Trump-Pence: Keep America Great
- Thread starter Catholic Crusader
- Start date
The term "neocon" is just as ignorant as the term "homophobe". They are both non-sequiturs made up by leftist idiots.
drbrumley
Well-known member
drbrumley
Well-known member
Yeah, The Donald's Done -- The Deep State Wins Its War On America First. I was hoping for his success. So now I will just watch as this whole thing comes a crumbling down. Tragic!
The Donald's action to ash-can the Iranian nuclear deal marks the War Party's complete and baleful triumph. There is now nothing much left of America First.
The Donald's action to ash-can the Iranian nuclear deal marks the War Party's complete and baleful triumph. There is now nothing much left of America First.
glorydaz
Well-known member
I think I've heard this "Donald's done" refrain before. :chuckle:
WizardofOz
New member
:hammer:
I've seen you write some stupid things before but this is next level ignorance.
The American Conservative - What's a Neoconservative
| perpetual war to rid the world of evil is about as far as one can get from traditional conservatism but it was also the mantra of Bush’s Republican Party. Boot now snidely asks the current GOP if they want to be known as the “anti-military, weak-on-defense, pro-dictator party” due to their opposition to the Libyan intervention. This argument might sound strange yet familiar to Republicans—it was exactly what they said about Democrats who opposed the Iraq War. John McCain now calls Republicans who oppose the Libyan War “isolationist.” The Senator’s use of that term is as illogical as it is illustrative—in that his bizarre definition is identical to what most of his fellow Republicans believed just a few short years ago. The Libyan War makes clear what the Iraq War made confusing: There is a difference between conservatives who believe in a strong national defense and neoconservatives who believe in policing the world under the guise of national defense. The neoconservatives will only remain successful to the extent that they can continue to blur this distinction. Conservatives will only remain conservative to the degree that they can continue to maintain it. |
Do you believe in policing the world or do you believe in strong national defense?
Perhaps you're just in denial when it comes to how far from traditional conservatism you've strayed.
| “It is a traditional conservative position not to want the United States to be the policeman of the world.” |
Conservatism, Paleoconservatism, and Neoconservatism
You are likely, like a lot of mindless drones are, Republican first and conservative second. You blow in the wind step in step with the GOP.
WizardofOz
New member
You should actually read the article. It doesn't mean 'he's done' as in being removed from office. It means 'he's done' as in the deep (war) state has taken over control of foreign policy and The Donald is now simply a cheerleader on the sideline. He's not draining any swamps. He just found some chickenhawk fossils to toss back into the fray. He's been duped.
| In short, the Donald has fallen for a pack of lies and distortions that are only remotely plausible if the aim is to find enemies and territories around the planet to police, occupy or otherwise hegemonize. And to thereby keep the Warfare State in business, its $800 billion budget funded, and the Imperial City's vast beehive of think-tanks, contractors, NGOs, lobbyists, and racketeers in clover. |
| you can't find any more ludicrous example of the cat calling the kettle black than the Donald's claim that Iran is a terrorist state because it is aligned with the Shiite population of Lebanon represented by Hezbollah. For crying out loud. The War Party pretends Washington has turned much of the middle east into rubble and barbarism in order to spread democracy -- whether they wanted it or not, and whether they were ready for it or not. But Lebanon is a serviceable democracy and last weekend Hezbollah and its allies -- including certain Sunni factions -- won an overwhelming election victory. They now control a clear majority in its legislature, where Hezbollah will have the power to name a new Prime Minister (a Sunni) and Speaker of the Parliament (a Shiite) -- both of whom will be pledged to work with the country's Christian president. That particular outcome of democracy the War Party can't abide. But it fairly violates the english language itself to call it state sponsored terrorism. In a similar vein, the Houthi tribe of Shiites have dominated much of northern and western Yemen for centuries. So when a Washington installed government in Sana'a was overthrown, the Houthi took power in northern Yemen -- as had been the case during the long expanse from 1918-1990 when the two Yemens were finally unified. But it is the Houthis who are the victims of aggression by the brutal Saudi bombing campaign that has left more than 10,000 civilians dead and the land plagued with famine, cholera, rubble, and economic collapse. There is no telling which faction in Yemen's fratricidal civil war and invasion by Saudi Arabia is the more barbaric, but the modest aid provided by Iran to its Shiite kinsman in northern Yemen is absolutely not a case of state sponsored terrorism. In a word, the Donald has fallen hook, line and sinker for the War Party's lie- and propaganda-filled demonization of the Iranian regime. |
Very well written article that shows an understanding of the dynamics on the Middle East. Thanks for sharing [MENTION=1077]drbrumley[/MENTION]
glorydaz
Well-known member
WizardofOz
New member
You're right. I didn't read the article, but I will.
