Markk wrote:honorentheos wrote:This is your response to being asked for specifics regarding what you think Trump is doing right?
I have told you before what I think Trump is doing "good" (on another thread), and I have told you what I believe he is doing "bad."
My question was a "2nd request" on what Obama's plan was...right or wrong we know what much of Trump's plan is...and right or wrong he is moving forward on a lot of it...3rd request, what was Obama's plan?
Your question specifically asked what Obama's plan was for his Presidency which is an odd question on it's own. It's even more odd given you were asked to explain where you saw Trump doing things right. I don't think you have shared this. You've said you did in other threads but to my knowledge you never have until the summary in your post above where you point to the economy, the border and then the middle east. I'll assume this is your response but if not feel free to share a link.
Anyway, here's a link to a decent summary of promises Obama made in 2008 and where he ultimately landed on them. I don't suppose it will satisfy you because you seem to think all he promised was a MAGA-equivalent "Hope" but we'll see:
https://www.thebalance.com/obama-2008-e ... rm-3305774 Hor wrote...
Pointing out that you went through the effort to type the above, I find it amusing you feel inclined to behave this way though I don't think you're a Hor. I recognize honorentheos is a long word and includes a bit of Greek. And you don't want to abbreviate it to honor because of reasons, but lack the maturity to just use H like most people do who don't want to type it out. So I understand why you struggle with it. I really feel you, Markk. Life isn't fair.
Markk wrote:Has his involvement with Russia been embellished, and has it and is it evolving since certain accusations have gone nowhere?
honorentheos wrote:By raising the question, does this mean you have something meaningful to share? Or just bearing your testimony against Obama again?
LOL...I am asking you a question. The "testimony" straw-man thing serves only as a way out of dealing with these question's. I am simply asking you if Trump's involvement with Russian's has been embellished.
Do you realize that your original post did not include any indicators you had shifted from talking about Obama to Trump? And that this seemed like a very vague, and woo-woo fueled statement? Here it is again in context:
Markk, on April 29, wrote:What was Obama's plan..."Hope" was his "MGA" ...what was his plan for for his presidency?
Has his involvement with Russia been embellished, and has it and is it evolving since certain accusations have gone nowhere?
What post about the Romney-Obama debate do you want me to respond to?
So...maybe try to include something in your posting that lets a reader know you have changed subjects when you do that in your own head. Just a thought.
Trump has the economy moving, people are working at rates not seen in a long time. He gives confidence to those that invest in job's.
He is trying to solve the border issues, which whether you accept it or not has been out of hand since Reagan more or less opened to door...in other words he is trying to fix, what other presidents and politicians have used, with no real plan, as election talking points.
Maybe, but I think history will not be kind to Trump on either of these fronts. You can revisit these posts for why if you're curious.
viewtopic.php?p=1127308#p1127308viewtopic.php?p=1161974#p1161974The current growth trend has multiple numbers underlying it that don't exactly scream sustainability but seem strong in the near term. GDP posting high due to inventory increases, trade deficit numbers balancing out due to less trade, bond yield curves inverting, housing starts and price trends...focusing on the stock market is a distraction from the fundamentals. Of course, there is a certain bump that comes from people feeling like things are good and one can't ignore consumer confidence. But it's not a rational reaction to market fundamentals and they tend to impose themselves eventually. Facts are, we should be using the years of feast to prepare for the years of famine but Trump wants to eat the crop seed in the middle of the feast.
And the border...that's a circus on every front.
... and time will tell, in foriegn policies. People are at the table, and the middle east is in a lull.
The middle east is a disaster. Syria, Libya, Yemen, Israel, the economic collapse in Iran,...you're misreading our moving away from the Middle East and openly embracing the propaganda machine for Saudi Arabia's royal family along with hard right moves in favor of Israel as a positive. We agree, though. Time will tell.
We can P-hack trade, but it also appears to be doing well...the left is not talking about it, so it must be doing okay. We will see, but another example that he had a plan, we may not like all his plans, but he has one.
Having and executing a bad plan is not better than waiting out on executing a plan. That's crazy.
Today was an illustration of this with the Fed basically saying they aren't taking orders from Trump on lowering rates. That's what Trump is doing to the economy with his "plan". There's plenty of natural uncertainty out there that doesn't need him causing more and there are fewer investors inclined to listen to what he says. He's just twisting the dials on it wildly because he's never been a businessman whose head was filled with understanding of fundamentals. So p-hack, forecast, speculate, manipulate to your hearts content. The trending effect of what Trump does in terms of trade and markets isn't that much of a mystery in the long term. It's the swings and people trying to capitalize off them that you are confusing for positive signals.
Markk wrote:What post about the Romney-Obama debate do you want me to respond to?
Please answer this question...If Russia did indeed, influence a US election as you apparently believe...then Obama, in the video, is showing gross ignorance. If they tried to influence a election, as I believe, then he was equally ignorant...and Romney correct...and if Trump is guilty of Collusion..then that may have been the greatest Geo-political "action" in our life time...correct?
Obama is accusing Romney in the Video, of being naïve and wrong that Russia was the major Geo-Political threat to the US...where in the thread is that really addressed?
Romney out of hindsight was correct, and Obama was wrong. Russia is the greatest geopolitical threat we have in the Middle East, without their influence on countries like Iran and Syria...it would be much different.
I re-read the first page...which posts, directly address the context of what Obama said to Mitt?
Since that was hard, I'll help you out. Again, I feel you, Markk.
viewtopic.php?p=1177750#p1177750EAllusion wrote:Russia wouldn't be a significant threat to the United States if not for GOP complicity in election interference. I don't remember Romney claiming that a Republican-Russian alliance is the United State's greatest geopolitical threat. If he did, I'd give him mad props.
