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Thread: Politics

  1. #11041
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    Rex Tillerson just got fired a day after issuing a statement that Russia clearly was behind an attempt to assassinate a former spy in Britain. Also, Trump's personal assistant was apparently fired and escorted out over an unspecified "security issue".

    Tillerson reportedly found out he was fired the same time the rest of us did, when he saw Trump's tweet.
    Last edited by Tom Servo; March 13th, 2018 at 06:20 AM.

  2. #11042
    Ask me about my bottom br FaultyMario's Avatar
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    Not having a hawkish petroleum CEO in charge of foreign affairs must be a good thing, right?
    acket.

  3. #11043
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    You'd think, but I can't tell if it's better or worse to swap him out for a tea party congressman from Kansas. Admittedly, one thing out of this that sounds uniformly positive is that with Pompeo now shifting to Sec. of State, his replacement at the CIA sounds like she might actually be someone qualified to be director.

  4. #11044
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    most people think Rex Tillerson was pretty smart and acted like an adult, unlike the rest of the administration...I don't know enough about Mike Pompeo but this happening right before this supposed meeting with North Korea is worrying.

  5. #11045
    Ask me about my bottom br FaultyMario's Avatar
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    I've long held that those populist astroturf movements would be clearly exposed in their lack of coherence or ineptitude (or both) if they were to be put in positions of power, because they lack the ideological directives to guide their policy decisions; with them, one doesn't find the logic behind opposing social expenditure because free market or favoring it because social justice, they just go with appears to be popular, but because popular choice is often contradictory, so there's no way they could execute a policy program that calculates political costs and reaches any sort of tangible goal.

    I say in general, having the spotlight on a tea party-er will expose her for what she really is (and I'm putting a tenner on her being business-as-usual), so that will hopefully give the opposition enough ammunition to show the electorate they may campaign on change, but change they're not.
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  6. #11046
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    Quote Originally Posted by FaultyMario View Post
    I've long held that those populist astroturf movements would be clearly exposed in their lack of coherence or ineptitude (or both) if they were to be put in positions of power, because they lack the ideological directives to guide their policy decisions; with them, one doesn't find the logic behind opposing social expenditure because free market or favoring it because social justice, they just go with appears to be popular, but because popular choice is often contradictory, so there's no way they could execute a policy program that calculates political costs and reaches any sort of tangible goal.

    I say in general, having the spotlight on a tea party-er will expose her for what she really is (and I'm putting a tenner on her being business-as-usual), so that will hopefully give the opposition enough ammunition to show the electorate they may campaign on change, but change they're not.
    It doesn't work, at least in the U.S., because the media spotlighted Trump constantly and how insane his speeches and ideas sounded....except he was elected. Even if there was some interference, it's damn scary that there's a large percentage of americans who are that stupid

  7. #11047
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    People are mostly stupid and emotionally driven... and emotions can also cause relatively smart folks to act stupid... so...

    Anyway, Trump must've broken historical records when it comes to firing of his top staffs? He probably still thinks that he's on his reality TV show?

    I suppose Trump is a good representative of average Americans. Democracy only works with smarter voters..., but the ironic thing was that founding fathers realizes the dangers of true democracy, hence developed the electoral college system...

    So since he didn't win the popular vote, we can safely conclude that average Americans are not that stupid after all! Yeah!

    I still think Trump only won because FBI meddled with our election.

  8. #11048
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    Quote Originally Posted by FaultyMario View Post
    I've long held that those populist astroturf movements would be clearly exposed in their lack of coherence or ineptitude (or both) if they were to be put in positions of power, because they lack the ideological directives to guide their policy decisions; with them, one doesn't find the logic behind opposing social expenditure because free market or favoring it because social justice, they just go with appears to be popular, but because popular choice is often contradictory, so there's no way they could execute a policy program that calculates political costs and reaches any sort of tangible goal.

    I say in general, having the spotlight on a tea party-er will expose her for what she really is (and I'm putting a tenner on her being business-as-usual), so that will hopefully give the opposition enough ammunition to show the electorate they may campaign on change, but change they're not.
    Just because I get the impression that my post might not have been clear enough - the tea party congressman from Kansas is Mike Pompeo, who will now be Secretary of State. The "she" is Gina Haspel, who has been with the CIA since 1985 and has been serving as Deputy Director since 02/2017 and will be replacing Pompeo as the director of the CIA. That said, she allegedly ran a secret CIA prison in Thailand in 2002 that housed suspected al Qaeda members and engaged in waterboarding and other "no-longer-authorized" interrogation methods, with one of the prisoners losing his left eye while in their custody. On the flipside, that might be "not that bad" when compared to others in the CIA, who knows?

  9. #11049
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    And now, from at least what I'm reading, Pompeo is significantly more "in line" with Trump. Notably more hawkish on Iran and N. Korea and believes that the Iran nuclear deal should be abandoned. Haspel is notoriously pro-torture (as is Pompeo). She's more qualified than him to head the CIA to be sure, but she also sounds like a hell of a monster. I'm going to go with this being worse than having an oil exec at the head of the state department.

  10. #11050
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    No Tom, it was clear who each person was.

    I was thinking of Betsy DeVos when I wrote that, who to me is the most representative token of Trump's presidency, because precisely she exposes the lack of coherence in a model of politics that needs good policies to serve as incentives for new voters. By appointing people like DeVos, people who design policy by instrumentation and not by idealization, the party ends up with shit incentives.
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