The Bible predicts the end of the world at Armegeddon. Turkey invading Syria is a scary, scary thing.

It appears that just may be the case. I mean, any normal person, all of that should have been enough to flip on trump.

At this point in time, to me, if you are not racist, rich or russian, there's no good reason to support the current occupant of the White House.

We are all fucked. You realize that Putin is coming off as the smartest world leader right, right? What the F?

We are doomed. If this world lasts 10 years I would be shocked. #Nuclearwar.

I agree with you on Putin. You can take the boy out of the KGB but you can't take the KGB out of the boy. He knows how to play the game like a seasoned veteran, where as trump, is like a toddler shitting in his diapers and trying to stick his fingers in the light sockets.

Nuclear war though, not likely. That would completely defeat the purpose of having all the money and power that Putin and his ilk are accumulating. They just want to control it all, not destroy it all and trump is nothing more than a useful pawn to him and once trump is no longer useful, he will get cast aside.

Shorter Trump: It's okay to betray the Kurds because they didn't help us in World War 2.

Watching the evangelical community because the Kurds were protecting the Christians in that region will be interesting. Some have spoken out but usually in the end the cult of personality wins out and they'll get back to licking his boots.

The Senate will not change their views. He has too much support in the states they represent. Heck, even Democrats are too cowardly to put an impeachment vote on the table.

So one of the narratives evangelicals have been very big about lately is that Christians are being persecuted and they are literally being killed (a genocide was happening) in the Middle East by Muslim extremists (and the media is ignoring it, etc). So a lot of evangelicals are very, very, very sensitive to Middle East Christians.

It's almost as bad as if Trump come out in favor of late term abortion.

Remember how important tough sanctions on Iran were to this President?

BREAKING: Trump pressed then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to help persuade the Justice Department to drop a criminal case against an Iranian-Turkish gold trader who was a client of Rudy Giuliani, according to three people familiar with the 2017 meeting https://t.co/8gpfWCJpW7 pic.twitter.com/qAlyPNdUrI

— Bloomberg (@business) October 9, 2019

Trump pulls troops from Syria. Opens a couple Trump plazas in Turkey. Turkey invades Syria. Conspiracy or coincidence?

Pretty good twitter.

Liz Cheney on Twitter: "News from Syria is sickening. Turkish troops preparing to invade Syria from the north, Russian-backed forces from the south, ISIS fighters attacking Raqqa. Impossible to understand why @realDonaldTrump is leaving America’s allies to be slaughtered and enabling the return of ISIS"

(the responses, of course)

A new poll from Fox News shows increasing support for impeachment, including among the President’s key constituencies.

51% for impeachment & removal

+5 white evangelical Christians
+8 white men w/o college degree +10 rural whiteshttps://t.co/dOdyCv23Ea

— Michael Del Moro (@MikeDelMoro) October 9, 2019






They should start polling for impeach/remove/hang for treason.

Everything going on and he’s taking time to criticize basketball coaches.

Two Ukrainians that Giuliani was working with were arrested today for campaign finance crimes. Among other things they were making straw donations using made-up company names like:


Seriously.

My wife took a creative writing class. People would write stories, and the instructor would sometimes criticize scenes in the stories for being unrealistic/unbelievable. And the writers would counter that "But that part of the story actually happened in real life!"

And the teacher would say "I am sure that this did actually happen. But the difference between real life and fiction is that fiction has to be believable."

I feel that every aspect of the Giuliani parts of the Trump story is 100% true, and would 100% get cut by an editor for being laughably unbelievable.

Huge caveat here: It has to be believable within the terms and conditions of the fictional world and text. So it's not about excising an unbelievable event - it's about melding the world and text so that the event is believable within its confines.

Lindsay Graham got pranked by Russians posing as a Turkish Defense Minister:


Lindsey Graham dishes on Trump in hoax calls with Russians - POLITICO

It's so hard not to derail this thread with literary theory.

These clowns are embarrassing.

Joe St. George on Twitter: "Breaking: @SenCoryGardner refuses to answer question whether it is appropriate for the President to ask a foreign leader to investigate a rival. Quite the exchange in Denver #copolitics #kdvr… https://t.co/oC7InYhK3d"

But fun to give in to the temptation

Trump tells reporters he doesn't know the two Ukranians, but of course there are pictures of Parnas at the White House where he had an "incredible dinner and even better conversation"


Trump Jr with him too

Annnd Rick "What's the Department of Energy?" Perry gets a subpoena:

Democrats subpoena U.S. Energy Secretary Perry in Trump impeachment probe

Just wow listening to that call. Not quite the public opinions he expresses, he is a like small town used Car salesman.

