battle in afghanistan
libtards: [stupid pikachu]

I don't know any liberals who were comfortable with the war in Afghanistan and I'm pretty sure Obama was elected to end it.

Obama : vote for me to end the war in Afghanistan

Liberals :*vote for Obama *

Obama :

[curly]

I don't know any liberals who were comfortable with the war in Afghanistan and I'm pretty sure Obama was elected to end it.

I was joking I would never use college intellectual unironically

[benjipwns]

Remind me why Russia failed in the 80s? Were they too seeking to build a liberal democracy?

They were seeking to build a certain type of state.

The British "won" in Afghanistan only after they stopped trying to do that and let proxies handle it who agreed to not side against British interests or face a purely punitive expedition against them.

[james]

Benji do you like my memes

[Nintex]

CNN BREAKING NEWS 2020: US PLEASED AS HILLARY CLINTON IS VOTED INTO OFFICE

"In acceptance speech Hillary pledges to end CHAOS, start wars in Iraq, Iran, Syria and Afghanistan under the supervision of Vice President Brennan and increase everyones taxes. Oil prices will go up again!
First offenders will go to jail. When I say we will increase tensions with Russia by sponsoring a revolution in Belarus the media will ask: 'how can we help'. It will all be the way it was before Trump took office!
The people had a taste of chaos under President Trump and they'd rather want the deep state running affairs even if it kills their children and makes them poor.
Luckily the new Liberal and Neo Conservative alliance will do just that for America!

You think 17 years of war in Afghanistan was too short? We agree. I'm signing an EO on my first day in office to announce a Afhgan war for 100 years."

[Mandark]

Benji do you like my memes

"memes" plural

[benjipwns]

The dumb part about Afghanistan is that when we were planning the war, we knew better. The U.S. provided air support and mainly used special forces. We relied on Afghan allies to carry out the bulk of standard ground operations.

When it was time for the occupation we started going "you all under this Karzai dude now, let's make a democracy." When the various warlords had only chosen him as the temporary go-through with the U.S. and never intended to elevate him to head of state, let alone any kind of authority over them.

If you're thinking this sounds similar to what happened later in Iraq, don't tell anyone.

[Nintex]

The dumb part about Afghanistan is that when we were planning the war, we knew better. The U.S. provided air support and mainly used special forces. We relied on Afghan allies to carry out the bulk of standard ground operations.

When it was time for the occupation we started going "you all under this Karzai dude now, let's make a democracy." When the various warlords had only chosen him as the temporary go-through with the U.S. and never intended to elevate him to head of state, let alone any kind of authority over them.

If you're thinking this sounds similar to what happened later in Iraq, don't tell anyone.

Wasn't he corrupt as fuck. I read stories that his brother was one of most notorious drug dealers in the country and briefcase with millions of laundered cash passed through Karzai's office. (although in Afghanistan probably everyone has a brother dealing drugs  )

[benjipwns]

Of course, that reminds me that one of the other things we instantly did was decide we needed to focus on fighting the War on Drugs in a country massively reliant on the poppy trade. Then we wondered why everyone was upset about us destroying the crops.

[Tripon]

https://twitter.com/jimsciutto/status/1075916473518972929

[Madrun Badrun]

If this was a planned thing, then I'm fine with withdrawing from both Afghanistan and Syria.  My major concern is that I have this joke I really like where I pretend not to know that the Afghan war is still going on and now I can't use that anymore. 

[Tripon]

https://twitter.com/NPR/status/1075920649313574912

Heh, they actually got it approved. At least the house can go "What, we did our job." when somebody asked them what happened.

[benjipwns]

The "government" of Afghanistan doesn't really matter because it's outside power that backs its internal authority. The Taliban was the "recognized" government but they never controlled even half the country and increasingly relied on bin Laden and others with Mujahideen backgrounds. The Communists didn't either which is why the Soviets had to come in.  The Shah's didn't, but they knew they didn't, so they worked out agreements with the other tribes in ways that allowed them to please the British. It's only been since 1979 that someone has actively attempted to impose something resembling a modern state overall on Afghanistan. The Shah usually only really gave a shit about holding power in Kabul and Kandahar and a few other select places.

[jakefromstatefarm]

The Shah usually only really gave a shit about holding power in Kabul and Kandahar and a few other select places.

came in here to say this. The security issues in Afghanistan’s recent history make a lot more sense if you forget about what the country looks like on a map and just imagine a state apparatus working out of Kabul trying intermittently to rope in rural/pastoral peoples on its periphery.

