But the name matters. We're still obligated to come to their defense as they are ours. My pessimistic prediction of what happens over this ends with Trump withdrawing from NATO.

Pretty sure "if you do anything I decide I don't like I'll destroy your economy" blasted for the world to see is an act of war, and only Congress can declare war.

Add another one to the list of impeachable offenses.

One things for sure, Trump is good at destroying things...steaks, airlines, casinos, universities, marriages...

this sounds so much like a quote that could come from a Civilization game

It is nearly the exact thing that even 10 years ago would have come from Lil' Kim and Ahmadinejad would have spouted off and we would have laughed and laughed at the crazy mad man with his delusions of grandeur.

Looks like a stay was ordered

I'm all for bringing the troops home from Syria and Iraq but there has to be a better way than to just desert allies.

This looks like Trump's "line in the sand" where Turkey will likely cross it and Trump won't do much.

Hah, that's a good one.

We had the Kurds remove border fortifications and fall back in order to create a safe zone. Then a month later we bailed on them and let Turkey attack. It's sickening what we did here.

Yeah this is what gets me if all this is right and reports are also saying that Turkey is bombing Kurdish areas.

I've generally felt that we should get out of Syria (and Afghanistan for that matter) and I know that a clean break is unreal.

But this just feels like Trump just watched Revenge of the Sith and wanted to use Order 66.

My guess is Occam's Razor says it was because he was PO'd with all the impeachment mess and so he went into the call without really thinking things through (or listening to advice), played it by ear (unprepared), and wanted to distract by coming up with something else the MSM can chase instead of impeachment.

Unfortunately, his closest allies (e.g. Fox News etc.) are all telling him it was a bad decision. So he is probably in a worse mood now.

And in the meantime, nothing much happening in NK or China.

The State Dept is refusing to let the Ambassador to the EU testify before congress.

Senate Intelligence Committee releases report on social media influence on the 2016 election. Somehow they found out the Internet Research Association (IRA). a Russian group, celebrated Trump's win by opening a bottle of champagne and toasting. "We made America great again."


Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

The White House releases a letter stating they will no longer be giving anything to congress, saying the impeachment inquiry is unconstitutional. They are basically saying congress has no oversight power.

Soooo, checks and balances are now unconstitutional? So how soon before he declares himself Emperor of America?

It's a delay tactic and an attempt to paint it as a partisan witch hunt as they did Mueller Report. If this moves as quickly as Dems would like it to its more difficult for the White House to counter punch while the longer drags out the more likely the public is to get tired of it and turn against it.

Yeah, but we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that the GOP position is now that the President can't be investigated, can't be indicted, and can't be impeached.

So, wait - does Matt Gaetz actually think "kangaroo court" has anything to do with Captain Kangaroo??

I think Australia should challenge trump to a fight with a kangaroo.

I think this article has become more relevant now than it was just a year ago.

How Congress Stopped Working — ProPublica

Lathum once brought up the possibility of Trump refusing to leave office, which I put down as conspiracy theorist thinking, but for a moment, just consider if it happened.

Would there be another civil war?

I think the House has to start using their power to arrest people who resist subpoenas. Start with the ones that have already done so, then subpoena every high-level White House adminstrator and arrest them too.


I think violence is more than likely to happen now and probably against both parties.

If they ignore or refuse to testify and get sent to jail, can Trump pardon them?

I do agree that violence is more likely to happen. Per my other post of whether they should do impeachment proceedings now or wait till 2Q to better impact the elections ... I think they should do it now, get it over as soon as possible - win, lose or draw.

In addition to Trade & IP, "freedom of speech" issues are coming to the forefront with China.

I get China blasting Apple on app to aid/track protesters, but NBA or Blizzard comments, criticisms etc. is an overreach. Where does it end, can't say anything negative at all about China?

I do want Trump to continue course and play hard ball with China but he is weakened, distracted etc. Unless China's economy crashes they have the luxury of waiting it out since they have Premier for life. It makes it more likely for Trump to cut a deal (any deal) and call it a win.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/09/stoc...ade-talks.html

I think it more likely a foreign power, China and/or Russia, invades us while we have a weakened government with a contested President.

Next Christmas we may all be speaking mandarin.

Extremely unlikely. Neither of those countries have a ghost of a chance against the U.S. Navy, which is immensely larger and more technologically advanced than any other force by a wide margin.

And that's beside the point that, one, neither has anything to gain from the move as a net goal, and two, doing so woild immediately unite and radicalize Americans (armed Americans, generally) against one common enemy.

Of course, you're probably joking. I think.

There's no need for a foreign power to actually invade us. As Chief Rum points out, that comes with a lot of downsides.

All they need to do is what they have been doing--convince a large portion of Americans that they are better off with a foreign government controlling the country via a puppet GOP than letting the Dems be in charge.

That's actually working really well for them. If I were China/Russia, I'd just keep doing it.

Not joking at all.

Do I think that is going to happen, no. Do I think it could happen? Yes. It’s clear we have a compromised leader on the White House. Why is it such a stretch our two biggest enemies wouldn’t take advantage of that to destroy us? I mean, what’s Russia’s end game in all of this?

