I agree that NATO exists to protect it's members.

It isn't clear to me how NATO's largest financer, The United States, benefits substantially.

In my opinion, if ones primary concern is the environment, one ought to vote Libertarian or Green Party.

Republicans and Democrats are pretty much equally adept at allowing corporations to turn our planet into one great toxic-waste dump.

NATO was originally devised to be a unified front to combat Russia when need be after wwII. The secretary Gen is Norwegian and they are primarily engaged in surveillance to support those needs. Regardless of political undercurrents NATO, Pentagon, UK Foreign Office will always be in cooperation in terms of intelligence.

Nato is a part of the western state but the abillity for it to move militarily is becoming increasingly difficult with powerful members like Turkey whose interests don't always allign with the west as evidenced in Syria and lybia most recently.

Doesn't make any sense if you care about the environment to vote for Libertarian or Green Party, they haven't broken through ever, they have no chance to break through now, or in the next few decades, which are critical for the environment according to science.

Logically, one should try to move the Democratic party to the left, by electing Bernie Sanders, folks like AOC, supporters of Green New Deal, International cooperation in environmental regulation. Much more likely to get a revolution of the type Bernie is advancing than advance a Green Party in the next several years. Not very likely but 30% better than zero.

It all starts with Bernie in IA on Monday. Vote for him in your primary or yeah dont and just vote Jill Stein vs Trump and Biden and see where that gets you.

Oh and Libertarians would be the worst on the environment unless you live in some anarcho-capitalist fantasy land.

LOL AnCaplandia

So leaving has a net positive effect, how? What is gained which wasn't there before?

You would have rather we went into Kosovo alone or not at all?

(I'm not entirely against leaving NATO. I just seriously wonder what happens next and what's the point.)

If you are talking about Citizens United and campaign finance, it's true that Bernie has been a leader on this issue. But even HRC ran on a promise that she would introduce a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United.

If you are talking more broadly, I don't think this is as much about hypocrisy among centrists as you are suggesting. Rather, I think what you see as hypocrisy is more accurately described as widespread cynicism across the political spectrum about ALL politicians. Take the posters in this thread. With the exception of a few people who think Bernie is the messiah, and with the exception of a few crazies like joe6pack, virtually every poster in this thread assumes that virtually every member of the political class is corrupt.

This has been coming for a while. Ever since the mid-1960s, cynicism about politics, and especially about politicians, has been on the rise. This cynicism has been stoked largely by the media and the political class itself.

I don't know exactly what I am advocating. It's surely wrong to say that we should have ignored Watergate, Clinton lying under oath, the Bush administration lying about evidence of WMDs in Irag, and virtually everything Trump has done just to avoid stoking cynicism. But still, something has been lost amidst the gains in accountability.

When politic discussion is so cynical that almost every issue is framed in terms of good vs. evil and almost every opposition candidate is painted as hopelessly corrupt, extreme dysfunction is inevitable.

This dysfunction is easiest with Supreme Court nominations. Roberts was confirmed 78-22. Ginsberg was confirmed 96-3. Bush was forced to withdraw the nomination of Harriet Myers because of widespread concerns that she was not qualified for the job. In other words, the process more or less worked.

The easy confirmation of Roberts and Ginsberg was not a sign that a significant number of Democrats wanted Roberts on the Court or that a significant number of Republicans wanted Ginsberg on the Court. But it was sign of two things. First, it was a recognition that there were no serious grounds on which to oppose either nominee. Both were smart, qualified, and not crazy. Put another way, it was a recognition that there is no point to allowing the president to nominate candidates if Ginsberg and Roberts cannot be confirmed. But second, and more important, it was a sign that senators of the opposite party thought they could vote to confirm an obviously qualified nominee without being punished at the polls.

Compare that to today. Every nomination is close to a straight party vote. And it probably will be difficult going forward for any president to get a nominee confirmed unless his party controls the Senate. McConnell's outrageous actions w/r/t to the nomination of Merrick Garland were probably the nail in the coffin on that point.