Which is actually similar to how a lot of states in the region managed to form

[benjipwns]

The security issues in Afghanistan’s recent history make a lot more sense if you forget about what the country looks like on a map and just imagine a state apparatus working out of Kabul trying intermittently to rope in rural/pastoral peoples on its periphery.

Which is actually similar to how a lot of states in the region managed to form

Yeah, Afghanistan, while similar to Iraq, is probably the still existing (since many of the African ones have since split up) poster child for a state that has its founding origins rooted more in the conventions of Western diplomacy than any sort of internal logic.

What made the Shah's rule look comparatively controlled to others is that the outside powers, namely the British and Russians, ignored everything below the abstraction layer unless it was of immediate importance like a tribe was raiding a border. We've been looking below that layer since 1979 while arguably trying to reimpose it in some other form.

[benjipwns]

You could argue that one reason we might care about Iran so much is that, for the region, the place is almost a model nation state in a lot of ways.

[benjipwns]

What's the sudden drop in 2010 about? I don't off the top of my head recall anything. UN actions?

[Tripon]

I think that was Gamergate.

You're telling me the gamers are the ones controlling the drones?

[Phoenix Dark]

obama: wastes lives and resources prosecuting a losing battle in afghanistan
libtards: slay (those villagers) king
trump: wastes lives and resources prosecuting a losing battle in afghanistan
libtards: [stupid pikachu]

I don't know any liberals who were comfortable with the war in Afghanistan and I'm pretty sure Obama was elected to end it.

guess im so old i remember Obama being quite clear that Afghanistan needed more US troops during the 08 election. But go ahead and rewrite history brehs.

[benjipwns]

You're telling me the gamers are the ones controlling the drones?

I think I saw this documentary on TNT one night.

[Phoenix Dark]

I'm torn. On one hand Trump is clearly making political decisions and paying off Russian (and Turkish) interests. On the other hand, Trump withdrawing from Afghanistan and Syria ensures a future democrat president won't have to take heat for doing it whew bless up.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

also bill kristol and david frum aren't your friends

[close]

[benjipwns]

I'm torn. On one hand Trump is clearly making political decisions and paying off Russian (and Turkish) interests. On the other hand, Trump withdrawing from Afghanistan and Syria ensures a future democrat president won't have to take heat for doing it whew bless up.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

also bill kristol and david frum aren't your friends

[close]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/trump-is-leaving-50000-syrian-civilians-to-die/2018/12/20/cb54a416-0486-11e9-b6a9-0aa5c2fcc9e4_story.html

[benjipwns]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-20/urgent-democrats-to-start-presidential-primary-debates-in-june-2019

Democrats will hold at least a dozen presidential primary debates starting in June 2019 and running through April 2020, with party Chairman Tom Perez promising rules that will give everyone in a potentially large field a fair shot at voters' attention.

Making public his first in a series of decisions on the 2020 debate calendar, Perez said Thursday that the national party will sponsor six debates in 2019 and six more in 2020. That could be extended if the nomination process drags deep into the spring.

The first two debates in June and July will have two rounds, possibly over two nights, to accommodate what is expected to be an unwieldy field. Candidates will be assigned at random, Perez said, to avoid the party picking and choosing who is a top-tier contender, as Republicans did during their 2016 primary debates.

Oh, that random thing is going to be potentially hilarious.

I mean, I like it, but what I like is not what's usually popular politically.

Two nights is smarter than a clear undercard debate.

[benjipwns]

I feel like benji will appreciate this:

https://twitter.com/sapinker/status/1074932509014667264

Unity08, the think tank!

congrats on inventing neoliberalism guys

we did it fam:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/20/opinion/centrism-moderate-capitalism-welfare.html

The same process is happening today. Americans have lost faith in the big institutions of society. Many fly off to extremes, to the Donald Trump right or the Bernie Sanders left. Most of the rest of us feel adrift, gloomy and politically homeless.

But people figure it out. New ideas emerge. Old ideas are put together in new ways. Today, I offer you just one example — the Niskanen Center, which has become one of the most creative think tanks in America today.

People with single all-explaining ideologies have a tendency to let their philosophic blinders distort how they view empirical reality.

Taylor didn’t abandon his faith in markets and individual rights, but he decided to abandon the belief that a single ideology can be applied to all problems. There are a lot of different goods in society: liberty, social justice, equity, community, virtue, prosperity. It’s crazy, Taylor argued, to prioritize one of those goods in nearly every single policy context. And yet that’s what ideologues do.

