it kind of makes a point that a place responsible for every single meme you see on the internet is also responsible for having trump as US president

Remember that trump media survey posted here? Trump didn't like the results he wanted so he has now called them fake.

Assad and ISIS aren't the only players. I've just been getting interested in Rojava and the Democratic Confederation of Northern Syria lately. It's a federation of three cantons based on the ideology of a libertarian socialist and pioneer of the ecology movement and anarcho-feminism. The majority of the people in the group are Kurdish, but it's not based on ethnicity or religion. There's also a Kurdish Nationalist Group which is or is tied to the Kurdish autonomous region in Iraq and I think there's the Free Syrian Army or something and the US has not only been providing arms to these groups, but has already been giving supportive air strikes and training. This is all happening along the Turkish border and is quite complicated by the Turkish invasion of Northern Syria and the adversarial relationship of Turkey with the Kurds in Turkey. The Kurdish Nationalists are pretty right-wing and authoritarian, which means business friendly, certainly compared to the Anarcho-Socialist-Feminist-Ecological-Democratic Kurdish group, so my money would be on them receiving the bulk of the US support.

A no-fly zone in the area would be to protect one or more of the Kurdish groups I think. Russia also seems to want to protect some of the Kurdish groups as well I think. Assad, a member of a religious minority himself in Syria, has not been universally hated by groups like the Kurds and Yazidis (who were rescued by the Feminist Democratic Confederalist Kurds when they were up on that mountain).

Anyway, that's my understanding at this point, but I'm just getting into recently.

he got mad cause democrats answered his public poll

Yes. As far back as my great grandparents

Let's all remember what Bannon himself had to say about the MSM - when battling these false equivalencies like WaPo is just as bad as Breitbart.

There is almost no equivalent path for liberal muck-rakers to pierce the right-wing media bubble. It's a one-way street.

He showed it to the whole world.

Then it's a credit to you for understanding Orwell. I don't think most Americans do.

My x-ray vision confirms his claim.

What I'm finding (wiki) shows R house votes outnumbering D house votes 63.1M to 61.8M (1.1%)

You will see a senate chart showing D senate votes outnumbered R senate votes 51.5M to 40.5M, but that is irredeemably skewed by all 12.25M votes in the California race going to 2 Democratic candidates.

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This twitter thread is a pretty brilliant analysis of why Trump's speaking style is so frustrating to combat.



https://twitter.com/EmilyGorcenski/s...82921339432960

My two cents (not linking my own tweets in here, that's just dumb):

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The highlight of that medium post comes pretty late, and goes toward my personal theory of Trump as unabashed wish fulfillment.

Roger Stone on MSNBC right now

It's a huge cluster. The State Department decided to back the Free Syrian Army and I think some smaller groups, like you stated. So you have the CIA and the Special Forces (Green Berets) training these guys, and they can't tell who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. Three Green Berets died in late November/early December at a check point. I read an op-ed from a Green Beret
and he basically denounced the whole program in Syria that the State Department has put together. They're supporting and training moderate rebels that sympathize with ISIS.

This link might be a pay site (I think my comp keeps me logged in), but just in case it's not, I'll post it. It's not the op-ed I reference but a great article, nonetheless.

https://sofrep.com/63764/us-special-...-ops-in-syria/

Proving... that he has a passport.

It seems to have died down now, but if it starts up again, can we excise the Islam stuff? I'm sick of it and this thread moves fast enough as is.

NYMag on John McCain:

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer...ald-trump.html

It has some interesting insights. Basically splits the difference between John McCain: Courageous Man of Principle and this forum's semi-consensus John McCain: Cowardly Political Hack.

I'd be lying though if I didn't admit one of my main motivations in posting this was to cite this golden quote, if you catch my drift.

Thanks man

I assume even a Trumper can appreciate this old joke.

http://www.cs.northwestern.edu/~ries...thphyseng.html

this is an excellent post, which i've copied/sent to family. seems you concerned the U.S. is headed toward a theocracy, in which case President Pence would pose as much or greater danger to your democracy as President Trump.

The derail you started with your asinine takes. Isn't that convenient.

Yeah, I only stick to non-World Class Scholars.

You're making my point.

Nice. My favorite was Red Rubber Ball. I didn't get why the engineer thought 9 was prime.

Oh look, more totally-not-a-derail.

It's "tenets" mother****er.

Maybe you didn't get to that chapter yet in Harris' scintillating new work, Everything You Wanted To Know About Mooslims But Were Afraid To Ask.

This is from a Kurdish source and who knows what sources from anywhere are reliable, but this is consistent with a fair amount of other stuff I've been seeing and the news outlet here is not from Rojava, but from the Iraqi Kurdish area which is not generally sympatico with the the anti-nationalist Rojava Movement.

http://www.nrttv.com/en/birura-details.aspx?Jimare=5047

Having taken a fair number of classes taught by mathematicians and physicists, I'm gonna say they don't think engineers are very smart.

I didn't notice that site messed up the punchline of my favorite joke. Damn them.

Very well argued rebuttal. Run along now.

I was listening to Amicus today a Supreme Court podcast and the guest mentioned congress is working on a bill to outlaw class action lawsuits. It would be crazy.

A good doc on the issue is hot coffee.

I haven't seen any coverage of this.