FFS Lindsey: Graham labeled the Kurds a “threat” to Turkey in the call, seemingly contradicting what he has said publicly in recent days.

You have to understand how difficult of a position he is in balancing the religious right's needs along with Trump's.

Probably feels like being stuck between two black holes.

Is it considered normal for the Attorney General to meet with Chairman of Fox News at his home?

https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/10/polit...run/index.html

The internet is going to meme the shit out of this.

He can't even get softball questions right. Instead, he tries to trumpsplain and just reaffirms that he is in over his head.

I can't say I ever did it, but I did.

Earlier in this thread I wondered if Trump could/has ever prepare(d) food for himself. What are some other basics that would likely stump Trump? Could he take mass transit alone? Could he check-out from a supermarket?

In addition to the things above...
Things I Highly Doubt Trump Could Do (not a complete list):
- Fill a car up with gas
- Wash clothes
- Cook on a grill (let alone get it started)
- Not lie
- Order a pizza online or by phone
- Do a push up
- Make himself a sandwich
- Point out Boise Idaho on a map
- Put a puzzle together
- Change a flat tire
- Not run a company into bankruptcy

Pumping gas is a good one. No way.

If Donald Trump was in one of those last-man-on-Earth situations, where all the resources are still readily available, but there's no other people: how long can he live? I say 3 days.

Non-surprise of the day, it appears that Rudy's fleeing doofuses may have deeper connections to Trump than initially speculated.

Operate a can opener- manual or electric
Reset a breaker
Change the toiler paper
Jumpstart a car
Color in the lines
open a coconut
send a letter
fold laundry (to be fair my wife may say I can't either)
Work a recliner

Imagine how much extra time you'd have if you never had to do shit for yourself!

Lots of time to tweet!

I hate Trump as much as anyone, but remember that he went to a small, pretty tough military school for a while. He's had experience doing a lot of manual labor skills.

Which just says he isn't ignorant, he just chooses to be an ass about those things.

Oh man, turns out he was even in the driver's education club. Shows what I know.

I am surprised to learn he made it through military school, tho I'd still be willing to wager he was probably a remarkable weasel there too, based on nothing/everything.

What prosecutors seem to be building a case for is huge. If these guys are guilty of what they're being accused of I don't see how Giuliani avoids arrest as well.

Oh man.

Adam Parkhomenko on Twitter: "at least there’s no video https://t.co/JVaUyJpm4V"

John Oliver calling this Stupid Watergate couldn't have possibly been more fitting.

Domino's Pizza Commercial with Donald Trump (2005) - YouTube

I mean, with his loves of junk food and talking on the telephone, ordering pizza is something I can absolutely see him doing.

Now, actually PAYING for said pizza...

I mean I still have to look up instructions to jump start a car when I do it, just so I don't fry something or myself. I let the ends touch one time, that was fun.

Phrasing! :p

I dunno about a lot of stuff but I’m going to assume he’s had someone under his employment known as the “passwords guy” whom he constantly calls for login information.

How can Trump stop this former ambassador from testifying?

I'm trying envision him being either, Vincent Price, Charlton Heston, or Will Smith...and nope...I'd say you are right, he's a goner in 3 days, probably from not being able to operate a manual can opener, throws the can of Spaghetti-Os that then bounces back and hits him in the head, where he then falls down the stairs of the White House, breaking his neck.

Is there a difference between rich kid military school and juvenile delinquent military school? I honestly don't know or if that's even a thing. However, when it comes to the rich, things are usually 99.9999999% waaaay easier than it is for normal people, so my suspicions are that it was probably a cake walk, but, difficult for them because they are used to being pampered and waited on hand and foot. One thing is for sure, for being a military school, it sure didn't teach him about honor and integrity.

I live very close to NYMA, and it certainly wasn't a swanky, rich kids only military school.

Ah cool. Honestly didn't know. My experiences with military schools are Bill & Teds Excellent Adventure and TAPS. :)

Looking at their website, they appear to be open again. They used to have a really cool horse program for kids with disabilities, but I'm not sure if that's still active.

From what I've read and talking to a couple of graduates from decades past, a lot of the students were borderline delinquents and it was a place to whip kids into shape. I'd be surprised if it was anything other than a warning from Trump's father to get his life in gear.

Are we still doing that?

That's pretty cool, especially if they still have that program. Good point, maybe Fred knew something was 'up' with his son and sent him there.

No I stopped after the one time

Yesterday we partnered with Russia to veto a security council resolution condemning Turkey for attacking the Kurds.

So it appears the House is finally going to get their hands on Trump's tax returns. Combining that with impeachment and Syria, is his best move at this point to try to cut a deal to resign and claim victory?