Taylor and his colleagues embraced a posture of epistemological modesty, threw off the ideological style of thinking and began to notice something: that the central debate in our politics is completely bogus.

Last week, Niskanen released a comprehensive report called, “The Center Can Hold: Public Policy for an Age of Extremes,” written by Brink Lindsey, Steven Teles, Wilkinson and Hammond. The report is a manifesto for a new centrism based on what the authors call a “free-market welfare state” model.

...

The Niskanen authors are making a compelling case for moderation; for understanding that politics is striking a rough but workable balance between competing goods; for understanding that the world is complex and our knowledge is limited, and so it’s best to proceed constantly, but skeptically.

As I was reading the Niskanen report I experienced two strange sensations: I felt liberated to see the world in fresh new ways, and not only in the ways I’ve always seen them or the way people with my label are supposed to see them. I began to feel at home.

[Tripon]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-20/urgent-democrats-to-start-presidential-primary-debates-in-june-2019

Democrats will hold at least a dozen presidential primary debates starting in June 2019 and running through April 2020, with party Chairman Tom Perez promising rules that will give everyone in a potentially large field a fair shot at voters' attention.

Making public his first in a series of decisions on the 2020 debate calendar, Perez said Thursday that the national party will sponsor six debates in 2019 and six more in 2020. That could be extended if the nomination process drags deep into the spring.

The first two debates in June and July will have two rounds, possibly over two nights, to accommodate what is expected to be an unwieldy field. Candidates will be assigned at random, Perez said, to avoid the party picking and choosing who is a top-tier contender, as Republicans did during their 2016 primary debates.

Oh, that random thing is going to be potentially hilarious.

I mean, I like it, but what I like is not what's usually popular politically.

Two nights is smarter than a clear undercard debate.

I just want to know how Debbie Wasserman Schultz will fuck it up this in 2019 and 2020.

In all seriousness, the DNC wants to avoid any hint they're showing favor to anybody publicly because it was clear Schultz was angling for a cabinet position in any potential Hillary administration. One of the few people who people don't have a good thing to say but seem to still get elected over and over again.

[benjipwns]

DWS has been out for a couple years now, Perez is her replacement. DWS was the wrong person for the events because she's a never admit anything, never back down type*, and what they needed was someone who could bullshit the Bernie/anti-Hillary people for a couple months. But when DWS was chosen it was just assumed Hillary was going to stomp everyone into dust with like 75% of the vote and be the nominee by March 1st.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I always thought it was funny that nobody mentioned that DWS replaced Tim Kaine. That seemed like an obvious conspiracy theory to run with.

[close]

*

Politico, citing unnamed sources, reported that Wasserman Schultz had lined up supporters in 2013 to portray any decision by Barack Obama to replace her as DNC chair as "anti-woman and anti-Semitic".

[Mandark]

Remember the last time Trump announced a withdrawal from Syria?

[benjipwns]

did we win then too?

he promised we'd get tired of all the winning

[agrajag]

Who's in line to be the next Adult In The Room? Pompeo? Bolton? 

[benjipwns]

I feel like I may be the one person qualified to figure this out. I need to examine Lou Dobbs guest appearances. Bolton suddenly started appearing more and more often and next thing you know, he was in the White House. Also, I know what Trump wants from The Apprentice and have already proven this is a method with strong probability for explaining his actions in Trump-logic.

I'm now realizing I may have just wasted three years in which I could have become some kind of Trump Savant for the media. Now I'll only be forever known as the one who started the TRUMP 2016 OT on NeoGAF.com in January 2015, six months before Trump jumped in for real. Also, the Chelsea Handler thing.

[benjipwns]

The first Professor of Trump Studies at the Kennedy School.

[james]

presidential primary debates starting in June 2019

[kingv]

but seriously I'm not really sure what to make of Trump's foreign policy moves. I don't want to fall in to the Michael Tracey/Glenn Greenwald trap of hating the libs so much you end up agreeing with the right, but at the same time drawing down our forever wars sounds pretty sweet to me.

I think it’s a case of:
1) a broken clock is wrong twice a day.
2) trump is probably doing this for corrupt or at least stupid reasons
3) even if he is doing the “right thing” he will 100% do as bad of a job at it as possible

Similarly, I can generally like the criminal justice reform bill while not thinking Jared Kushner or Grassley is a cherished elder statesman.

[Tripon]

https://twitter.com/KFILE/status/1075952196515188736

[kingv]

Just realized that we might see the best version of trump out of this.

That is, the Trump trying to be modest while floating himself for a Nobel peace prize.