I appreciate your candor. :thumb:
Trump has no appreciation for history or for world politics. How could he? He admitted he does not read. He rose to prominence in the NY tabloids and a "reality" TV show. He has made his $ recently by selling his brand.
He ran his business as his own little fiefdom, well except when he needed to use the Bankruptcy Code to bail himself out and stick it to his subs.
The hold-over neocons believe they can save America, no matter how they destroy the rest of the world.
He ran his business as his own little fiefdom, well except when he needed to use the Bankruptcy Code to bail himself out and stick it to his subs.
The hold-over neocons believe they can save America, no matter how they destroy the rest of the world.
drbrumley
Well-known member
Doing a family outing tonight, but I just want to say before I leave:
There are many of us on this board that want nothing more than the success of our President. I WANT him to succeed. I pray for him on a daily basis. I think everyone should. But this is a far cry from the Donald trump who campaigned. A far cry.
There are many of us on this board that want nothing more than the success of our President. I WANT him to succeed. I pray for him on a daily basis. I think everyone should. But this is a far cry from the Donald trump who campaigned. A far cry.
WizardofOz
New member
I agree. If he succeeds it is good for the United States. Sadly, he is backing off many of his good ideas on instilling many poor ones.
Why did pharmaceutical stocks rise after he said he was going to work to lower drug prices?
| Trump’s plan, though, will not include giving the federal Medicare program power to directly negotiate prices with drugmakers. Trump campaigned on the idea, which is vigorously opposed by the pharmaceutical industry. |
Why is he backing off?
Special interests win (get the winning bid) again
WizardofOz
New member
Iran preps 'industrial-scale' nuke production after U.S. leaves nuclear deal
The table is being set. This wasn't supposed to be possible until 2025. What benefit could Trump offer Iran to enter into a new deal after he hurt United States credibility on the world stage by killing this one?
The table is being set. This wasn't supposed to be possible until 2025. What benefit could Trump offer Iran to enter into a new deal after he hurt United States credibility on the world stage by killing this one?
| Russian President Vladimir Putin has spoken to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Turkey’s President Recep Erdogan about how to save the 2015 agreement with Iran, according to Russia's official press agency TASS. Putin has long advocated for a new financial system with China that would circumvent the reach of U.S. sanctions, which also target his country. |
drbrumley
Well-known member
pretty much!
Well, when one is basically threatened, its easy to get things ramped up.
What benefit? The only thing he can offer is promising not bombing them back to the stone age. Which is probably what the neocons want to happen, so it will be assimilate into our empire hegemony or pay the price.
And there is the real reason, right there. Any nation that backs away from the dollar is therefore deemed the enemy and annihilated.
drbrumley
Well-known member
The Deep State First – Madness On Both Ends of the Acela Corridor
by David Stockman
Posted on
May 12, 2018
At his so-called Cabinet meeting this morning, the Donald basically threatened Iran with annihilation if it does what 15 other signatories to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) do every day: Namely, increase production of industrial grade nuclear fuel (3.5%-5.0% purity) at its enrichment plant at Natanz – which, in any event, is crawling with IAEA inspectors.
Moreover, it really doesn’t matter whether Trump was play-acting in the style of Art of the Deal or that the JPAOC could be improved.
The mere threat of a military attack from the White House is madness because it arises from blatant lies that have absolutely nothing to do with US national security. Nor, for that matter, the security of any other country in the region, including Saudi Arabia and Israel.
The real purpose of the Donald’s missile-rattling is nothing more than helping Bibi Netanyahu keep his coalition of right wing religious and settler parties (Likud, United Torah Judaism, Shas, Kulanu and the Jewish Home) together, thereby maintaining his slim 61-vote majority in the 120-seat Knesset.
Netanyahu’s malefic political glue is the utterly false claim that Iran is an "existential threat" to Israel because it is hell-bent on getting the bomb.
But that’s where the whopper comes in. It amounts to the ridiculous postulate that Iran is so fiendishly evil that if it is involved in the nuclear fuel cycle in any way, shape or form – presumably even just operating a uranium mine – it is only a matter of months before it will have a bomb.
As a matter of record, of course, Netanyahu has been saying this since the early 1990s and he has always been wrong because there were never any facts or logic to support his blatant fear-mongering. For example, here is the cartoon-style, evidence-free "proof" that he offered way back in 2012.
