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Nov 2023 Mod notice:


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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

FireCrawler2002 Since: Apr, 2017
#191251: May 31st 2017 at 11:52:12 PM

Also, would a huge upsurge in ecoterrorism be likely? Because that would probably turn some heads in regard to Climate Change.

[up] Both of my great grandfathers were in the military and fought against the Nazis. We defeated them through action, not useless bickering.

edited 31st May '17 11:58:30 PM by FireCrawler2002

Luigisan98 A wandering user from Venezuelan Muscat Since: Oct, 2013 Relationship Status: I <3 love!
A wandering user
#191252: May 31st 2017 at 11:53:12 PM

[up] If Trump and some corps keep screwing up for worse...then yes.

The only good fanboy, is a redeemed fanboy.
Krieger22 Causing freakouts over sourcing since 2018 from Malaysia Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: I'm in love with my car
Causing freakouts over sourcing since 2018
#191253: May 31st 2017 at 11:56:08 PM

[up][up]Have you tried talking to a psychiatrist over this issue in particular?

Seriously, it's possible to be cynical, pessimistic or optimistic without making a fool of yourself.

I have disagreed with her a lot, but comparing her to republicans and propagandists of dictatorships is really low. - An idiot
M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#191254: Jun 1st 2017 at 12:01:34 AM

Speaking of Health Covfefe...

Wonder if someone will make a hashtag of it.

#AmericanHealthCovfefeAct

Disgusted, but not surprised
TerminusEst from the Land of Winter and Stars Since: Feb, 2010
#191255: Jun 1st 2017 at 1:17:38 AM

Chinese Workers Probing Ivanka Trump-Linked Plants Missing

wo Chinese labor activists were reported missing, with a third detained by police, while they were investigating violations at a factory that manufactured Ivanka Trump shoes, according to a worker-advocacy group.

Hua Haifeng, Li Zhao and Su Heng — working undercover under the direction of New York-based China Labor Watch at a factory operated by shoe manufacturer Huajian Group in the southeast province of Jiangxi — have been unreachable by phone over the weekend, said Li Qiang, the founder of the group. Hua’s wife was contacted by local police by phone Tuesday afternoon and told that he’d been detained for illegal eavesdropping, said the wife, Deng Guimian.

Huajian’s facility is one of 15 factories that make products for the brand founded by the daughter of U.S. President Donald Trump that China Labor Watch said it has been investigating in the past year. In a letter sent to Ivanka Trump in April, the group alleged a number of labor violations at two unnamed factories that supply the Ivanka Trump brand, including that employees were forced to work at least 12 1/2 hours a day for wages below China’s legal minimum — a monthly salary equivalent to about a dollar an hour.

Huajian representatives couldn’t be reached for comment at its factories in Ganzhou and Dongguan.

Si Vis Pacem, Para Perkele
Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#191256: Jun 1st 2017 at 2:16:25 AM

I remain cautiously optimistic on climate change, the US may have withdrawn from the Paris Agrement but it still stands, basically the entire planet was able to come together on this one and it's my hope that if we have to the entire planet will come together again to force the US to fall in line.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#191257: Jun 1st 2017 at 3:46:09 AM

Btw, the reason why Nicaragua doesn't sign is agreement is because they think that it is too soft!!! That is right, Nicaragua is way ahead when it comes to lower emissions.

So the US is basically in one category with Syria, the country which has the excuse of "we are wrapped up in a complicated civil war with at least three different parties".

tclittle Professional Forum Ninja from Somewhere Down in Texas Since: Apr, 2010
Luigisan98 A wandering user from Venezuelan Muscat Since: Oct, 2013 Relationship Status: I <3 love!
A wandering user
#191259: Jun 1st 2017 at 4:20:35 AM

Everyone Has Standards indeed.

The only good fanboy, is a redeemed fanboy.
Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#191260: Jun 1st 2017 at 4:28:36 AM

She crossed a line and those linked to her ate burning bridges. As expected.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#191261: Jun 1st 2017 at 4:39:11 AM

Although the Tea Party did burn and hang our previous president in effigy. Not defending what she did, but I want to bring this up because the same people who were participating or turned a blind eye to the former were outraged at the later.

edited 1st Jun '17 4:42:21 AM by megaeliz

Medinoc from France (Before Recorded History)
#191262: Jun 1st 2017 at 5:14:06 AM

[up][up]How do burning bridges taste?

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."
sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#191264: Jun 1st 2017 at 5:32:27 AM

I like the idea of replacing the the suffix -gate with al-lago for all future scandals.

