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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
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He's an unrepentant war criminal and a mass murderer, but Kissinger's way of doing it back in the 70s (deterrence without confrontation, aka Détente) is probably the most likely to work given Russia's foreign policy is strongly realist, and likely takes significant cues from the man himself.
edited 22nd Feb '17 6:14:54 PM by CaptainCapsase
What goes on now is pretty much cyber espionage and harassment. It's about on the level of the spycraft that went on all through the Cold War.
The idea of cyberwar should not be thrown around casually. It is still war with all that entails.
Fortifying our own systems and engaging in detante on that front is probably a lot safer.
IIRC, Obama says he personally told Putin that if they hacked the actual voting, that was the line in the sand that would prompt retaliation. Obama has a bad record when it comes to lines in the sand but it is not an unreasonable one.
Edit: And just the tip of the iceburg: Russia's already accomplished cyber attacks against the Ukranian power grid.
edited 22nd Feb '17 6:37:46 PM by Elle
Brownback, a Republican who once called his tax policy a “real-live experiment” with conservative principles, had vetoed a bill that would have repealed the most important provisions of his overhaul. While the state House voted to override the veto earlier in the day, proponents of the bill came up three votes shy of the two-thirds majority needed in the Senate. Fifteen Republican senators voted to override the veto, while 16 voted to sustain it.
In the House, 45 GOP legislators voted in favor of the increase, while 40 voted to uphold the governor’s veto.
The state is facing a $350 million budget shortfall. Brownback’s critics say the state’s persistent deficits are evidence that the economic benefits from reduced taxes are not always adequate to make up for reductions in revenue, as advocates of supply-side changes have sometimes claimed.
Republicans’ Kansas’s economy experiment survives a revolt from their own party.
Cheeto's approval and disapproval numbers continue to worsen.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/22/politics/donald-trump-approval-rating-quinnipiac-poll/index.html
Gallup seemingly shows him holding steady at around 40% http://www.gallup.com/poll/201617/gallup-daily-trump-job-approval.aspx
As I said before, Trump appears to have an ironclad approval floor despite having a ceiling well below 50%. That 40% just so happens to be the dominant force in Republican primaries, and it's likely Republicans are more worried about primary challenges than the democrats because of the various structural advantages they have.
The dip to 38% thus could be a sign that his red floor is breaking. It will need to be confirmed first but we could see the Red Floor go the same way as the Blue Wall.
edited 22nd Feb '17 7:39:49 PM by Silasw
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranWell, as terrible as it has been we are only a month in. So on the one hand fussing about his approval and disapproval numbers seems to be jumping the gun a bit, and on the other hand is the fact that we've got time for his supposed floor to break and get worse. This is probably the definition of a "wait and see" scenario.
In the meantime we should probably be more concerned about what he's doing and leave the poll numbers till a later date.
@Silas: Polls tend to fluctuate around a mean over time. Gallup is generally among the more reputable pollsters, but aggregates are probably the best indicator, and thus far it doesn't really look like he's dipping through his primary voter floor, which is what would be required for meaningful opposition to him within the GOP to occur.
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It's not exactly that unprecedented. He is a victim of hype backlash that he himself created. It's just like a game developer promising that their next game is going to be astonishing. It took years to develop and polish, they hire a professional writer to write the story, they put incredible trailers on You Tube continuously, and so on. Then, the game isn't good or even average, but outright bad.
Serve him right, though.
Only an experienced editor who has a name possesses the ability to truly understand my work - What 90% of writers I'm in charge of said.Trump is literally begging for a repeat of 2010 in 2 years, with the major difference of a Terrible President being in charge instead of an Okay one (and here's the hint, Trump isn't the okay one).
Between him having to deal with Bridgegate and him having a brain (say what you want about Christie, he isn't stupid like a lot of Republicans in Government are), it's probably for the best. If things go south, he can sell out Trump and maybe get some credibility back.
edited 22nd Feb '17 8:12:48 PM by DingoWalley1
Hmm, so Christie was apparently offered, among other positions, the Labor Secretary
position, which he turned down.
Well, that's the thing; he is a President for all Americans. It's just that you're not an American unless you're a Straight White God-Loving Republican Male Twit, and if you aren't any of these, then you are nothing less than 'The Enemy' who might as well not exist except to prop up Trump's ego. Because God knows that's what America's all about.
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Devos has no principles-she is just upset that the millions of dollars she spent in bribes only bought her a desk and the opportunity to rubber stamp the plans of a personality cult. Make no mistake, this was not a moral stand-she was testing her influence(almost zero) before folding like the cheap empty suit she is, at best.
edited 22nd Feb '17 8:50:37 PM by ViperMagnum357

Well sanctions aren't really an ideal solution anyway but I don't really know what else to do. A cyberwar is pretty much inevitable at this point unless we're just going to let Putin rig our elections in the Republican party's favor.