Political photo op stunts
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Started by metmike - June 8, 2020, 11:35 p.m.

I agree with the criticisms of Trumps fakey photo op stunt last Monday. Not his law and order position though as this push to de-fund the police makes as much sense as the same side screaming that we have to cut CO2 emissions (which are actually responsible for the best conditions for life on this greening planet in the last 1,000 years)..



Surprise: No One Is Impressed by Trump’s Tough-Guy Church Photo Op

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/06/no-one-is-impressed-by-trump-tough-guy-church-photo-op


However, today it was the Dems turn to do a phot op.

        Jemele Hill leads chorus of liberal black voices mocking Democrats over their kneeling political stunt    

     'Empty displays of solidarity'

https://www.theblaze.com/news/democrats-kneel-kente-mocked-twitter

"Jemele Hill implied that Democrats were ignoring the demands of the black community in favor of a performative political photo op.

The Black Congressional Caucus passed out African kente cloths to Democrats for a demonstration at the Capitol Visitor Center where they kneeled for photographs. The lawmakers introduced a bill with measures reforming police policies in a media briefing after the demonstration.

The response

Other liberal voices joined Hill in mocking the demonstration as not doing enough for the cause.

"As Congress members ice their knees and put away their kente cloth graduation stolls, I hope they consider supporting a monthly stimulus check," snarked Briahna Joy Gray, the former press secretary for Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign.

"It's disrespectful that they think we can be appeased by Kente cloth and the usual pandering," responded Erica LaShai, a musician in Los Angeles, in a now deleted tweet.

  

"Racial injustice doesn't need an empty symbolic response. It needs a change in policy for all institutions. Instead you're wearing Kente and kneeling. Stand up and go write a law," replied entrepreneur Courtney Daniella.

"[L]ooking at those politicians in the kente cloth again & now I think I can finally relate to that look all my black teachers in elementary school had on their faces while watching all the other teachers decorate their rooms for black history month," responded politics editor Hanif Abdurraqib.

Other voices on the right criticized Democrats for what they saw as pandering to the BLM movement."

metmike: I've been saying for years that if you want to help the black community the most, you will maximize  opportunities for them to participate in the American Dream. This includes racial justice and fair treatment in the legal system related to the current focus but that's just a  very small part of it.

What good is it if you're a poor, unemployed young black man that turns to a life of crime because society has failed him .....if the cops treat him with respect when he gets arrested and the legal system gives him a fair prison sentence??? 

Or maybe part of this  new plan with no cops and law enforcement is to accept crime and let criminals destroy their communities(even more) and ruin the quality of life that law abiding people have. 

Education, jobs and family...........education, jobs and family.......education, jobs and family!

Forget using the politics to get votes and retarded suggestions like defunding police which sounds really cool because the police are the bad guys and since Trump is for law and order, being against law and order and cops is the position everybody that hates Trump is embracing right now.




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By pj - June 11, 2020, 1:10 p.m.
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By metmike - June 11, 2020, 3:22 p.m.
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pj,

I know these generals and military people are well respected, patriotic and have devoted their lives to democracy and this country and I have tremendous respect for their integrity but Trump has bumped heads real hard with them on his Middle East position(I support Trump on this agenda) and created a plethora of additional enemies from a group that normally is much closer aligned with the republican agenda.

I think that Mattis, for instance has made this very personal, which is not surprising of course based on Trumps personal attacks on him. 

Of course this is the military and we should listen to military people about the military.

I've been undecided on how to view use of the military to this point........independent from the fact that Trump is at the center of it.

 I was thinking that if the rioting continued to escalate, what other choice would there be? We can't let our cities be destroyed. So I am for using the military as a last resort.

Against using it, on the other hand, I will pass along this article from the Ferguson, mostly peaceful protests from the 1 person in congress that I feel speaks and acts out of principle not politics all the time and is pretty consistent.

I think his Dad, Ron Paul would have made a great, common sense, Libertarian type president. 

pj,

What is  your view on the 2 Paul''s?

Rand Paul: We Must Demilitarize the Police


https://time.com/3111474/rand-paul-ferguson-police/




By pj - June 12, 2020, 2:02 p.m.
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mm: Not sure why you want my opinion on the Pauls, but since you asked.

I have mixed feelings. I know I agreed with Ron Paul on a few things, like balancing the budget there were others not so much, like abolishing the Fed, completely doing away with foreign aid. He always seemed so cranky... think that’s one of the major reasons he never gained national traction. Kinda lost track of him.

Re: Rand Paul. I agree with him on marijuana, auditing the Fed, balancing the budget (though it sure seems that ship has sailed), mostly on free trade, rewarding the Kurds (the opposite happened) and on his bill to stop police raids without knocking.

