Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

If you think Trump has advocated rolling back SS or Medicare, I don't know what Trump you were viewing. He's been consistent in stating he won't cut benefits, just taxes. That's a much different variant of problematic position than the one you're describing.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Merry Christmas to all, even the idiots. May you enjoy the Funk as you dance on the grave of the Republic!

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Give me a break. Here's what he said:

"Thought: There was (rightly) a cloud of illegitimacy over Bush, dispelled (wrongly) by 9/11. Creates some interesting incentives for Trump"

You can make that crazy, but only by jumping to your own crazy conclusions.

Meanwhile, Alex Jones, who Trump lauds, says Sandy Hook didn't happen.

I don't see him "whining." I do see you characterizing his tone instead of responding to what he says. Helpfully, when I point it out, you just do it again.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Yes. So we'll see what happens when a Republican Congress does those things and he signs the bills. He's not exactly reining them in right now.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Reminder: Your political prediction track record is terrible.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Have you been under a rock or something? Yes, Trump hasn't walked back from what he said on the stump. But the people he's put in his cabinet have a history of advocating these things. You think he picked them despite disagreeing? And Paul Ryan has said he's going propose them.

We'll see if Trump stands up to them. I kinda doubt it.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/12...ttlements.html

Why would they do this now? Seems a short sighted slap at a key friend that Obama said he supported.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Because the resolution was up for vote now? And let's not forget that the illegal settlements are, well, illegal. Despite previous pledges to stop from Bibi and his predecessors, settlement keep getting built. Pretty soon (and deliberately) the growing population in the expanded settlements will make annexation of much of the West Bank into Israel a fait accompli.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

So that might be why to do it a year ago, but now? Isn't it almost petty? I mean it will have no effect other than to record that Obama wasn't all that happy with Israel after all.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Was there a resolution re settlements last year? Granted, there are constant General Assembly resolutions attacking Israel ("Zionism is racism" etc.), but I don't know (and am Not Inclined to Google) how often the Security Council considers a resolution that Bibi's government opposes -- but which isn't actually contrary to US policy -- such as condemning new settlements.

But then again, to the GOP and certain Jewish groups* in the US, any disagreement with Bibi is anti-Semetism, so ...

*Like Trump's proposed ambassador to Israel, who calls Jewish groups opposed to Bibi "kapos" -- the term for the Jews who cooperated with the Nazis during the Holocaust.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

1 apologize for the Obamacare typo. 2 appreciate the holocaust history lesson but do not need it. 3 you didn't answer my question. 4 your last month as President you transition, you don't make a major policy change, especially when it just seems pathetic, given what is coming.

edit 2011 veto https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-cal...134545510.html

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

1. What Obamacare typo?

2. By "history lesson" do you mean my point about how Not Unconditionally agreeing with Bibi is anti-semitic? Or that I explained the definition of the slur used by the next US ambassador?

3. I did answer your question - Obama directed Power to abstain because there was a Security Council vote being held and that's the way he wanted to handle it.

4. And if the issue hasn't come up for a SC vote since 2011, then when would it have been too late in his administration to cast a vote (or to Not Veto) such a resolution? Any time after 1/1/2016 because it is an election year? And what is the US policy change you mean? Not saying that the settlements are illegal and the should t be expanded, because that is and has been for a long time current US policy. Or do you mean the policy of giving the Israeli government veto power over our UN vote?

I do agree with you that it is a good idea generally to avoid anything controversial between the election and the inaguration. It probably would have been prudent to not rock the boat now and maybe it does seem petty. And I'd probably feel differently if I agreed with Chuck Schumer on the issue. Anyway.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

1. Who cares?

2. Calm down. Every single one of you. Calm the fuck down.

3. Fuck you.

4. Fuck me? No, scotch!

5. What?

6. I said scotch. Do I need to spell it out for you? Here, for a special Christmas Eve Daily Dose is the Jive Turkeys with "Get Down Santa." Happy Holidays! Unless my saying happy holidays offends you, in which case bite me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBkV-gmyr7w

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

We're Jewish.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Then you are part of the War on Christmas and are part of the reason the multicultural pagan hippies satanists insist that everyone says Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas like God-fearing Americans who worship at the Church of the White Santa say because they are not afraid to tell it like it is, and Kwanzaa is totally made up and the Jewish one I can't spell is probably made up too because the anti-Christian zealots are totes jelly are afraid that if we recognize that there is only one true holiday this season, some lil' feewings of the non-Jesus-worshiping heathens will be hurty hurt.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Well, we know we are doomed to hell when we die, but it would be nice to get a little love while we are still here:confused:

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

By the way, I quit drinking scotch. i drink bourbon. Kentucky voted for President Trump. Scotland voted AGAINST Brexit. Not sure how far the expulsions will go, but better safe than sorry.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

I've been hedging my bets and drinking both.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

I think that gets you duty building the wall, but you'll be on the right side of it.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Pretty much consistent US position since 1967: Settlements are contrary to international law, as established by the Geneva conventions, expansion beyond pre-1967 borders not proper, ultimate borders, since Oslo, are meant to be "based on" pre-67 borders with swaps.

Up until now, despite Netanyahu's atrocious behavior, Obama has kept the Israel/Palestine issues out of the UN and in the hands of the quartet or other ad-hoc international bodies. The last security council resolution the US allowed to go through happened 11 days before Obama's term began, and was one of 8 during the Bush II years. No US President has allowed fewer resolutions than Obama since the occupation began.

Obama's approach during the last eight years is probably best viewed as a last-ditch effort to save Oslo, but Oslo was doomed by Israeli domestic politics. There is no replacement peace process.