The truth is more nearly the opposite. Not only the IAEA, but also the CIA and its 16 fellow spook agencies, agree that Iran has not had anything which remotely resembles a nuclear bomb weaponization program for the last 15 years; and that even the one it ran briefly in 1999-2003 – out of fear that Tehran’s mortal enemy, Saddam Hussein, might be doing the same – was essentially a series of science experiments that didn’t get close to making even a single bomb.
The fact is, 98% of the enriched uranium that Iran had on hand at the time of the 2015 nuke deal was in the LEU (low enriched uranium) category and was not remotely relevant to a bomb. And the 2% balance (450 pounds) was enriched to the 20% medical isotope level (also non-bomb grade), which, according to IAEA verification, has all been shipped out of the country.
Iran never had, nor does it possess now, anything close to the 90% enriched weapons grade (HEU) material that is an absolute pre-requisite for a nuclear bomb via the U-235 route.
Moreover, it couldn’t possibly go the plutonium route to a bomb, either. Pursuant to the deal, its plutonium reactor core at Arak – which theoretically could have produced enough plutonium for two bombs per year – has been completely removed and filled with concrete. Even the tin foil brigade among the neocons can’t plausibly suggest otherwise because the whole process has been viewed and verified by the IAEA inspectors.
In sum, if the Donald succeeds in killing the JPAOC, Tehran would have every right under the 193-nation NPT (which it signed but Israel, North Korea, Pakistan and India didn’t) to go back to making more industrial grade reactor fuel for civilian power.
Back in the day, the great Dwight D. Eisenhower called the latter Atoms for Peace. But after yesterday’s blatantly stupid action, the Donald has in effect declared himself to be the middle east’s Spanker-in-Chief, promising to annihilate Iran for doing exactly what Ike had in mind.
Even that is not the half of it, however. By turning the US war machine into an auxiliary operative in Bibi Netanyahu’s political machine, the Donald has put the Deep State First like never before.
That’s because without the Iranian Bomb cover story, there would be absolutely no reason for the US to pick sides as between the Iran-Shiite crescent and the Saudi-Wahhabi-petro state axis in the middle east.
In the first place, there is no threat whatsoever in the region to the safety and security of the American people. With the strategic nuclear triad already in place, there is no risk of nuclear blackmail by either side, neither of which has nuclear weapons nor any prospect of an offensive intercontinental first strike capacity, anyway.
As for the threat of a conventional attack on the American homeland from the middle east, the very idea is preposterous. Saudi Arabia’s 21st century military would be grounded in a week without US technical aid and spare parts; and the GDP of Iran amounts to less than one week of US output.
Likewise, the Persian Gulf is not an American lake, and the solution to high oil prices is high oil prices. That is to say, it has now been unequivocally demonstrated during the nearly five decades since the 1973 oil crisis that global energy supply and price is a matter for the free market, not the Fifth Fleet.
As we explained awhile back, a true America First national security policy could be done for $250 billion per year – the amount needed to maintain the strategic triad and protect the airspace and shorelines of the homeland.
But the Deep State luxuriates in $800 billion of annual spending for the military and the empire, and the unspeakable prosperity of the military-industrial-surveillance complex and the beltway’s army of consultants, think-tanks, NGOs, lobbyists, "law" firms and racketeers.
So it desperately needs enemies and threats to justify the half-trillion dollar per year excess. Ironically, Donald the erstwhile Swamp drainer is now doing his part to ensure that this yawning gap remains permanently bridged.
In part, that is no fault of his own. The biggest threat inflation lies in the demonization of Putin and the anti-Russian hysteria that suffuses the Imperial City.
That already had a head of steam after the Deep State enabled coup on the street of Kiev got the anti-Putin war-drums beating loudly back in February 2014. But then when the Donald unaccountably won the Presidential election and Obama’s inner circle invented the Russia collusion hoax to explain it and potentially reverse it – the Russia threat inflation was off to the races.
Without the Putin demonization and anti-Russian hysteria – even the compliant congressional politicians who function as handmaidens to the Deep State would never have been persuaded to embrace a $700 billion military budget or confirm a war-mongering thug like Mike Pompeo to serve as Secretary of State.
Still, the Donald’s utter blindness to the Big Lie about Iranian nukes and its role as the purported greatest state sponsor of terror amounts to the coup de grace.
It will lead to a rapidly intensifying confrontation between the two blocks in the middle east and turn the Persian Gulf into the front-line of battle, drawing both the Russians and Chinese ever deeper into the confrontation on the side of the Iranian cause.
