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The Presidency of Donald J. Trump: No smocking guns. The Presidency of Donald J. Trump: No smocking guns.

02-02-2017 , 08:37 AM

I mean, good lord, I go to bed and wake up and we're threatening multiple countries via Twitter? And WTF with Australia? I thought we were pretty chill with those guys?
02-02-2017 , 08:44 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Trolly McTrollson
I mean, good lord, I go to bed and wake up and we're threatening multiple countries via Twitter? And WTF with Australia? I thought we were pretty chill with those guys?
Last post repeating myself on this, but don't get baited. Trump knows that Yemen story is bad for him. He woke up and went HAM on Berkeley and Australia and Iran to keep you talking about something else.

If you're into social media spamming or whatever, go plaster these on your feeds or whatever, phone your Congresscritters to start investigating what happened, etc.:

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN15G5RX

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/01/w...ions.html?_r=0

https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/a...-in-yemen-raid

If Democrats are earnest about playing hard-ball, make this Trump's Benghazi. There will almost surely be more to follow. Trump's ineptitude is throwing our boys into the woodchipper, spilling American blood with his total lack of competence and carelessness. This is EZ game stuff. If Democrats come out swinging today defending Australia's honor or fiercely defensive about UC Berkeley students right to light fires or some ****, I'm going to start my own ****ing political party because this one is doomed.

This is an uncontested layup.
02-02-2017 , 08:46 AM
I see he was spewing that **** on twitter again last night.
02-02-2017 , 08:48 AM
Obviously for yuks on 2p2, commence with the jokes about Aussies, etc.
02-02-2017 , 08:49 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by DVaut1
This is both substantive and also entirely damaging to Trump's core framing to his supporters to have the Pentagon toss Trump under the bus like that.
Gonna play devil's advocate here: do we know this was Trump ****ing up, or is this a case of the military handing him a bad plan to sign off on? I sorta doubt Trump played any role in deciding the operational details of what went down. Like, the fact pattern could easily be some general ****ing up, giving Trump a bad gameplan, and now covering his ass by blaming Trump on social media.
02-02-2017 , 08:52 AM


Somebody needs to fund an independent investigation (aka prolonged media campaign) on this because the House of Representatives sure as hell doesn't care. They are still busy trying to make something out of Benghazi.
02-02-2017 , 08:53 AM
Playing poker yesterday and the conversation quickly starts with "Hey I heard the protesters decided not to protest during the Super Bowl. Isn't that big of them?" Followed by "those celebrities should keep their mouths shut". And I'm thinking "Jesus, how many rights do you guys want to give up?" And then somebody says "The thing about Trump is that HE TELLS THE TRUTH". At that point I had to say "well, that thing about the three million illegals voting for Hillary might be a little white lie". They seemed to be in general agreement with me, and didn't really recognize I was anti-Trump. But rather than pursuing the conversation, I just played a couple hours, took some of their money and left. I guess my point is that some people are buying into this ****... hook, line and sinker.
02-02-2017 , 08:54 AM
How is it that a part time poster on a random pointless subforum of an online message board has a infinitely better grasp of political optics than a party machine that spends billions of dollars on that exact thing? There must be something I'm missing I just don't get it.
02-02-2017 , 08:56 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by tomdemaine
How is it that a part time poster on a random pointless subforum of an online message board has a infinitely better grasp of political optics than a party machine that spends billions of dollars on that exact thing? There must be something I'm missing I just don't get it.
If you actually go into politics professionally and work hard to help people for thirty years, you get treated like Hillary Clinton. People much more respect someone who just quietly makes money in the private sector or becomes a reality show celebrities or some other respectable profession.
02-02-2017 , 08:58 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Trolly McTrollson
Gonna play devil's advocate here: do we know this was Trump ****ing up, or is this a case of the military handing him a bad plan to sign off on? I sorta doubt Trump played any role in deciding the operational details of what went down. Like, the fact pattern could easily be some general ****ing up, giving Trump a bad gameplan, and now covering his ass by blaming Trump on social media.
Of course we don't know the truth. But neither the White House nor the Pentagon is gonna transparently lay it all open and tell you what really happened. So fidelity to the truth is basically impossible.

So, again: rather than giving Trump the benefit of the doubt -- assume it's a game of limited information -- if Democrats are earnest about this ****, why not collude with the military here and let Trump be the patsy?
02-02-2017 , 09:01 AM


In for the military vs. Trump showdown.
02-02-2017 , 09:02 AM
ok how do we go about getting dvaut to save america? I am willing to put some money behind it
02-02-2017 , 09:02 AM
Like that Trump tried to stage a Wag the Dog raid to prove his tough-guy bonafides and show what a pussy Obama is, but was completely inept, unprepared, and ****ed it all up -- that's ENTIRELY PLAUSIBLE. Why would we spend even 15 seconds of self-doubt on this? You won't know the truth. Just assume the worst about Trump and proceed.

I agree in some hypothetical universe that we KNOW it was a case of the military handing him a bad plan to sign off on, then yes, I agree: we should spare Trump and fix the problems in the military and heap blame on them.

That's not the universe we operate in and it's still incredibly likely the least-flattering interpretation of events for Trump is exactly what happened.
02-02-2017 , 09:07 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by chytry
This kind of 'You have a different opinion; therefore, you are a racist' idiocy is one of the reasons why the evangelical fundamentalists have so much power.
Srs question, when you guys get together and form the gameplan, do you actually think it's gonna work to just omit the bolded?