He could claim he's made America great again, accomplished his goals, and is resigning for the good of the party and so that the presidential harassment will stop? He essentially becomes a martyr for the alt-right.

Does he have a better play right now?

I see we're now sending 2,000 troops to Saudi Arabia. I thought we were bringing the troops home from the Middle East.

Not so fast. He'll appeal again.

Unless the Senate confirms the impeachment (unlikely right now), he stays ala Clinton and takes his chances with winning a second term. Even if he loses but has a decent showing, he will still have influence with the 38-42% for a long, long time.

He leaves voluntarily only if it looks like the Senate will turn on him. And even then, I wouldn't put it beyond him to manufacture a conflict/war to distract and "rally" the base.

The impeachment process is good but the Dems are going to have to win this in the election.

It is far more likely that he uses the military to keep himself in the WH after he's impeached than it is that he resigns. Dude is not going to go down without a fight.

When he loses the election, it will be the same way. He won't go willingly.

Do we expect any bombshells in Trump's tax returns? I still feel like he's mostly just embarrassed that he doesn't make as much money as he claims.

I'm sure people will sleuth and find suspicious things based on other bits and pieces of information we know, but, I feel like we already have that kind of thing now.

Is that his best play though? That's taking a major risk that potentially has him seeking a pardon if he loses next November.

There's something with his tax returns he doesn't want public. Deutsch Bank has said the destruction of his returns and wiping the drive they were on is very unusual. If Rudy goes down I also don't see how Senate continues to stand with him. There are already cracks there and if that dam breaks things will move very quickly. If he's facing removal from office his leverage on a deal with Congress is gone.

He may try to stick things out but it may be best for him to protect himself and go down a martyr than fight.

Dude is bat shit crazy. Do you really think he does something reasonable like resign?

I think it's going to open a can of worms, show massive contradictions between what he reports and what he has said, and possibly allow for anyone who cares to dig into public records and compare them with his records to find a possible treasure trove of loophole usage, questionable accounting, and outright fraud.

I'm expecting it to be more embarrassing to him than anything. The worst may be all the Deutch Bank stuff and former SCJ Kennedy's son having a hand in it.

I'd be more shocked he was actually a billionaire.

State Dept and White House both ordered Amb Yovanovich not to testify today, House Intel Committee issued a subpoena Thursday night as a result, and she testified:


https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/tru...m_npd_ms_tw_ma

Twitter storm coming in 3..2..1..

https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/11/polit...nds/index.html

I bet he is scarfing down on hamerders & KFC right now so he can twitter storm from the toilet soon.

He's lost three cases already today and counting.


Meanwhile in Syria:


Exclusive: Turkey Bombs US Special Forces in Syria Attack, Apparently by Mistake

Glad to see someone over there has some integrity. Unless of course it is for some health related reason. Likely orchestrated by Barr would be my guess.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/11/b...imes&smtyp=cur

Seems like he wanted out and wanted to start a "new chapter".

He's going to desperately try to get a trade deal done with China.

"Ok, Zing. I can call you Zing right? Listen, Zing, I got a really good proposal, you'll love it, gyna will love it, I'm already in love with it, like my daughter and this deal is hot like my daughter too. I've done deals before but not one like this. This deal is the best, you get money, I get money, it's what we like to call it here outside of the oryent, a win win. You'd be a fool to turn this deal down Zing, all other leaders will be jealous and say why can't I get the deal that Zing got? And I will say, no, this was for my good buddy Zing and Zing only. Ok, what? Oh ok I'll hold..."

Rudy! Hey Rudy!! Bring me the clicker, I want to turn the channel to the golf channel. Hey! How come I have to slap the clicker every time I want it to work? I haven't had to slap something this much since my first ex wife.

"Yes I'm still here Zing. Shoot, fire away. Ok...uh huh...got it got it. Ok I mean yea, we can give you Taiwan, that shouldn't be a problem. I mean we give them so much money and we can just stop doing that like the Kurds, so should be easy. See, this is why I went to you first Zing. I was talking just the other day and telling my people that you knew what a good deal was, best deals really. You have to go now? Ok, should I call you later? No. I'll just text you instead then ok. Oh hey Zing! Koneechee wah! Bye"

The health reason thing has me wondering. He is leaving mid-contract, without the ability to work anywhere else for awhile. If he were fired, it would be different. I wonder if he isn't sick and wants to slide out so he isn't the story.

I guess if it's broke...don't fix it:

White House accidentally sends Ukraine talking points to Democrats again

I'm beginning to think these are no longer 'accidents'.

After reading the article I think it is more probable than not that the talking points were leaked intentionally.

Same here. I keep thinking to myself that there has got to be someone on the inside of this administration that isn't afraid to do the right thing and maybe this is one of them.

