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I'm still bewildered by the sychophancy. It's made me lose the tiny amount of respect I still had for the Republican party. The man is so obviously a con artist with almost no business savvy or successes. I really don't get how people don't see that. It almost feels like I'm taking crazy pills.Quote:
Originally Posted by manowar50
Reality is moving a little too fast for the Republican Party, if it weren't for Trump you would have had the first consecutive Democratic Presidents since Johnson and Kennedy, Trump is President of the Sean Hannity Party. Be Afraid. Be VERY Afraid!
I am afraid. I am very afraid. His last comment about NFL players and their right to Freedom of Speech was:
"They don't belong in this country."
Trump is saying that a whole class of citizen's should lose their rights and be ejected from the country because they are exercising the right to freedom of speech.
What stuns me is not so much that the Liar in Chief said it... (He will say anything that pops into that deluded brain of his...) but that the Republican's did not denounce him for it.
Anybody who supports Trump is stupid, evil, or both.
Fascism has arrived. Deny it all you want, but on the surface it appears to be in full swing.
Yet another stroke of pure genius by President Donald Trump: Cancelling the North Korea summit.
Anyone who's ever negotiated a car deal understands that there's one master bargaining chip - being willing to walk away with no deal. Now, the summit is back on, and the USA is firmly-entrenched in the driver's seat.
I know no one in this thread is prepared to give President Trump any credit for anything whatsoever. So as you groan and bluster about trivia while patting each other on the butt over Cheeto jokes and student-council-tier political theories dredged from the shallow end of the pool, I'll be glad to pop back in from time to time to point out when President Trump does something amazing down in the deep end.
It's a tough world. Trump is a tough guy. Can you imagine Obama pulling out of that summit? No fucking way, he'd have given NK the farm just to stop them from waving nukes in our faces. Obama was a hell of a nice guy. He was inspiring in a very positive way. Now we've got a closer in the White House.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4PE2hSqVnk
Let me know when NK agrees to unilaterally end their nuke program and get rid of their nuclear arsenal.
Trump isn't in control of these negotiations and never has been. Trump has no plan of action. As he stated, he operates on his 'instincts'.
That's not how you accomplish anything with the North Koreans.
It will be more of the same, NK will be given more foreign aid for concessions they will never fulfill.
For all you Trump supporters, just because someone declares they are THE BEST NEGOTIATOR doesn't mean it's true.
It's no different than when Trump had his personal physician write up a phony report that he was in 'excellent' health.
Look at Trump's business history, track the bankruptcies and realize the man is conning you too.
Nick I think you and I can agree that the resolution of the Korean war with a Peace Treaty that satisfies North and South is not a trivial matter, but the question then is, will the summit be concerned with the long-term political arrangements for the Korean peninsula as a whole, or just the question of North Korea's nuclear arsenal?Quote:
Originally Posted by Nick Danger
Obama would not have opted for the 'quick fix' that your President wanted, because the Obama Presidency did not have the opportunity to make an advance in Korea, which began with the election of President Moon who has made rapprochement with the North one of his key policy commitments. That the Republican President and his team had no detailed plan of negotiation was evident when John Bolton argued that de-nuclearisation in North Korea would mean transporting every missile, centrifuge, nut and bolt to the USA, a demand so preposterous it could only have been made to be rejected; and that he then argued- it was echoed by the Christian Mike Pence- that if North Korea did not comply, the 'Libya option' was on the table, but almost at the same time Mike Pompeo was in Pyongyang telling the North Koreans something else.
There is a word for this: incompetence. Not a clever political move at all.
The USA does not recognise North Korea as a state, something only Congress can do, so the President can sign as many documents as he likes with North Korea, but surely none of them will be legally binding on the USA unless Congress recognizes the existence of North Korea as an independent state and then affirms the treaties signed by the President?
Then there is the question of what the Peace Treaty, if there is one, would actually say. Will it confirm that there are two Koreas on the peninsula and that each will recognise the other as an independent country, with a 'non-aggression' clause to guarantee -on paper, at least- that neither country will lay claim to the other, and would this not be a victory for North Korea and a defeat for South Korea?
But here is the greatest irony of all, it looks to me like any deal on de-nuclearisation that is acceptable to both sides will look almost exactly like the 'Iran Nuclear Deal' that your President has called 'the worst deal in history' or words to that effect. North Korea has the nuclear weapon Iran does not have, but could agree to the same terms and conditions on future development, external monitoring and so forth, that is for some reason unacceptable to the USA with Iran.
We have to hope there is a reasonable deal for both North and South Korea, a deal those two countries should negotiate for themselves without the interference of a lunatic like John Bolton who still thinks Ronald Reagan sold out the USA when he agreed an arms reduction programme with Gorbachev, and is determined not to let that happen again. If there is one President who is willing to sell the farm, and the tractors, and the chickens -and billions of dollars of investment in North Korea he would never spend in the USA, in exchange for the Nobel Prize, it is the ignorant fool sitting in the White House spewing forth lies and conspiracy theories to deflect attention away from his own incompetence.