You’d think this directional dynamic would be more than obvious. And that it absolutely guarantees a fiscal trainwreck, and the bond market carnage which must inexorably follow.
And that gets us to the madness at the other end of the Acela Corridor. On a day in which there was no good news whatsoever – except that defense spending will go ever higher making the impending yield shock even worse – the stock market rose by another 1%.
There is no mystery as to why, however. Honest price discovery and the discounting of real world information was totally destroyed by the Fed’s monetary central planners years ago.
The only thing the casino discounts today is the trading points on the hourly, daily and weekly stock charts, and the presumption that both the fiscal and central banking branches of the state stand ready to "stimulate" whenever a serious breach occurs on the charts.
Nothing could be more mistaken – and for reasons we will amplify upon in Part 2.
But the spoiler alert is this: The private sector is now swamped under record and unsustainable debt in both the household and business sectors. By succumbing to the most incendiary Deep State meme of all – the Iranian Nuke lie – the Donald has now made a public debt catastrophe an absolute certainty.
by David Stockman
Posted on
May 12, 2018
At his so-called Cabinet meeting this morning, the Donald basically threatened Iran with annihilation if it does what 15 other signatories to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) do every day: Namely, increase production of industrial grade nuclear fuel (3.5%-5.0% purity) at its enrichment plant at Natanz – which, in any event, is crawling with IAEA inspectors.
Moreover, it really doesn’t matter whether Trump was play-acting in the style of Art of the Deal or that the JPAOC could be improved.
The mere threat of a military attack from the White House is madness because it arises from blatant lies that have absolutely nothing to do with US national security. Nor, for that matter, the security of any other country in the region, including Saudi Arabia and Israel.
The real purpose of the Donald’s missile-rattling is nothing more than helping Bibi Netanyahu keep his coalition of right wing religious and settler parties (Likud, United Torah Judaism, Shas, Kulanu and the Jewish Home) together, thereby maintaining his slim 61-vote majority in the 120-seat Knesset.
Netanyahu’s malefic political glue is the utterly false claim that Iran is an "existential threat" to Israel because it is hell-bent on getting the bomb.
But that’s where the whopper comes in. It amounts to the ridiculous postulate that Iran is so fiendishly evil that if it is involved in the nuclear fuel cycle in any way, shape or form – presumably even just operating a uranium mine – it is only a matter of months before it will have a bomb.
As a matter of record, of course, Netanyahu has been saying this since the early 1990s and he has always been wrong because there were never any facts or logic to support his blatant fear-mongering. For example, here is the cartoon-style, evidence-free "proof" that he offered way back in 2012.
The truth is more nearly the opposite. Not only the IAEA, but also the CIA and its 16 fellow spook agencies, agree that Iran has not had anything which remotely resembles a nuclear bomb weaponization program for the last 15 years; and that even the one it ran briefly in 1999-2003 – out of fear that Tehran’s mortal enemy, Saddam Hussein, might be doing the same – was essentially a series of science experiments that didn’t get close to making even a single bomb.
The fact is, 98% of the enriched uranium that Iran had on hand at the time of the 2015 nuke deal was in the LEU (low enriched uranium) category and was not remotely relevant to a bomb. And the 2% balance (450 pounds) was enriched to the 20% medical isotope level (also non-bomb grade), which, according to IAEA verification, has all been shipped out of the country.
Iran never had, nor does it possess now, anything close to the 90% enriched weapons grade (HEU) material that is an absolute pre-requisite for a nuclear bomb via the U-235 route.
Moreover, it couldn’t possibly go the plutonium route to a bomb, either. Pursuant to the deal, its plutonium reactor core at Arak – which theoretically could have produced enough plutonium for two bombs per year – has been completely removed and filled with concrete. Even the tin foil brigade among the neocons can’t plausibly suggest otherwise because the whole process has been viewed and verified by the IAEA inspectors.
In sum, if the Donald succeeds in killing the JPAOC, Tehran would have every right under the 193-nation NPT (which it signed but Israel, North Korea, Pakistan and India didn’t) to go back to making more industrial grade reactor fuel for civilian power.
Back in the day, the great Dwight D. Eisenhower called the latter Atoms for Peace. But after yesterday’s blatantly stupid action, the Donald has in effect declared himself to be the middle east’s Spanker-in-Chief, promising to annihilate Iran for doing exactly what Ike had in mind.
Even that is not the half of it, however. By turning the US war machine into an auxiliary operative in Bibi Netanyahu’s political machine, the Donald has put the Deep State First like never before.
That’s because without the Iranian Bomb cover story, there would be absolutely no reason for the US to pick sides as between the Iran-Shiite crescent and the Saudi-Wahhabi-petro state axis in the middle east.