MarqFJA The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer from Deserts of the Middle East (Before Recorded History) Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
#191265: Jun 1st 2017 at 5:34:22 AM

New thing I learned today: Trolls are made of wood.

In more US-related news: Forget Trump’s bluster. The world is walking all over him.

President Trump woke up incensed Tuesday morning, apparently because after he finally got through lecturing European leaders about how they had to take more responsibility for themselves, Germany’s chancellor had the audacity to suggest that European countries should take more responsibility for themselves.

“The times when we could rely on others have passed us by a little bit,” was Angela Merkel’s takeaway from her most recent meeting with Trump. She said European powers “needed to take our fate into our own hands,” which prompted Trump to fire off an angry tweet assailing the trade gap with Germany and vowing to make the country spend more on defense.

Because what we really need are fewer BM Ws manufactured in South Carolina and more of a German military presence in Europe. That’s always worked out great before.

But really, all this focus on Trump’s tweets and the stories about his boorishness abroad should please the White House no end. The more the narrative focuses on Trump’s toughness and bluster with our allies, the less anyone focuses on what’s really been exposed in these opening months of his presidency.

Trump is weak, and our rivals have figured it out. They’re walking all over the American president in a way we haven’t seen since at least the days of disco and Space Invaders.

None of this seems to permeate the family circle of Trump’s White House, where, as ever, mythology crowds out any notion of policy or reality.

As Hope Hicks, Trump’s onetime corporate flack, put it in a breathtaking statement this week that Trump himself might well have authored, the president “has a magnetic personality and exudes positive energy,” has “an unparalleled ability to communicate with people,” “treats everyone with respect” and is of course “brilliant with a great sense of humor.”

Out here in the world that isn’t Narnia, though, we’ve all got enough of a sample size now to know what kind of leader Trump is.

Trump punches down. Like all bullies, he prefers to flex his muscle with those who are inherently smaller, or where the stakes are impossibly trivial.

He’ll hurl his cutting asides at an aide, or berate some poor guy at the National Park Service who refuses to lie about the size of a crowd. He’ll mock Arnold Schwarzenegger for low ratings. He’ll bravely shove aside the president of Montenegro, which no one could circle on a map.

Like all Twitter trolls, he’s got an endless supply of insults to be dished out in 140 characters or less, using all caps and exclamation points, as long as he doesn’t have to stand in front of you and look at you level.

Just how tough is Trump when the adversary isn’t someone who works for him or serves as a prop in some way? Ask the Turkish despot, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

A few weeks ago, just after Erdogan visited the White House, a bunch of Turkish goons kicked in the heads of protesters outside the country’s embassy on Massachusetts Avenue. Thanks to this excellent video analysis from the New York Times, we know that several of these thugs had ties to Turkey’s security service, and they could be seen conferring with the Turkish president himself before deciding to plunge into the crowd.

Erdogan watched the bloody crackdown from behind the armored window of his car, two miles from the White House.

America does business with all kinds of characters, of course, and what you do at home is your problem. But here we have certain laws and convictions, and when you come to our country, people get to tell you what they think without being bludgeoned.

What did Trump, who talks so tough with other NATO allies, have to say about any of this? Where was the outraged tweet blasting back at a foreign incursion in the American capital? How many Turkish diplomats were expelled?

The answers are nothing, nowhere, and none. Erdogan flipped his middle finger to the White House, in full view of the world, and Trump hid in the West Wing, whining about his press coverage.

You can bet that Erdogan had been watching the way Trump handled Vladimir Putin, after Russian planes and subs showed up to menace the coasts off Alaska and Connecticut. A stronger leader might have politely put the Russians on notice that we take our borders seriously, and the next Russian pilot who wandered into our airspace might not be coming home.

Putin was testing Trump, just trying to see how hard he’d be able to push the man whose campaign he so deftly played to his advantage. About as far as you like — that was the answer.

Then there’s Kim Jong Un, who’s setting off a new rocket every week now, boasting about his intention to reach American targets. He’s already concluded that Trump will leave that whole Korean headache to the Chinese, as long as no one’s conspiring to hit us with more decent, reasonably priced hatchbacks.

Why are Trump’s competitors so confident they can brush him aside? Probably they can see that he doesn’t have much grasp of world affairs, or a ton of interest. Maybe they imagine he’s too preoccupied with controversy back home to get himself into any global standoffs.

