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

CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#249376: Jul 17th 2018 at 1:31:53 PM

GERMANY!

Listen, we can't trust that Merkel woman.

She's a competent, intelligent, older blonde woman in politics.

There's something about her which Trump doesn't like.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Jul 17th 2018 at 1:31:47 AM

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
#249377: Jul 17th 2018 at 1:36:31 PM

She's a competent female in power?

PushoverMediaCritic I'm sorry Tien, but I must go all out. from the Italy of America Since: Jul, 2015 Relationship Status: watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
I'm sorry Tien, but I must go all out.
#249378: Jul 17th 2018 at 1:44:21 PM

Well, yes that obviously, but there's something more to it.

3of4 Just a harmless giant from a foreign land. from Five Seconds in the Future. Since: Jan, 2010 Relationship Status: GAR for Archer
Just a harmless giant from a foreign land.
#249379: Jul 17th 2018 at 1:50:16 PM

....*stares*

*stagewhisper to the side* Walter, sie riechen den Braten!

Edited by 3of4 on Jul 17th 2018 at 10:50:28 AM

"You can reply to this Message!"
tclittle Professional Forum Ninja from Somewhere Down in Texas Since: Apr, 2010
Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#249381: Jul 17th 2018 at 1:55:28 PM

Technically Angela Merkel is a brunette...her hair got gradually lighter with years, most likely because she hides her first grey hairs. She should have a lot of them considering the idiots she has to deal with on a daily basis.

Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#249382: Jul 17th 2018 at 2:06:54 PM

[up][up]Gutting government revenue and overstimulating the economy; its essentially Republican Nirvana.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
3of4 Just a harmless giant from a foreign land. from Five Seconds in the Future. Since: Jan, 2010 Relationship Status: GAR for Archer
Just a harmless giant from a foreign land.
#249383: Jul 17th 2018 at 2:15:12 PM

Well, bribing the voters with some glass pearls before November...why not.

"You can reply to this Message!"
TheWanderer Student of Story from Somewhere in New England (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: Wishfully thinking
Student of Story
#249384: Jul 17th 2018 at 2:19:02 PM

Who would have imagined in 2012, when Romney was criticised for calling Russia "America's number one geopolitical foe", that the next republican president would trust the word of Putin over the evidence gathered by US Intelligence agencies?

Not me, although every time this is brought up I feel the need that part of why Romney was laughed at is because he and his foreign policy team kept calling Russia the Soviet Union and making references to other countries that hadn’t existed for almost 20 years, like Czechoslovakia.

That said, both how Russia got out of the box Obama had put them in and how the American Right started fellating Russia are major cases of Did Not See That Coming.

| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |
tsstevens Reading tropes such as You Know What You Did from Reading tropes such as Righting Great Wrongs Since: Oct, 2010 Relationship Status: She's holding a very large knife
Reading tropes such as You Know What You Did
#249385: Jul 17th 2018 at 2:27:13 PM

Might be because Putin seemingly dreams of a communist Russia that stretches from Siberia all the way to the United States, just throwing it out there.

Currently reading up My Rule Fu Is Stronger than Yours
DeathorCake Since: Mar, 2016
#249386: Jul 17th 2018 at 2:30:53 PM

[up][up][up][up]

At this point they're well past the stage when you start seeing diminishing returns on the stimulus effects, the first one did next to nothing given that cap on State + Local. Corporations and the 1% were already piling up Scrooge-style hoards and received no new incentive to invest or spend, if it was any more regressive I suspect it would have somehow been a contractionary massive deficit increase.

CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#249387: Jul 17th 2018 at 2:32:45 PM

I don't think Putin is a communist. He loves money way way too much for it to be the case.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
archonspeaks Since: Jun, 2013
#249388: Jul 17th 2018 at 2:40:49 PM

[up] Whether he's a communist is debatable, but he certainly has neo-Soviet aspirations. He's said plainly in the past that the fall of the Soviet Union was the worst thing ever to happen to Russia, he was a high-ranking KGB agent, and he has revanchist political positions on former Soviet states.

They should have sent a poet.
tsstevens Reading tropes such as You Know What You Did from Reading tropes such as Righting Great Wrongs Since: Oct, 2010 Relationship Status: She's holding a very large knife
Reading tropes such as You Know What You Did
#249389: Jul 17th 2018 at 2:41:27 PM

Not a communist you don't think? Certainly based on the invasion of the Ukraine and admission of helping Trump win he has the same vision as Lenin, Malenkov, Khrushchev and the like of a Russia that stretches all over Europe and beyond. It may be as simple as wanting the world to go to their local St. Petersburger and enjoy Smirknoff vodka the way the world has become Americanized but I do think Putin and Trump, and I would say the same of any two, amounts to treason: Putin is a Russian agent of influence; former intelligence, and Trump is a Americam source the Kremlin would love to have under it's thumb.