'You have a different opinion, a different racist opinion; therefore, you are a racist'

We're not on breitbart, like, why would you even bother? It's ****ing bizarre.
02-02-2017 , 09:16 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by tomdemaine
How is it that a part time poster on a random pointless subforum of an online message board has a infinitely better grasp of political optics than a party machine that spends billions of dollars on that exact thing? There must be something I'm missing I just don't get it.
02-02-2017 , 09:17 AM
The Guardian reports this:

Quote:
The operation was launched to gather intelligence on suspected operations by al-Qaida in the Arabian peninsula (AQAP), according to Thomas. Planning for the raid “started months before”, under Barack Obama’s administration, but was “not previously approved”, he said.

Thomas said he did not know why the prior administration did not authorize the operation, but said the Obama administration had effectively exercised a “pocket veto” over it.

A former official said the operation had been reviewed several times, but the underlying intelligence was not judged strong enough to justify the risks, and the case was left to the incoming Trump administration to make its own judgment.
I mean the story that Trump snap approved an operation previously judged too risky would be somewhere in the top 10 least surprising things ever, I'm not sure a devil's advocate is required.
02-02-2017 , 09:20 AM
Imagine being a special forces guy and knowing that the dude in charge of whether to send you off on reckless suicide missions is Donald mother****ing Trump.
02-02-2017 , 09:21 AM
Trump likes people that aren't killed in the needlessly reckless and ultimately pointless missions he sends them on.
02-02-2017 , 09:28 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by DVaut1
It's sort of like Drain the Swamp. What they meant was, Donald Trump would Drain the Swamp...of liberals. Sorry if you thought that meant some generic populist thing, probably your fault though.

So when mouthbreathers said Hillary was more likely to start a war than Trump, they meant a (bad) war. Not a glorious, good war to Make America Great Again and keep us safe and protect our jobs and redeem our national dignity after so many Presidents stabbed us in the back by not starting these good wars. Those wars that Trump will start are OK and they knew Trump might start those kinds, they were for that all along, they just meant a bad war Hillary might start. They are a little sorry for not being clearer on that but it's what they meant all along. Probably your fault for not understanding the obvious point though that the criticism of Hillary was actually personal, arbitrary, and limited to things Hillary might do or not do, not like some bit of wisdom about doing or not doing the things. It's smart and good when Trump does it.
I saw the whole Hillary will go to war thing as being a line that was pushed to demoralize liberal support for her, not to actively win Trump voters. Trump voters clearly get hard thinking about taking granola from a hippy, much less any kind of actual war.
02-02-2017 , 09:34 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Trolly McTrollson
Gonna play devil's advocate here: do we know this was Trump ****ing up, or is this a case of the military handing him a bad plan to sign off on? I sorta doubt Trump played any role in deciding the operational details of what went down. Like, the fact pattern could easily be some general ****ing up, giving Trump a bad gameplan, and now covering his ass by blaming Trump on social media.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ChrisV
The Guardian reports this:
I mean the story that Trump snap approved an operation previously judged too risky would be somewhere in the top 10 least surprising things ever, I'm not sure a devil's advocate is required.
He probably heard the words "counter terrorism" and said, "go for it", or "fire them".

Quote:
Originally Posted by ChrisV
Imagine being a special forces guy and knowing that the dude in charge of whether to send you off on reckless suicide missions is Donald mother****ing Trump.
I can't pretend this is down to Trump. I had a friend not re-sign with the Air Force a few years ago because he felt like Kerry (yes, him) was sending him and his squad on a suicide mission just a couple of weeks prior. The mission was ultimately halted at the last minute.
02-02-2017 , 09:38 AM
Obama killed Bin Laden with no casualty, failed president Trump got a soldier killed in an operation against a 8 year old girl. Sad!
02-02-2017 , 09:46 AM
Trump is livid that some Nazi from Breitbart couldn't speak at Berkley. Meanwhile, not one word of condolences or sadness from our orange leader on the mosque killings in Canada.

Did he ever condemn the South Carolina shootings when those happened? I think I'm seeing a pattern here.

Edit: He actually did express sadness at the South Carolina shooting. Maybe he was on his pills that day.
02-02-2017 , 09:52 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kukraprout
Obama killed Bin Laden with no casualty, failed president Trump got a soldier killed in an operation against a 8 year old girl. Sad!
Man this would be an elite thing put on chiefsplanet/facebook/twitter to troll trumpkins.
02-02-2017 , 09:59 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by DeroDeniro
Trump is livid that some Nazi from Breitbart couldn't speak at Berkley. Meanwhile, not one word of condolences or sadness from our orange leader on the mosque killings in Canada.

Did he ever condemn the South Carolina shootings when those happened? I think I'm seeing a pattern here.

Edit: He actually did express sadness at the South Carolina shooting. Maybe he was on his pills that day.
He's just throwing red meat to the base. I mean there was a lot of talk about how Trump is a 10 level chessmaster of media manipulation, but you only need one simple flow chart. If something good happens, trump it up. If something bad happens, throw meat to the base or some controversy and the media will chase it. That's sort of true of all politicians but with Trump it's pretty blatant. It fits in with his personality.
02-02-2017 , 10:05 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by DVaut1
Like that Trump tried to stage a Wag the Dog raid to prove his tough-guy bonafides and show what a pussy Obama is, but was completely inept, unprepared, and ****ed it all up -- that's ENTIRELY PLAUSIBLE. Why would we spend even 15 seconds of self-doubt on this? You won't know the truth. Just assume the worst about Trump and proceed.

I agree in some hypothetical universe that we KNOW it was a case of the military handing him a bad plan to sign off on, then yes, I agree: we should spare Trump and fix the problems in the military and heap blame on them.

That's not the universe we operate in and it's still incredibly likely the least-flattering interpretation of events for Trump is exactly what happened.
I don't want the left to get into a war of unsupported claims, because there's no way we win on that front. OTOH, I have a ton of confidence that if we dig in and investigate, we'll find that Trump genuinely screwed the pooch.

      
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