But the better explanation is that other world leaders can sense something essential about Trump. The one thing they share is probably an innate ability to size people up. You don’t get to the top of any political system, large or small, without a shrewd eye for what drives human behavior.

And what they see in Trump is insecurity. The carrying on about his ratings and poll numbers, the impulsive tweets on a sleepless night, the childlike boasts and pleading diatribes — all of it betrays a need to be loved, rather than feared.

They look at how Trump sucks up to a miniature authoritarian like the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte (who Trump gushed was doing “an unbelievably good job” during an embarrassing phone call in May), and they see a man who admires steel in others precisely because he doesn’t possess it himself.

All of this creates an opening for a leader like Merkel or France’s Emmanuel Macron, who see a vacuum emerging in the West. Macron made a point this week of demonstrating what spine in a statesman looks like, condemning Russia’s anti-gay bigotry and state-controlled media while standing next to Putin himself. (And this was after Macron gripped Trump’s hand as if he meant to pulverize and eat it.)

It creates a promising moment for China, too, which is already positioning itself beyond Asia as the steadfast successor to American power, economically and militarily.

But the pressing danger here isn’t that Trump — and, by extension, American leadership — gets eclipsed. It’s that Trump’s passivity in the face of petty aggression almost certainly invites a more consequential variety.

It’s one thing for the Russians to have poked our border patrol with no response. But what happens when their troops are crossing the border of a Baltic nation instead, because Putin figures no one will stop him? What happens when North Korea finally gets a rocket to Guam — because, you know, why not?

Indifference toward aggression has never spared America from war. And irate tweets have never ended one.

edited 1st Jun '17 5:41:26 AM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#191266: Jun 1st 2017 at 5:46:14 AM

Maybe we do have a prayer that NAFTA won't be a huge disaster....assuming Trump doesn't Rage Quit.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#191267: Jun 1st 2017 at 6:29:51 AM

[up][up] It took them this long to realize Trump was a blustering bullying coward?

Disgusted, but not surprised
speedyboris Since: Feb, 2010
#191268: Jun 1st 2017 at 6:32:09 AM

"As I recall, climate change is the big one because we are fast approaching the Point of No Return."

We've actually passed the point of no return already.

edited 1st Jun '17 6:35:42 AM by speedyboris

Antiteilchen In the pursuit of great, we failed to do good. Since: Sep, 2013
In the pursuit of great, we failed to do good.
#191269: Jun 1st 2017 at 6:34:53 AM

America shouldn't be the deciding factor on whether the world stops/survives Climate Change or not.

Why should America be the one to dictate the rest of the world's fate?

Dude, you're the biggest economy and biggest contributor to climate change. Not being a deciding factor would require Americans to largely die off and/or going back to a pre industrial economy.

PhysicalStamina i'm tired, my friend (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Coming soon to theaters
i'm tired, my friend
#191270: Jun 1st 2017 at 6:48:59 AM

Not being a deciding factor would require Americans to largely die off and/or going back to a pre industrial economy.

Either one of those things is not entirely impossible if we keep up at the pace we're going.

i'm tired, my friend
Luigisan98 A wandering user from Venezuelan Muscat Since: Oct, 2013 Relationship Status: I <3 love!
A wandering user
#191271: Jun 1st 2017 at 6:52:32 AM

[up][up][up] Doesn't mean progress should be stopped.

The only good fanboy, is a redeemed fanboy.
firewriter Since: Dec, 2016
#191272: Jun 1st 2017 at 6:57:22 AM

[up][up][up]

Actually China has the role of biggest contributor.

http://www.worldatlas.com/articles/biggest-contributors-to-global-warming-in-the-world.html

edited 1st Jun '17 6:57:46 AM by firewriter

speedyboris Since: Feb, 2010
#191273: Jun 1st 2017 at 6:58:21 AM

[up]x2 Of course not. It's all the more reason to do damage control, not throw up our hands and give up.

edited 1st Jun '17 6:58:28 AM by speedyboris

Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#191274: Jun 1st 2017 at 7:02:07 AM

[up][up] China has also started to invest in green projects because even the Chinese realize that this is not just good for the world but can also be a huge business opportunity.

speedyboris Since: Feb, 2010
#191275: Jun 1st 2017 at 7:05:24 AM

And of course, our Fearless Leader thinks this is why climate change is a hoax.

"SOMEONE'S GETTING RICH AND IT AIN'T ME!!! IT MUST BE A HOAX!!!"

edited 1st Jun '17 7:05:36 AM by speedyboris


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