Disagree with his anti-gay stance, his opposition to any kind of gun control, his anti-abortion stance, his wishy washy stance on vaccinations and his seemingly being in favor of public funding of parochial schools.

I believe he’s likely more honest, less likely to be swayed by outside influence and far less afraid to take an unpopular position than most politicians.

By metmike - June 12, 2020, 2:21 p.m.
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Thanks pj,

I enjoy your opinion on everything but in this case with them...especially Ron, identifying with Libertarian positions on many things, and you also(me too) I was especially interested in your views on them.

I noted that you avoided what I have liked the most with them.............their desire to minimize foreign military and political interference in the Middle East.

Is that because it lines up with Trump?

You caused me to look at  Rand Paul on foreign aid. His position is mainly only to cut it to nations that do things like harbor and sponsor  terrorism.........burn our flag and so on.

 You can make a case that a terrorist country is poor and their people need assistance but we all know that sending money to a regime like that, just makes it more powerful and dangerous and its counterproductive to world peace.


Rand Paul believes that 70% of foreign aid is skimmed off the top by corrupt governments. I did not know that he believes this until just now, so thanks for bringing it up. I continue to learn new things from you guys.

Sadly, we can't always earmark the humanitarian aid but the bottom line is that the problem is more of the US using money to bribe regimes to do what we want them to do and in many cases, they are anti American regimes that use it against us(like the billions that Obama sent to Iran without authorization by Congress for some odd reason.....imagine if Trump had done that).


Ooooops, why does that guy get into every conversation here (-:



By metmike - June 12, 2020, 2:37 p.m.
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Rand Paul Tries Killing Foreign Aid Softly

https://www.rollcall.com/2012/06/06/rand-paul-tries-killing-foreign-aid-softly/


Just for fun, lets see what this entity says:

PolitiFact: Paul exaggerates degree of foreign aid theft

https://www.tampabay.com/news/business/politifact-paul-exaggerates-degree-of-foreign-aid-theft/2310252/


"Providing aid in war zones is particularly susceptible to fraud. Government auditors for the U.S. Agency for International Development investigated 25 cases of fraud and corruption within the humanitarian aid effort in Syria. In one case, a Turkish vendor had replaced lentils with salt in food ration kits for Syrians running from the fighting. Out of $835 million spent, they said their investigations "resulted in more than $11.5 million in savings."

While theft is real, and possibly extreme on individual projects, it is not on the scale Paul asserted."

We rate this claim False.


metmike: It's not likely to be 70% overall and I have always been for the US INCREASING humanitarian aid to poor countries.

By pj - June 12, 2020, 3:01 p.m.
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“I noted that you avoided what I have liked the most with them.............their desire to minimize foreign military and political interference in the Middle East.

Is that because it lines up with Trump?”

No.

Given where we are (have gotten ourselves) in the Middle East, with Isis, Iran, the Taliban, Israel, the Kurds etc, don’t think we can totally stick our head in the sand.

And, you like Trump because he says he wants the US to pull out of the Middle East, then why hasn’t he?

https://apnews.com/82a4f47d7c419717884eea9d32389aed

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/11/trump-administration-will-send-more-troops-to-saudi-arabia.html

https://www.axios.com/where-us-troops-deployed-middle-east-5e96fdb2-c7ba-4f26-90b4-7bf452f83847.html

By metmike - June 12, 2020, 5:52 p.m.
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Hi pj,

Note that I said "minimize foreign military and political interference in the Middle East." with regards to the Paul's.

 The example you gave of Trump sending in more troops when our embassy in Iraq was  attacked is very justified in my opinion. As was him sending troops to Saudi Arabia when the oil facilities were being attacked. We were defending direct attacks from terrorists that needed immediate actions. 

 Like you(I think) I want to avoid the big conflicts(wars, like Iraq) and I thought Mr.Volatile, loose cannon actually went in the opposite direction after Iran attacked us(after the assassination) and downplayed the damage/injuries in order to intentionally DE escalate and avoid war with Iran.  He got severe criticism for describing the injuries to several of our soldiers as being minor when they were apparently more serious. This was done(I believe) so that he could justify not responding.

But you are right that troops are not all being withdrawn. He got slammed hard for pulling some out last year (in a key area) but it appears that we might still have a significant presence in many locations. The biggest reason that Mattis and Trump bumped heads was over Mattis, like almost every general wanted to be more aggressive with our presence over there. I was thrilled to see Mattis leave as following his advice, could only lead to more conflict/millitary presence. 

We've been over there for so long, originally to protect the oil interests and now for those reasons that you give, that we just accept it and forget that these are foreign countries with a lot of people that really hate us and think of us as invaders. How would you feel if China or Russia sent troops to Seattle or Minneapolis because they had interests in protecting our democracy?

