SSCI Finds Russians Interfered in 2016 USA Election

[Zzzptm]

Why do you guys always assume the worst in someone? 

We listen to Black Sabbath, among other things.

And as for "no collusion"... no, not in *this* indictment.

And think - the GOP has spent more hours grilling the FBI than they have trying to find out more about the Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

[Typhon]

And as for "no collusion"... no, not in *this* indictment.

Keep dreaming.

And think - the GOP has spent more hours grilling the FBI than they have trying to find out more about the Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

Well when you've got FBI agents spewing obvious bias, what do you expect?  The democrats would be doing the same thing if the bias was against Hillary.

[Sicko FanAtic]

Why do you guys always assume the worst in someone? 

Why do you defend somebody who's obviously a jackass?

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[Billy Underdog]

Why do you guys always assume the worst in someone? 

Why do you defend somebody who's obviously a jackass?

I'm kinda wondering about that too...

[Tyr66]

may be off topic , but anyway :
US morality will always amaze me. We are only men with our strengths and our weaknesses. these are increased tenfold when a very rare minority of us accede to power. Power, Money, Sex. Pretty simple and eternal logic of the system. Ditto for music and movies stars.
In England, situations and reactions to the sex scandals are pretty close to the USA. Here, we have a certain perspective on things. During the funeral of François Miterrand, his wife and children were present but also Mazarine, his illegitimate daughter conceived during his presidential era, and her mother. When the news was known throughout France, no one was shocked during the broadcasted ceremony on TV. We had almost compassion for her. It was just love after all.

The case of Francois Hollande was very different. The photos showing him with his helmet riding a scooter in the streets of Paris early in the morning carrying cupcakes to his mistress Julie Gayet were greeted with laughter and mockery. Just ridiculous as the 5 years spent supporting this incompetent socialist. What a poor clown. The broken dishes at the Elysee Palace by Valérie Trierweiller, his official companion, and her late hospitalization for nervous breakdown only prolonged the good joke. The whole country was bent laughing.
Maybe our Astérix side, I don't know ... Until today, none of them fell into the trap of a sex party with whores, except the best of us, Dominique Strauss-Khan. The thing is Dom is out of category.
That being said, our young president and his anorexic old wife makes us laugh less now. Fucking little banker ,Rothschilds and pro-European ultra-liberal lobbying valet.

That being said, I am surprised that the mystery of Hillary unconscious and thrown like a vulgar bag into a black van by the security service agents did not raise more than questions. Very strange sequence. Some talked about a video montage ...

[Typhon]

Why do you guys always assume the worst in someone? 

Why do you defend somebody who's obviously a jackass?

I guess it depends on your definition of "jackass".  To me, if you are 8 years in office, while in the mean time the economy struggles, unemployment increases, the stock market decreases, and other countries take advantage of you, then for those 8 years you acted like a jackass.

[Zzzptm]

But a good deal of that narrative is an invention, a fiction made to promote a partisan of the other side. Break it down and it becomes a little less damning for Obama.

Economy struggles: the whole thing went to pieces in Bush II's last year and I was pleasantly surprised that we did NOT have a deeper depression than we did.

Unemployment increases: see above. Again, that we did not have a longer depression was also a pleasant surprise. I was very pessimistic in 2008 that the economic collapse would lead to a trade war, which invariably leads to a real war. Should Trump manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, I'll be quite disappointed. It seems that he is headed that way, as well.

Stock market decreases: There was a sell-off, it was back on the way up at the end of Obama's administration. Natural business/speculative cycle, it will surely head down again.

Other countries take advantage of you: this is the biggest drum of the far right, and it is beaten over and over to justify a dismantling of the multinational, pluralist systems built up after WW2 to prevent a return to nationalist, balance-of-power global politics. We do NOT want strongmen running nations as they please, as that leads to wars. Wars with Maxim guns were bad enough. We do NOT want wars with nuclear weapons.