In the first place, there is no threat whatsoever in the region to the safety and security of the American people. With the strategic nuclear triad already in place, there is no risk of nuclear blackmail by either side, neither of which has nuclear weapons nor any prospect of an offensive intercontinental first strike capacity, anyway.
As for the threat of a conventional attack on the American homeland from the middle east, the very idea is preposterous. Saudi Arabia’s 21st century military would be grounded in a week without US technical aid and spare parts; and the GDP of Iran amounts to less than one week of US output.
Likewise, the Persian Gulf is not an American lake, and the solution to high oil prices is high oil prices. That is to say, it has now been unequivocally demonstrated during the nearly five decades since the 1973 oil crisis that global energy supply and price is a matter for the free market, not the Fifth Fleet.
As we explained awhile back, a true America First national security policy could be done for $250 billion per year – the amount needed to maintain the strategic triad and protect the airspace and shorelines of the homeland.
But the Deep State luxuriates in $800 billion of annual spending for the military and the empire, and the unspeakable prosperity of the military-industrial-surveillance complex and the beltway’s army of consultants, think-tanks, NGOs, lobbyists, "law" firms and racketeers.
So it desperately needs enemies and threats to justify the half-trillion dollar per year excess. Ironically, Donald the erstwhile Swamp drainer is now doing his part to ensure that this yawning gap remains permanently bridged.
In part, that is no fault of his own. The biggest threat inflation lies in the demonization of Putin and the anti-Russian hysteria that suffuses the Imperial City.
That already had a head of steam after the Deep State enabled coup on the street of Kiev got the anti-Putin war-drums beating loudly back in February 2014. But then when the Donald unaccountably won the Presidential election and Obama’s inner circle invented the Russia collusion hoax to explain it and potentially reverse it – the Russia threat inflation was off to the races.
Without the Putin demonization and anti-Russian hysteria – even the compliant congressional politicians who function as handmaidens to the Deep State would never have been persuaded to embrace a $700 billion military budget or confirm a war-mongering thug like Mike Pompeo to serve as Secretary of State.
Still, the Donald’s utter blindness to the Big Lie about Iranian nukes and its role as the purported greatest state sponsor of terror amounts to the coup de grace.
It will lead to a rapidly intensifying confrontation between the two blocks in the middle east and turn the Persian Gulf into the front-line of battle, drawing both the Russians and Chinese ever deeper into the confrontation on the side of the Iranian cause.
You’d think this directional dynamic would be more than obvious. And that it absolutely guarantees a fiscal trainwreck, and the bond market carnage which must inexorably follow.
And that gets us to the madness at the other end of the Acela Corridor. On a day in which there was no good news whatsoever – except that defense spending will go ever higher making the impending yield shock even worse – the stock market rose by another 1%.
There is no mystery as to why, however. Honest price discovery and the discounting of real world information was totally destroyed by the Fed’s monetary central planners years ago.
The only thing the casino discounts today is the trading points on the hourly, daily and weekly stock charts, and the presumption that both the fiscal and central banking branches of the state stand ready to "stimulate" whenever a serious breach occurs on the charts.
Nothing could be more mistaken – and for reasons we will amplify upon in Part 2.
But the spoiler alert is this: The private sector is now swamped under record and unsustainable debt in both the household and business sectors. By succumbing to the most incendiary Deep State meme of all – the Iranian Nuke lie – the Donald has now made a public debt catastrophe an absolute certainty.
You're leftisim and antisemitism is obvious and ugly.
Five senior ISIS officials captured in U.S.-Iraqi sting operation, reports say
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...-iraqi-sting-operation-reports-say/598224002/
At least five senior Islamic State officials have been captured in a three-month operation by Iraqi and American intelligence that involved phone apps and the breaking of secret bank accounts and communication codes, according to news reports.
The captures were announced Wednesday on Iraqi state TV, which broadcast images of four of the detainees wearing yellow prisoner jumpsuits.
President Trump, in a tweet on Thursday, said only that "Five Most Wanted leaders of ISIS just captured."
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...-iraqi-sting-operation-reports-say/598224002/
At least five senior Islamic State officials have been captured in a three-month operation by Iraqi and American intelligence that involved phone apps and the breaking of secret bank accounts and communication codes, according to news reports.
The captures were announced Wednesday on Iraqi state TV, which broadcast images of four of the detainees wearing yellow prisoner jumpsuits.
President Trump, in a tweet on Thursday, said only that "Five Most Wanted leaders of ISIS just captured."