Crazy example, I know because we can always manufacture great justifications for our need to do what ever we do over there. Our track record is such that it backfires wsay more than accomplishes anything. It wouldn't be so bad..........except the cost has been trillions of tax payer dollars and thousands of brave soldiers...........sons, husbands, dads......real people. SLM.........Soldiers Lives Matter!


More of them have died than blacks from racist cops. Our politicians treat them like they are just a bunch of non human pawns in a chess match in an attempt by our generals to employ winning strategies to impose our agenda over there. 


I'm copying this thread below because it has several points about our military presence around the world and PTSD in our soldiers..........REAL human beings that are damaged when they come back. 

There are some other interesting comments.

                why pulling out of Syria was the right thing            

                            11 responses |                

                Started by GunterK - Oct. 15, 2019, 10:18 p.m.           

 https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/41089/


With regards to how many troops we have over there today?

Nobody really knows, apparently because of President Trump's desire to keep it a secret from our enemies(the rational). 

I am not sure how to interpret this one. 

1. I would prefer LESS troops not more in general and am not sure what the status has been the past 3 years and if they are not reporting, how can we know? 

2. Based just on observations and Trump bumping heads with hawkish generals, one has to assume that its LESS than they wanted. 

3. It actually makes good sense most of the time, to not advertise to our enemies what we are doing. Can you imagine if ISIS did that? Told us their numbers and where they were going to be deployed? We could obliterate them quickly. Why continue to give them an unfair advantage?


So I'm not sure how to read you on this pj. You think that we need to stay in the Middle East(not stick our heads in the sand) for the justifiable reasons mentioned) but gave me examples of Trump sending troops in  because of 2 short term hot spots that needed immediate attention as a negative with regards to him not meeting my expectations(that I elaborated on.....I am ok with this but not long term conflicts).

So, for you is Trump exerting too much or not enough influence or is it he is exterting too much on things that don't matter(like our embassy being attacked and Saudi oil facilities being attacked) and not nearly enough in other areas ..........help the Kurds with their longer term battle in the Syria/Turkey area?

By pj - June 13, 2020, 12:49 a.m.
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"But you are right that troops are not all being withdrawn."

My guess we have at least as many there as when he took office.  And I would have thought, since you favored him because you felt he was going to reduce our involvement, after 3 1/2 years, you'd be disappointed.

"So, for you is Trump exerting too much or not enough influence or is it he is exterting too much on things that don't matter... "

What I object to his operating like he seems to on most things, on his personal whims of the day, the personal axes he has to grind. Not based on intelligence (both meanings of the word) nor the advice of our military or our allies who might be in the know or at least who's opinions should be taken into account. I know you don't trust the generals, I don't trust Trump pulling policy out of thin air based on what he thinks will aggrandize himself on Twitter.

He seems to hate Iran, because Obama made a deal with them. Let Turkey have free reign against the Kurds, because Erdogan sucked up to him. Despite the fact that under Erdogan Turkey went from a semi-democratic secular state, maybe the best in the Middle East, more and more toward an Islamic dictatorship.

You're right when you say practically everything NTR on MF seems to revolve around Trump. That's too bad, but I guess that's the way it's going to be for at lease another 7-10 mos. Then again, come to think about it, even if he loses, he could run again in '24... ;-)




By metmike - June 13, 2020, 2:03 a.m.
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"My guess we have at least as many there as when he took office.  And I would have thought, since you favored him because you felt he was going to reduce our involvement, after 3 1/2 years, you'd be disappointed"

I am disappointed with him, that I think (and you think) that more troops have not come home. Many Republicans and seems like all the generals are disappointed with him for the opposite reason. I don't think we even  have access to stats that tell us how many troops have been there the past 2 years.


"Then again, come to think about it, even if he loses, he could run again in '24... ;-) "

Wow, I never thought about that. Guessing that you are joking.  If Trump loses, stations like CNN will have to change their entire format/coverage to non Trump news, like it used to be. 

I'm pretty sure that if he loses, Joe Biden's insistence that Trump will need to be forced out by  the military  will NOT happen.  He will probably claim that the election was rigged or make other false accusations (Clinton did the same thing and got support from many who absurdly claimed it was Russian interference that got him elected-in fact the corrupt Mueller investigation was supposed to provide us with that proof).

I am certain that the republicans and other supporters will be disappointed but will completely accept the result. 

However, if he wins, I expect chaos and potentially some protesting with violence and for sure, an extreme reaction from the never Trumpers. 

No way will they say that he won fair and square, deserves to be president for the next 4 years and we will support him as our president. The dems and MSM will immediately get to work on trying to destroy him however they can.


By metmike - June 13, 2020, 2:18 a.m.
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