[benjipwns]

I do think Trump is semi-legit about withdrawing troops from foreign locations, especially ones he sees as bad deals like Iraq. It was one of the few things he's been consistent on from the first day of this campaign, and he was leery of it even in the past when not campaigning. He turned on Iraq at lightning speed.

I don't think it necessarily out of what we think of as a foreign policy principle even though it is. But more of...let's say America First mentality. Doesn't want to deal with these foreigners unless he has to, especially if it's only generally bad news. And when he learns about how much these things cost in money, it probably makes him think about free wall money. If he can do it after an "on paper win" that's perfect for him.

Trump's Buchananite leanings on this, trade, etc. is stuff he espoused back into the 1980s. It's not one of the things he shifted "right" on like gay marriage, immigration, health care, etc.

Trump's just a terrible manager in general, so that's why even when you have this kind of thing, it's haphazard, unexplained and almost teetering on the edge of collapsing at any moment. But now you've got Mattas departing over it, and all the foreign policy experts wringing their hands in the op-eds both by name and anonymously, which gives me the impression that Trump finally got stubborn about it. With again, the wall payment thing likely factoring into it. He's trying to scrape up the dollars wherever he can on that and ASAP. Because he's a terrible manager.

[Mandark]

but seriously I'm not really sure what to make of Trump's foreign policy moves. I don't want to fall in to the Michael Tracey/Glenn Greenwald trap of hating the libs so much you end up agreeing with the right, but at the same time drawing down our forever wars sounds pretty sweet to me.

I feel mostly like I did about the North Korea stuff.

Anything Trump does is going to be impulsive, borne out of ignorance, and poorly executed. Whatever isolationist streak he has, there's almost no chance that he actually reorients the US away from perpetual military engagement.

But a stupid, sloppy, unpredictable deescalation is better than a stupid, sloppy, and unpredictable war. In the range of possible outcomes with Trump as president, this is about as good as it gets.

[Mandark]

With again, the wall payment thing likely factoring into it. He's trying to scrape up the dollars wherever he can on that and ASAP. Because he's a terrible manager.

He might literally believe that if he saves money by withdrawing troops that he'd be able to use that to build the wall. Not in the sense of being able to politically, but like an actual slush fund.

[Nola]

but seriously I'm not really sure what to make of Trump's foreign policy moves. I don't want to fall in to the Michael Tracey/Glenn Greenwald trap of hating the libs so much you end up agreeing with the right, but at the same time drawing down our forever wars sounds pretty sweet to me.

On the principles I'm in agreement, on the likely motivations I'm  , on the execution I'm leaning toward annoyance.

For instance the NYT's was reporting that the Kurds are currently contemplating releasing 3000 ISIS fighters if they can't come to an agreement with Syria to take them into their custody because they are imminently concerned about Turkish escalation and need to muster as many troops as they have in their depleted ranks to stave off their likely aggressions in the near future due to the opportunity from the sudden US withdraw.

Like I remember all the back and forth between McCain and Obama about "not giving the enemy a date we will cut and run" but what both of those acknowledge that there is a fuck load of issues and human concerns when you do a 180 on a policy. Shit takes time to strategize and execute. There is nothing gained and a whole lot at risk by doing this sort of thing so recklessly. I'll take a messy de-escalation over a messy war, but the fact that there is a completely ignored option of a less messy de-escalation within simple reach is pretty fucked up.

[benjipwns]

presidential primary debates starting in June 2019

(Image removed from quote.)

That's not historically too bad really. While I'm at it...earliest set of announcement dates for a few candidates in the past few cycles:

May 2002 - Howard Dean
December 2002 - John Kerry
January 2003 - John Edwards, Dick Gephardt, Al Sharpton, Joe Lieberman
May 3, 2003 - First Dem Debate

March 2006 - Joe Biden
April 2006 - Mike Gravel
May 2006 - Chris Dodd
November 2006 - Johm McCain, Rudy Guiliani, Tommy Thompson, Tom Vilsack
December 2006 - Evan Bayh. Sam Brownback, Dennis Kucinich, John Edwards, Jim Gilmore (Also Evan Bayh withdraws 15 days after announcing)
January 2007 - Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Tom Tancredo, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Bill Richardson, Duncan Hunter, Mike Huckabee
April 26, 2007 - First Dem Debate
May 3, 2007 - First GOP Debate