As it stands, the contours of the dispute was Romney's foreign policy advisers were neo-conservatives who have have been obsessed with being cold war hawks since their rise in the 1960's and this colored their sense of the overall threat of Russian expansionism. Meanwhile, Obama thought that China was where the US should be directing its aims given the nature of authoritarianism in China and it's inevitable superior economic positioning to the US. What I think it is reasonable to say about that is that while the neo-con's Soviet obsession was from another time, Romney was right to be more concerned about Russian expansionism than Obama's dismissive comment allows. At the same time, China is where the US should be directing its interests as it is by far the biggest looming threat if not for the fact that our own Republican party and its willingness to overlook Russian attacks on our nation if they perceive it benefiting them is the bigger near-term threat to America as a functioning liberal democracy.
viewtopic.php?p=1177786#p1177786honorentheos wrote:This seems spot on, in my opinion. If one further contextualizes the Obama administration's attempts to pivot to Asia as they called it, much of it hinged on trying to pull American interests out of the Middle East and into the Pacific. Trump has done much to undo one aspect of this pivot - the Iran nuclear deal - which required US and Russian cooperation. It could be argued that Obama completely mishandled the pull back which I think is a fair criticism. But it wouldn't be fair to argue that there is some form of tu quoque behind the Mueller investigation which seems to be the thrust of the Fox News focus on Obama in light of the Mueller Report.
viewtopic.php?p=1177791#p1177791Eallusion wrote:I feel like there are two major international stories that are receiving enough coverage that a news literate person is aware of them, but are very under covered relative to their importance. The general public seems unaware because of the chaos of the Trump administration and the tabloid nature of much of American's main sources of news. The first is Saudi Arabian steps towards nuclearization (with Trump admin assistance while up to their eyeballs in corruption no less). The second is China building a dystopian society that rivals what's been imagined in some of our darkest science-fiction. The latter of which includes an ongoing genocice/ethnocide of the Uyghur people.
Both of these things would've captured American cultural obsession in a different era. Now, it's not registering. Both of these stories have the potential to lead to very negative consequences decades down the road. It reminds me that while the Russia situation is bad now, in significant part because of the Republican president is a disloyal monster, there are potentially bigger problems waiting on the horizon.
It's not even a little difficult to imagine a Middle East a couple decades down the road mired in a nuclear arms race, with vast areas rendered quasi-unlivable due to climate change, and see that this is how global nuclear war is tripped. The fact that the US backs a tyrannical autocracy in Saudi Arabia is a ever present threat to us in the medium to long-term, and if that tyranny falls to revolution while it has nuclear weapons, the blow-back could be unthinkable.
China is using technology right now to build totalitarian tools way more imposing than anything that has come before. It's happening right now. Its spread is a threat to liberal democracy whereever it may be.
Transnational fascism/gangster states sponsored by Russia is bad. Very bad. But it isn't the only threat out there.
viewtopic.php?p=1177792#p1177792honorentheos wrote:It's difficult in any period to really contextualize events one is living through into a reasonable view of their significance in history. But were I to point to the Trump administration's actions that seem to put it in on the wrong side of American interests that even Congressional Republicans seem to recognize those would include:
- Aiding the expansion of the House of Saud's attempt to dominate the Middle East while turning a blind eye to the atrocities and suffering they are responsible for in the region.
- Turning over on our European and other allies including those in North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula.
- Aligning the executive branch of the United States with despots and dictators around the globe, from Putin to Kim to MbS to Duterte to Xi, which feeds a global narrative that is bound to bear terrible fruit.
We forget that 9/11 and the last two decades of military adventurism were rooted in otherwise overlooked events like the US having a presence in S.A. and siding largely with Israel when it came to the Palestinian question. Any of the above, or all of them combined, appear ripe for influencing the future in dark ways.
Economically, I'm not sure how the US will fair but we're certainly going down a path leading to a cliff in regards to the expansion of US debt. Our lack of concern regarding climate change (well, lack of action. I hear mocking comments from conservatives all the time about having only 12 years left so...) is a blinking but silenced alarm light we've thrown a blanket over and appear committed to attempt to ignore if not aid through focused efforts in deregulation.
All of the above seem far more likely to have potential influence on a future black swan event than Russia interfering in our elections. But at the same time, the fact Trump can't come out and publicly state that Putin lied to him and he will hold Russia accountable, putting that in it's proper place, turns it into an much more pressing and critical concern than it should be.
ETA: It also helps to recognize what changed between 2012 and 2016. That was discussed in this previous thread. Again, I did you a favor by copying over the text because you seem to need the help doing light lifting, Markk. You're welcome. ;)
viewtopic.php?p=1131303#p1131303honorentheos wrote:I heard an interview with Ben Rhodes when his recent book came out. Some may recall he was a speechwriter and advisor to President Obama. In it he described a late meeting with Putin where Obama tried to pursue multiple discussion points but Putin was obsessed with the overthrow of Viktor Yanukovych the former President of Ukraine. Rhodes paints the picture of Putin seeing this move as a direct threat by the West towards him and his allies, and likely why Putin feels justified in the moves he's made since including the annexation of Crimea, subversive attempts to bring Ukraine back into Russian influence rather than NATO, stepping in to prevent Assad being overthrown in Syria, and also explicit retaliation in the US to destabilize American society.
If true, which seems plausible, we could probably consider the 2016 election meddling as blowback though I don't think that's the right term. I'd prefer to view it as an escalation that we were blind to (and apparently some people still are). I'm inclined to view the Obama presidency as a bit weak when it came to supporting the uprisings that occurred throughout the middle east and Ukraine, probably due to a naïve sense that Democracy would prevail on its own in an almost divine right of kings way, substituting superior ideology in the place of king.
And THAT, in my mind, is receiving blowback at home and abroad.