Throwing it back to the UN rather than leaving it to Putin and his new sidekick, Trump, seems wiser than the alternative, if your goal is to simply avoid fucking it up even worse for four years. Ultimately, whether a peace process can take hold is going to be entirely dependent on Israel (wisest words on Israel ever spoken were when Bob Dole gave them his phone number and told them to call him when they were ready), and the international community simply can't force the issue in any useful fashion. Netanyahu, by cutting off significant ties to the rest of the world, is cooperating in the project of side-lining the dispute. Best thing the international community can do is to just try to keep the endless Israel/Palestine conflict from destabilizing surrounding countries (and visa versa - the new Russian naval port in Syria is going to be an issue for a long time to come).

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Now is probably the time to be putting great wines from around the world in the cellar, since the coming trade wars are probably going to jack up all the prices. Plus, when he shifts the tax burden from the rich to the working class, there will be more money in the hands of the idle wine drinking class.

I'm betting fine Bordeaux outperforms the market significantly during the Trump years. Probably even more than luxury real estate, where if Trump isn't careful he'll scare off all those Chinese buyers into the US market.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

This has simply never been true in the Israel/Palestine conflict. Indeed, the exact opposite is true historically. Reagan used his last month in office, freed from electoral pressure, to begin dialogue with the PLO. Bush II focused on pushing Israel and Hamas to talk, including abstaining on a security council resolution on the issue. Clinton used the period to push the Clinton Parameters and an Egyptian-led Israel/Palestine summit.

We've probably not had an incoming President with the same "Fuck you and Fuck US Policy, too" attitude toward the President ever. Lincoln and Buchanan certainly had the rockiest of all transitions ever, but Lincoln was still more respectful of the man who was spending the transition complaining about the union falling apart but not doing anything about it. There really isn't anything to transition to right now, just a great big morass of promises to shit on existing policy with no policy to replace it. Don't worry, though, post-inauguration we'll get filled in on who we're going to war against.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Special snowflakes in Moscow upset that US might get in the way of the next Aleppo, hopes Comrade Trump will reverse bipartisan defense bill.

What's the over/under on Trump picking up the baton here, and helping the Moscow snowflakes out?

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

We could use some special snowflakes here after a Christmas day thunderstorm turned the area into an ice skating rink. Here is a nice classic old cut, famously sampled by N.W.A (hilariously enough with an anti-pot message from Dr. Dre a few years before he released The Chronic). The Daily Dose is "Express Yourself" by Charles Wright and the Watts 103rd Street Band. So groovy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPSDQygm4dI

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Hi, me again! Another version of the Daily Dose coming your way, with Eddie Bo under the pseudonym Curley Moore. "Funky Yeah." It's ~psychedelic~!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kk_8v5CNsBg

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

So i plan travel to Moth cities for when the moth is there- coming to St. Paul in late February for a hearing, and I planned it for the day the Moth will be there. But then I remembered it'll be fucking February in Mn. It'll be horrible? Will there be any way to run? Do you guys plow the bike paths? Should I send an associate?

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

I'm a Cali wine guy anyway, but there are rumblings it will leave the US so who knows.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Once the trade wars protect California wines from competition, they'll have less incentive to keep the quality up, so I'd stock up on your Cali wines too, before they all taste like boxed wine.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

February can be anything. 40. Negative 20. The bike paths around the lakes are maintained very well. I assume that the bike paths along the river on the north side of downtown are similarly maintained. Don't know about St. Paul. People run here in basically any temp, but if it gets icy (freeze-thaw cycle, or rain then freeze) then all bets are off. What temps you can run in is largely dependent on what clothes you have. I x-country skied for an hour and a half last Sunday and the air temp was ten below.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Obama needs to stop trying to counter Putin. Today's debacle was a new low. We look like fools, and Putin looks like he's just toying with a despearate lame duck. (And Trump will reflexively undo all of the symbolic sanctions, just to demonstrate he cannot be put in a box by Obama or the GOP Congress.)

Leave on a high note, Mr. President. You've immense domestic popularity. But you cannot play on the same court with Putin.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

I do not think Obama has a fuck left to give about the way that the press will react to what he does.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

I can only imagine Putin's goals while he has a patsy in the White House.

The idiot Republicans in Congress are all saying, "finally, you should have done this earlier on Russia," though they've had plenty of power to levy sanctions themselves, and potentially more meaningful sanctions. It's the old "the food tastes awful but I want bigger portions" gang. Let's see what they come up with to follow on Obama's sanctions. Anything that slows Putin down now is a good thing, because he's going to be partying like it's 1721.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Does Hank pay you to make him look good?

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Agreed. And it was his only technical move in the game of traditional intl relations.

But it was probably a much smarter move to just avoid Putin altogether. Why leave any flank open by screwing around with the guy? Preferable to dryly tell the media, "Well, Putin is Trump's problem, or bestie, from now on... Good luck with that."

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Come on. Objectively, Putin volleyed that perfectly. There's no getting around that fact. Giving him the opportunity to do so was error.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Look, I don't care if you want to crawl in between V.&D. and do the fluffing, but if you're approach to this is to fanboy Putin instead of focusing on his hacking of the election and the PEOTUS' dismissal of it, don't expect a whole lot of 2s.

Америка первым!

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Isn't that the point?

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

There's no downside for obama. He sets up trump to take the bait, which he has so far, or Trump avoids it and he's out nothing.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

I don't understand "setting up" the next President. For what?

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

There's no bait being offered. Obama legitimately wants to punish Russia. Trump will undo many, most, possibly all of his sanctions and pay a small, if any, political price for it. His base likes Putin!

He'll piss off some of the GOP Congress. But that'll be minimal. The Lindsey Graham part of the GOP is in exile. No one cares what they think.