And just as this thread is about the rights Transgendered Americans are losing under the Republican Administration, you can all but guarantee that in any deal signed with this President and that Dear Wise Leader, there will be not one mention of Human Rights, for the simple reason that your President has no regard for Human Rights of Americans, and is not about to lose any sleep over the 100,000+ political prisoners in North Korea, the unknown number working like slaves in the North Korean Gulag, or the victims of summary execution without trial.
We shall watch these developments with interest. Prepare to be disappointed.
Armchair politics, Giovanni. How DO you accomplish anything with the North Koreans? I noticed you didn't offer a solution to go along with your criticism. But in fact, what are we even trying to accomplish? De-nuclearization? Yeah, that's one thing, but there are also humanitarian problems with North Korea - poverty, hunger, a brainwashed population - at least if we believe what we're told, which, when it comes to North Korea, I kinda do. There are infrastructure problems, i.e., how do you take a country that's essentially a giant slave camp and turn it into something that's acceptable to John Q. American in Cincinnati?Quote:
Originally Posted by giovanni_hotel
The first step is to sit down at a table and open negotiations, preferably with as much leverage as possible on our side. Not clear on what it is you're suggesting we should do.
How can you say that before negotiations have even begun? The deal doesn't look like anything at all to me yet, not even a deal. We've achieved some level of de-nuclearization already just by being open to negotiation, and we have video evidence to prove that. We've found out, via President Trump's crafty dealing, that North Korea wants this summit more than we do. But that's all we really know. I'm sure there are some insiders who know a lot more about what we want and what they want than you and I do, but at this point, the only thing that's certain is we are going to sit down with Kim Jong-il and see what's what, and we are going to do it with a clear negotiating advantage.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
I'm always prepared to be disappointed, Stavros. Disappointed by politicians, disappointed by the general public, disappointed by girls, corporations, charities, baseball teams, you name it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
But I have not yet been disappointed by Donald Trump. More like just the opposite - I didn't fully expect he would be trying so hard to keep all his campaign promises, but that's just what he's doing. Liberals, of course, disagreed with his promises on the face of it and don't want to see them kept. But I see a President who's on the verge of achieving great things in the arena of international diplomacy while simultaneously keeping America first in all he does. It really doesn't seem that complicated to me either - we are the strongest country in the history of...history. Finally we have a President who's acting like he realizes that.
Speaking of brainwashed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nick Danger
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nick Danger
[QUOTE=Nick Danger;1839987
[I]How can you say that before negotiations have even begun? The deal doesn't look like anything at all to me yet, not even a deal. We've achieved some level of de-nuclearization already just by being open to negotiation, and we have video evidence to prove that. We've found out, via President Trump's crafty dealing, that North Korea wants this summit more than we do. But that's all we really know. I'm sure there are some insiders who know a lot more about what we want and what they want than you and I do, but at this point, the only thing that's certain is we are going to sit down with Kim Jong-il and see what's what, and we are going to do it with a clear negotiating advantage.[/I]
--Sorry but this is nonsense. It is a basic rule of diplomacy that Heads of State do not meet to sign documents unless the negotiation has been done in advance and there is something to sign, these guys are not meeting in Singapore for a plate of noodles, some tea and a friendly chat. Nothing has been achieved so far, other than the demolition of some concrete buildings, a claim that North Korea is willing to participate in the de-nuclearization of the Peninsula, with the implication they would like the USA to leave and go home. And I note you say nothing about the issue of North and South Korea as two separate states and whether Congress will endorse any document signed in Singapore, or is the photo opportunity all that matters?
But I have not yet been disappointed by Donald Trump. More like just the opposite - I didn't fully expect he would be trying so hard to keep all his campaign promises, but that's just what he's doing. Liberals, of course, disagreed with his promises on the face of it and don't want to see them kept. But I see a President who's on the verge of achieving great things in the arena of international diplomacy while simultaneously keeping America first in all he does. It really doesn't seem that complicated to me either - we are the strongest country in the history of...history. Finally we have a President who's acting like he realizes that.
-Not just liberals but many others opposed the policies not 'on the face of it' but because, as with the denial of climate change, the President is plain wrong and the alternative policies which in effect simply reverse the policies introduced by Obama will damage the environment -enabling coal companies to dump their slurry in local rivers and streams, for example, or allowing 'Hunters' from Texas to slaughter baby bears in their dens in Alaska because there no other means of controlling the bear population.
And what was the ban on Transgendered Americans serving in the military about if not just a knee-jerk reversal of Obama's policy to enable it? Is this all politics is now, resentment and revenge?
And I thought your guy kept insisting that America is weak not strong, which is why it needs 'America First' and a 'strong man' at the helm of the ship, even if he is looking Starboard when the ship is listing to Port.