I think he can do that, but so far he's pardoned nobody. I think Congress has more power to compell testimony from them, lose many of their 5th amendment rights about self-incrimination. Not a lawyer, but that was the talk when Trump was considering pardons for Manafort and the like. This article was from a couple years ago when Trump was considering using them:


Donald Trump Pardons: How a Pardon Could Backfire | Time

As treacherous as Russia is, they are really not that stupid. That end game could bring the world to the brink of destruction.

The battle of the future is autonomous and technological.

Everything from information and technology to culture and media. This is actually where the US is the weakest. Our tolerance for opposing views versus the monolithic state run narratives will be difficult to overcome. Attacks against power grids and strategic drone strikes will make for a constant, never ending war there is no escape from.

The power of the future is who gets to say the loudest that they won and that they ate right. Battlefields will rarely result is army versus army conflicts.

I don't think there will be another civil war. In a way, I personally feel like we are kind of in a 'cold civil war', but, if anything, you will have incidents here and there of violence like we have already seen these last few years since trump has been in office.

What we are learning is that the system is fragile enough that if the Senate doesn't care, Trump can do whatever he wants. Under these circumstances, there's not much an opposition can do to stop a largely lawless president.

Lots of Executive Time so far this morning.

It seems like the fear of not getting re-elected is greater than the problem of a criminal president and doing anything about it. I wonder if we can just Citizen's Arrest trump and take it out of the hands of the cowards in the senate?

Mace Windu tried that and it didn't go so well for him.

Too soon!

Turkey attacks. The blood of the Kurds is on the hands of every single Trump enabler.

One poll is up to 28% of Republicans supporting removal. Previously Trump-supporting pundits and R politicians appear to be furious with him. Ironic if Trump gets removed for being too much of a pacifist.

There were good reasons for leaving Turkey. Agree or disagree with them, but they were there. There was also a good way to do it (i.e. with lots of planning and coordination).

Trump did it for bad reasons and in a ham-handed way.

The best analogy I saw is that the front door and a fifth story window are both ways to leave a building, but that does not mean that there isn't a difference between which way you choose.

(EDIT--To be clear, I actually don't know enough to know whether the good reasons for leaving outweighed the good reasons for staying. It is a hard problem that I don't know enough about. My point was only that the President's reasons were not deliberated in the way one would hope.)

Good gracious. Even Franklin Graham.

Now THIS I can relate to:

Kirk Cousins on call from the President: “Very random” – ProFootballTalk

If I were President, I'd totally use the perk of being able to call random famous people and have conversations with them whenever I want.

I mean, I wouldn't pick Kirk Cousins, but I get the impulse.

I wonder if he thought Cousins had some dirt on Biden.

Russia and China are two very different countries. They don't particularly get along, and if it wasn't for the fact that there is almost nothing of value between the heavily populated east coast of China and the bulk of Russian population west of the Urals, they probably would have fought a war or two by now.

They certainly would not combine to take on the U.S. The U.S. controls the seas and through immense air power much of the land around all seas. Even together, China and Russia could not currently stand up to that. To have any chance of success they would have to somehow get their troops to U.S. borders. They would have to cross by land, over Alaska and Canada. They would have to send the bulk of their very large standing armies to stand a chance in such an invasion.

This would leave their homelands virtually undefended. Hong Kong would break away. Taiwan, Japan and South Korea would likely invade China. Eastern Europe and Turkey would invade Russia. NATO would come out completely on the U.S. side. Canada and Mexico would immediately join up with the U.S. as well.

I don't think you understand the Mount Everest of accomplishments it would take to actually invade the U.S., between geography, technological and financial superiority and a population more than willing to do "warhawk" and die on American ideals. It would be an utter and complete nightmare.

Not to mention, if doomsday does come, it wouldn't be through a conventional war scenario like this - it'd be through exchange of nuclear arsenals.

Ironically, I think this would happen, but not by the U.S., Russia or China. They would already have an understanding of the place that road leads to. No, it would far more likely be a small nuclear exchange on the Korean Peninsula or in Kashmir, which would happen because the big boys are off fighting their own war instead of minding the shop.

I think the one nuke the U.S. might consider dropping would be on any invasion force in the Vladivostok region preparing to cross over to Alaska-- but they prob wouldn't bother. Getting a cajillion troops through the inhospitable landscape of Alaska would be a Herculean achievement all on its own.

From #NeverTrump to big-time Trump enabler to #SwearInPenceTonight. An interesting journey

Hey @SpeakerPelosi, maybe do a vote to initiate impeachment STAT, have the committee get out articles by tonight and over to the Senate, and perhaps we'll still have time to save some of the Kurds.

— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) October 9, 2019

And now reports that Drudge is flipping on Trump.

My thinking is, if the media influencers (breitbart, fox, etc...) of his base are flipping, the more likelihood that the cowards in the senate will finally start to flip. I hope, but, not holding my breath.

So it wasn't the racism, the sexism, the scams, the paying off of porn stars, the cuddling up to Russia, the lies, the rampant deficit, failure to overturn the ACA, or the Ukraine calls, but the Kurds that may cause conservatives to flip on Trump?