Again, I've only read the snippets from the article posted but I think these were leaked intentionally by the Trump team and not just someone trying to do the right thing.

I'm definitely not holding my breath. When you put it that way, maybe it could be them trying to poison the well and then try to pull the old switcheroo on the dems.

Acting Homeland Security Director out to be replaced by another Acting Director next year.

Pretty soon its going to be just Trump and Pence and a bunch of acting staff/cabinet

And I should have said, next week.

dola

Trump endorses the Turks.

.....The Kurds and Turkey have been fighting for many years. Turkey considers the PKK the worst terrorists of all. Others may want to come in and fight for one side or the other. Let them! We are monitoring the situation closely. Endless Wars!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 13, 2019

War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.
We have always been at war with the Kurds.

So many things right now fit in from 1984. It's rather disturbing. It should be an eye opener from history.

For the, maybe, 6,000th time. Any #MAGA types out there listening? That's basically what matters here, right? GOP support? The base? Senators are presumably watching that, so is the administration (lower case out of contempt not ignorance).

Good fucking luck trying to figure out our national policies.

Dealing with @LindseyGrahamSC and many members of Congress, including Democrats, about imposing powerful Sanctions on Turkey. Treasury is ready to go, additional legislation may be sought. There is great consensus on this. Turkey has asked that it not be done. Stay tuned!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 13, 2019

Only things they are paying attention to are shocking sudden “revelations” that any and all offspring of any Trump opponents have ties to Ukrainian energy companies.

(I swear it’s always the people from high school who were ass stupid that argue for this guy. I really would like to point out that they have always BEEN ass stupid and remain so, but then I’d be the bad guy.)

I'm not a big fan of Trump but I'm afraid there's some hypocrisy going on here.
I do have one question to liberals:

You generally claim that you wanted troops removed from the middle-east. What exactly did you think that would look like?

ETA: I'm not a fan of the backstabbing but there was never going to be a clean exit

Just saying no would have likely stopped Turkey, but at a minimum there needed to be some sort of policy review. Giving Turkey the okay on a phone call without alerting anyone is bound to lead to shitty outcomes.

I am for pulling troops out, Syria is a lost cause for us. We lost that opportunity to dislodge Assad a while ago.

I'm sure there were multitudes of options but the (seemingly) impromptu way/announcement and leaving proven allies in the lurch isn't right.

More planning, more forewarning it was going to happen sometime, letting the Syrian Kurds some chance to maybe join their brethren in Iraq, maybe training and supplying the Syrian Kurds where they have their own defacto self governing, autonomous region. I'm not sure how real the Kurd threat is to Turkey but one of the obvious quid-pro-quo is Kurds stay in Syria and not do anything in Turkey.

1. Troops have not been removed from the middle east.
2. Decreasing involvement in the middle east doesn't mean it has to be done suddenly without any plan to handle the fallout.
3. There are serious questions about why Trump took this action now that have nothing to do with involvement in the middle east.
4. There are indeed people on the far left who think we should just remove troops immediately from the middle east with no consideration of the consequences, and that kind of shortsighted thinking is one of many reasons I have moved away from the far left over the past decade.
5. Stop saying, "I'm no fan of Trump, but". It means nothing, especially when you're parroting the #1 Trump talking point about this situation.

The US had a bad rep with the Kurds after the let down from Bush 1 and the gassing they endured from Sadaam. Then you had every President after that essentially protect them fron Turkey with harsh language. We begged them for help, promised not to let them down if they would help despite their misgivings, and now, you have a change in US policy, that abandons them to their deaths again. This goes far and above just getting out of the Middle East. It's a travesty of a foreign policy and a 180 change from previous admins. I don't see how this is suitable as a version of "it had to happen sometime and it was never going to be good, so what's the big deal?"


There are plenty of left leaning people who want to see an active foreign policy that isn't isolationist and doesn't get mired in constant regional conflicts. Afghanistan is still not done, imo.

Let's state hypocrisy: Moving a 1,000 troops from one area "to get out of the middle east" to move 2,000 troops to Saudi Arabia which *checks a map* is in the middle east.

Troops aren't being sent home. They are just being told to stand down.

Now he's talking about sanctions on Turkey despite saying they should all just fight it out.

Interesting article about the fact we have 50 nukes stored in Turkey while they're firing on American troops. We probably have to remove those real soon.

Trump Followed His Gut on Syria. Calamity Came Fast.

FWIW

https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/13/polit...key/index.html

Looks like relocating. No one is coming home.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Trump says the 1,000 American troops leaving Syria will remain in the region to help prevent revival of Islamic State.

— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) October 14, 2019