FWIW, I'm not offering myself as an exception to the general trend. I think Trump is morally repugnant and a blight on the country. I frequently describe him in those terms and I'm sure he deserves to be described that way.

As long as those parties continue to nominate unqualified idiots like Gary Johnson and Jill Stein, it's simply not defensible imo to vote for either party, even if you like the platform.

Small parties can't get traction by running candidates for POTUS. Top Down doesn't work, they need to start at the local level, but too many Americans seem to think that a 2 party politburo is the correct way to do things.

i think if Bernie wins, the mainstream, corporate left might get behind a spoiler 3rd party to stop him and stick with Trump. Someone like Bloomberg, carpet bombing the swing states with billions would do it.

funny thing is, if Bloomberg was a pro-life Christian, he might have a chance as a 3rd party vs Trump and Bernie. He has the money. He is self made billionaire, right? If he just throws in some Jesus...maybe even pay off that Joel Olsteen dude, give him 100 million to prance around and support him on some "Jesus wants you to be rich platform"...pay someone else to be his veep...Kamala or Oprah...John Kasich.

But he is a pro-choice Jew, so no way he takes any votes from Trump. He would just kill bernie.

This is closer to the best argument for withdrawing from NATO.

Withdrawing from NATO would send the wrong message. But as a matter of fact, whether the U.S. was in NATO or not, it's likely that the U.S. would respond the same way to foreign aggression against NATO countries. Whether the U.S. was in NATO or not, it's likely the U.S. would cooperate with NATO countries on terrorism, surveillance, etc. in much the same way it does now.

Luckbox and others seem to think that withdrawing from NATO would reduce the likelihood of the U.S. being involved in a broader conflict in Europe. I don't buy that at all. If anything, it would encourage Putin to push the envelope. And if Putin or anyone else took aggressive action against a NATO country, it's virtual certain that the U.S. would get involved, whether the U.S. was in NATO or not.

Well I don't think we'd withdrawl from NATO but in some sort of alternate reality where we did, I don't think it would reduce the propensity for war.

Fair enough. I guess I drew the wrong inference from your post.

This isn't magic. When you increase the incentives to hire more people than companies otherwise would don't be surprised when they do exactly that.

I didn't mention interest rates, because I was asked what things Trump is doing that is leading to lower unemployment and higher wage growth. Like every other US president before him Trump doesn't control interest rates.

However, since you bring it up I would love to hear your reaction to the US stock market being up 66% since the end of QE and the Euro stoxx 50 only being up 25% during that time frame despite the European central bank continuing to expand their balance sheet as well as experimenting with negative interest rates. If QE and low rates are such a driver of the economy you would sure think the US market would be lagging Euro equities not the other way around as we are seeing.

Leaving NATO is +$EV

Valid point about Johnson. I don't know about Stein well enough to agree or disagree.

So apparently this happened today. Juan must be really busy at work that I beat him to it.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/n...y-of-education

"Warren promises ‘young trans person’ will vet Secretary of Education"
-And apparently the person she is referring to is a trans 9 year old.

-So basically this is Warren conceding that her presidential campaign is over?

I think this is probably more you being an idiot again.

Not sure why you would see this as an end to her campaign, her followers eat this stuff up.

Didn't she also say that she would read aloud the names of murdered trans women in the rose garden every year?

Whatever works I suppose, getting elected is hard.

No.

The article said she would read the names of murdered "trans person's of color".

What about the murdered trans people of no-color?

Is the Washington Examiner a real newspaper?

Article seems fishy to me.

I don't see how that helps her.

I like anatta's idea for Bloomberg of sprinkling in some Jesus. That never hurt a campaign.

Well. She is currently 7c on predictit, one c higher than Clinton (who isn’t running). So if you think this is a tactically good move that will invigorate her campaign you can buy very low and start swimming in your Sklansky bucks.

I am no fan of Warren but her prices on PI are way too low compared to her poll numbers and the size/strength her organization.