Currently reading up My Rule Fu Is Stronger than Yours
CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#249390: Jul 17th 2018 at 2:51:58 PM

Russian imperialism is different from communist and has a much longer history.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
archonspeaks Since: Jun, 2013
#249391: Jul 17th 2018 at 2:54:07 PM

[up] Except Putin is explicitly Soviet, not generically Russian.

They should have sent a poet.
Ramidel Since: Jan, 2001
#249392: Jul 17th 2018 at 2:54:45 PM

Yeah, but socialism, Marxism-Leninism and central economic planning as the ideology of the Union are dead, even in theory. A reunited Union will still be a right-wing authoritarian-capitalist oligarchy, and will not necessarily have any particular ties to North Korea, Cuba or Venezuela except inasmuch as they piss the US off.

Snipertoaster from Mind Your Business (Ten years in the joint) Relationship Status: If it's you, it's okay
#249393: Jul 17th 2018 at 2:56:54 PM

On the subject of Russia, the whiplash of Trump's backtrack was so heavy it could break your neck. Further to the anaology, you may have just narrowly avoided killing yourself but you've still screwed yourself over because YOU BROKE YOUR FUCKING NECK!

We can choose to be better.
tsstevens Reading tropes such as You Know What You Did from Reading tropes such as Righting Great Wrongs Since: Oct, 2010 Relationship Status: She's holding a very large knife
Reading tropes such as You Know What You Did
#249394: Jul 17th 2018 at 2:58:47 PM

Maybe that's the end game. Trump is the Troll King, maybe allying with Russia and North Korea and making enemies of Europe and Canada is all so he can shake his wee wee about and get people to give him attention.

Currently reading up My Rule Fu Is Stronger than Yours
Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#249395: Jul 17th 2018 at 3:15:47 PM

Not a communist you don't think? Certainly based on the invasion of the Ukraine and admission of helping Trump win he has the same vision as Lenin, Malenkov, Khrushchev and the like of a Russia that stretches all over Europe and beyond. It may be as simple as wanting the world to go to their local St. Petersburger and enjoy Smirknoff vodka the way the world has become Americanized but I do think Putin and Trump, and I would say the same of any two, amounts to treason: Putin is a Russian agent of influence; former intelligence, and Trump is a Americam source the Kremlin would love to have under it's thumb.

Yes that word is called imperialism, none of this is especially connected to Communism.

Except Putin is explicitly Soviet, not generically Russian.
Yes because the Soviet Union is the more recent imperialistic entity in Russia, thus it's something to admire in the context of Russian imperialism. It does not mean that Putin has any real ideological connection to Communism.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Jul 17th 2018 at 6:23:36 AM

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
kkhohoho (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#249397: Jul 17th 2018 at 3:19:08 PM

[up]Traitor Mattis? (Only half joking.)

CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#249398: Jul 17th 2018 at 4:53:21 PM

Well I'm just saying that while he's an ex-KGB officer, Putin is also The Fundamentalist and a oligarch capitalist. He's certainly using intelligence services and KGB (FSB) activities to suppress his political enemies, kill his foes, blackmail others, and worse but it's a different sort of beast.

Even more so than Modern China.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Jul 17th 2018 at 4:55:59 AM

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#249399: Jul 17th 2018 at 5:33:39 PM

[up] I read an article once that said something to that effect.

The “active measures” that Moscow is deploying in the United States are not new. The Soviet Union used similar tactics against the United States and its European allies during the Cold War. Putin has recommissioned these tactics and, crucially, he has weaponized new technological tools—tools intended by their creators to serve as empowering forces—to supercharge the attack on democratic institutions. Furthermore, whereas during the Cold War the Kremlin had an interest in maintaining stability, today a weakened Russia is mainly interested in tearing down others around it, making it, in some ways, more dangerous than it was then. In April 2015, Lilia Shevtsova wrote in the Journal of Democracy that “unlike in Soviet times, there is no ideology on offer. Instead, the Kremlin and its minions are working ‘to sow confusion via conspiracy theories’ and to spread disinformation with a view to eroding journalistic integrity . . . ”

Edited by megaeliz on Jul 17th 2018 at 8:33:33 AM

megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#249400: Jul 17th 2018 at 6:07:35 PM

Trump sucking up to his boyfriend.

While I had a great meeting with NATO, raising vast amounts of money, I had an even better meeting with Vladimir Putin of Russia. Sadly, it is not being reported that way - the Fake News is going Crazy!

The meeting between President Putin and myself was a great success, except in the Fake News Media!


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