I'm seeing articles emerging in the defense press that point to a very troubling development for Trump. Normally, the defense press is very supportive of sitting presidents, even if they're Democrats. After all, it's the POTUS that signs that budget, and the defense industry wants it to be as big as it can be. In a normal circumstance, the defense press will talk about new weapons systems, the threats that we're not taking seriously (translation: the new weapon systems we should be buying are as follows...), and the success or issues of current weapon systems.

Lately, the defense press is talking about "growing and legitimate concerns" about Trump's foreign policy. That's a red flag to me. In the last few days, I've read articles about how NATO spending more on defense is not a good thing if the nations either can't afford it or spend it on the wrong stuff, how antagonizing regional and international allies while praising rivals is providing fundamental threats to the continuance of the alliance system the USA built up after WW2, and how Trump's talk of not renewing START would then open up the path for Russia to not only increase its nuclear weapons arsenal, but would also remove diplomatic and intelligence community visibility into Russia's military capability.

If a guy on a music board thinks Trump is a doofus, it's quite likely that the guy in question is a doofus himself. After all, my avatar is of The Dude. Who's to say I'm not as big a doofus as that character?

But if the defense industry press is raising critical concerns about Trump's foreign policy, that is a big warning sign. If they don't want him around because they think he'll be bad for their business (profits are sharply lower in the event of a nuclear war), then they'll make moves to undermine him and right the course of the Republican Party in general. Failing that, it's full-on support of Democratic hawks to return a Clinton-Obama style of neoconservative foreign policy.

I would say that the narrative of the Trump camp is at sharp odds with reality, and that the Trump camp is going to find itself increasingly isolated. It's easier to make friends, and then deals, with more rational and realistic politicians.

[Typhon]

Economy struggles: the whole thing went to pieces in Bush II's last year and I was pleasantly surprised that we did NOT have a deeper depression than we did.

Unemployment increases: see above. Again, that we did not have a longer depression was also a pleasant surprise.

Well, let's all congratulate Barak Obama for not making a dreadful situation even more dreadful. 

Stock market decreases: There was a sell-off, it was back on the way up at the end of Obama's administration. Natural business/speculative cycle, it will surely head down again.

Baloney.  Markets shot up because Trump rescinded many of Obama policies that were unfriendly to businesses.

[Zzzptm]

It's easy to make a dreadful situation more dreadful... look what Hoover did with the start of the Great Depression. Just sayin'.

And the DJIA is a measure not of actual production, but of speculative feelings among investors in America. GDP grew for a very long time under Obama, what with the natural recovery in the business cycle and all.

Either give top marks to Obama for getting that GDP back where it needed to be, or leave all that economic/speculative stuff to cycles that run independently of US presidents.

[Charger]

Well there is no denying that during Obama's administration the US national debt more than tripled and that his economical actions (or non actions) helped to facilitate a world wide depression.

Also he spent money that the country did not have to make changes that helped to deepen the economical pit the country was falling into.

Obama might have a charismatic leader and had a good on camera presense but as a president he was dreadful...especially from an economical point of view...but he also helped devide the country even more than it ever was.

This is coming from the eyes of an outside observer.

[Sicko FanAtic]

I deny it, so, yes, there's denying it, lol.

The debt increases under every president.

The economy rebounded under Obama.

Endless regurgitated talking points...

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[Zzzptm]

I recommend "This Time It's Different" by Reinhart and Rogoff. The debt did not triple, it increased by the entirely predictable 150-210 percent that national debt increases by during a sovereign debt crisis.

One should note that removing restrictions on banking and brokerage activities, such as Trump and Congress have recently done, will produce short-term run-ups in markets at a cost of increased underlying instability that will deepen the resulting crash.

We were very lucky indeed after 2008, but have not done enough shoring up and discharging of bad debt to prepare us for the next crash.

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[Sicko FanAtic]

So, how about that summit?

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[Vyn]

So, how about that summit?

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LOL

[Zzzptm]

So, how about that summit?

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LOL

I would think it went well.

I mean I *wouldn't* think it went well. There are many summits. Both good and bad. It's hard to say. I'm sure they made some good deals about the cyber and the nuclear and Putin promised not to collude in the 2020 election.