January 2011 - Herman Cain
March 2011 - Newt Gingrich, Buddy Roemer, Tim Pawlenty
April 2011 - Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Gary Johnson, Ron Paul
May 2011 - Jon Huntsman
May 5, 2011 - First GOP Debate featuring Cain, Johnson, Pawlenty, Paul and Santorum
June 13, 2011 - First GOP Debate with Bachmann, Romney and Gingrich

November 2014 - Jim Webb
December 2014 - Jeb!
January 2015 - Chris Christie, Martin O'Malley, Lindsey Graham
February 2015 - George Pataki
March 2015 - Ben Carson, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz
April 2015 - Rand Paul, Lincoln Chaffee, Rick Santorum, Hillary Clinton, Marco Rubio, Bernie Sanders
August 4, 2015 - First GOP Debate
October 13, 2015 - First Dem Debate

edit: I used dates of forming "exploratory committees" not the often much later media "announcements" as I can't recall any major candidate forming one and then not actually entering the race...and some of them the candidates were running around for six months, and even debating, before "announcing"

also Joe Biden announced twice during the 2008 cycle, along with announcing the forming of an exploratory committee...the date is actually his first announcement, then in 2007 he forms a committee then quickly announces again after Obama, Hillary, etc. all announce...good ol Diamond Joe

[benjipwns]

With again, the wall payment thing likely factoring into it. He's trying to scrape up the dollars wherever he can on that and ASAP. Because he's a terrible manager.

He might literally believe that if he saves money by withdrawing troops that he'd be able to use that to build the wall. Not in the sense of being able to politically, but like an actual slush fund.

He has indicated in the past that he seems to think the entire federal budget operates in this way. And he's often referred to his budgeting with the Trump Organization.

So I consider it reasonable that he thinks any money unallocated at the end of the year is free money for the President to use.

I can also see plenty of reasons why many of his aides/Congress/etc. would not be too quick to disabuse him of this notion.

[Mandark]

Trump forcing us to construct a theory of the mind for him is basically abuse.

[james]

Trump forcing us to construct a theory of the mind for him is basically abuse.

If only you were familiar with strategy, you would have been in awe

[benjipwns]

One could also complain that we're humanizing him.

[Nola]

We are talking about the same Trump that had to be talked down and tricked out of invading Venezuela a year ago right? That immediately escalated in Afghanistan his first year?



....I also feel like 2 years into Trump we should be a little more open to defaulting to the obvious explanation that has so far explained most of his decision-making and motivation, which tends to either be what is perceived as politically, personally, or financially expedient to his narcissistic mind in the immediate moment. Filtered through a mercurial, contradictory, and unevolved set of political ideas that occasionally pull him in one direction or another based on what Fox News pundit captured his attention that day.

[benjipwns]

I was trying to get at that, but went on a bit. I think he leans more non-interventionist than general Washington simply because of his long holding of this Buchanananite type view of the world, but it clearly activates most so and grabs his attention when he thinks it's a "bad deal" like Iraq. And he very much is the type that when he decides in favor of intervention, he wants to just glass the place and be done with it. He doesn't want to be bothered by something once he's lost interest in it or thought he "won" or finished it.

From that frame I can see his Afghanistan thing as coming in and deciding he's going to try and WIN IT first, if only to best Obama, and his only answer to anything is MORE MILITARY. Then eventually comes around to seeing it as a "bad deal" and wants to ditch the thing. Someone like Mattis, and the foreign policy people in general, are never going to really see things like this. Especially if Trump suddenly changed his mind on it and then got stubborn about it.

[team filler]

https://www.pamelaandersonfoundation.org/news/2018/12/18/revolt-dont-react

[benjipwns]

https://www.pamelaandersonfoundation.org/news/2018/12/18/revolt-dont-react

Isn't she dating Assange? Might be a KGB recruiting front

[Tripon]

https://twitter.com/Ocasio2018/status/1075928347933327360

lol if the GOP responds to this.

[benjipwns]

DroopSogg
‏@DroopSogg
 1h1 hour ago
Replying to @Ocasio2018
That’s free money relieved from nafta....money wasted and now brought back home being utilized to protect home....why is that an issue.

BOOM ROASTED

[benjipwns]

Craig Blair
‏@fourblairs
 2h2 hours ago
Replying to @Ocasio2018
They took it out of the $21 trillion you found floating around the Pentagon.

okay, I'll allow this one

[benjipwns]

these reboots and sequels are getting out of control:
https://twitter.com/LindseyGrahamSC/status/1075897915963523072

[benjipwns]

I don't think he knows how to fly planes, he'll need TANG war hero W. again.

[benjipwns]

Of course, the planes are only there for the visual image and cover story.