POTUS Donald Trump

[Mike Sixel]

 

I didn't have great success coming up with a definitive source, but my strong impression is that it's illegal to take out a nation's leader unless at war with that nation. It's not the Geneva Conventions, exactly, but something related.

 

Or maybe, it's just US policy - an executive order from the US president - Gerald Ford forbade covert operations to take out a leader, and Ronald Reagan extended this:

 

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2009/07/are_assassinations_ever_legal.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_12333

 

Aside from legalities, it seems there's a consensus that emerged that it's "just not done". Fidel Castro lived to a ripe old age, and while there were attempts on his life at first, a concerted effort to take him out surely would have worked eventually.

 

Well, we were never really at war with Castro, and he never committed genocide....

 

I understand it is perfectly legal to kill hundreds or thousands of troops, and illegal to kill those that order them to fight, I also don't think that's right in certain cases. 

[Bark's Lounge]

http://www.laweekly.com/music/henry-rollins-to-survive-donald-trump-i-plan-to-medicate-with-music-8102196

[drjim]

After today's briefing, I feel much better about the upcoming war with Syria.

[gunnarthor]

I swear, I thought the "Spicer says Hilter didn't use chemical weapons" that was floating around my facebook feed were just onion articles people were sharing.  Unreal.  

[Mike Sixel]

I don't know if the Onion can survive this administration, frankly.

 

SNL open with Spicey, or United, this coming weekend? Can they re-write the first skit this fast?

[D. Hocking]

"He was not using the gas on his own people the same way"

 

Is Spicer saying that the German Jews that Hitler killed weren't really true Germans?   

 

Maybe this is their way of acknowledging Passover just as Trump coming out in support of O'Reilly was his way of acknowledging the start sexual harassment awareness month.

 

I cannot even fully comprehend how insulting Spicer's statements were.

[Brock Beauchamp]

I appreciate how diligently Spicer is sticking to the formula of The Producers and keeping a straight face while doing so.

[Bark's Lounge]

This kind of comment/take/spin is about as bad as it can get.

 

I don't know how a human that was raised in the wilderness by Raccoons can say this kind of crap, let alone a college educated politician. We all know Spicer is a plastic bag of farts and some worse things. If he has any marbles in his head, he knew what he did from the get go.

 

What he said is equal to a person saying the Holocaust never happened and is a lie IMO.

[TheLeviathan]

Those were some insulting and stupid comments.

 

The apology though?  That's the surprising part.  That was the first time I've seen that man say something genuine.  

[Bark's Lounge]

 

Those were some insulting and stupid comments.

 

The apology though?  That's the surprising part.  That was the first time I've seen that man say something genuine.  

How could you not say something after what he said that is not an apology? It's really awful and perplexing. I get the surprising part as I did not expect it.

 

A person could be the most socially anxious, speaking in front of crowds phobic kind of guy or gal, but would never make that verbal/mental mistake.

 

It was a train wreck.

[USAFChief]

It was an insensitive choice of words, but I care about 1000 percent more about this administrations actions than Spicer's ability to be press secretary.

 

Don't get lost in the weeds.

[Bark's Lounge]

 

It was an insensitive choice of words, but I care about 1000 percent more about this administrations actions than Spicer's ability to be press secretary.

Don't get lost in the weeds.

I don't think anyone is getting lost in the weeds. People want to bitch about this guy's egregious insensitivity and uneducated blow on the situation.

 

This site can't pimp political activism for one side, it's a business and a good one at that, with a handful of owners who share different beliefs.

 

If posters want to fight back, they have to do it on there own and sure they can PM people on this site to recruit them to join there cause. Friendships are made, alliances are made, go after it.

 

For the most part, I think people try to measure what they throw out onto this thread. I can't see anyone of these guys getting lost in the weeds.

 

I say that with great respect for you Chief.

[Mike Sixel]

have the Dems won a single special election yet.....

[ashbury]

"Assad is worse than Hitler [in one narrowly defined dimension]" - what a clueless exaggerating maroon.

 

"Hitler wasn't as bad as Assad [in one narrowly defined dimension]" - ZOMG he's a Holocaust Denier!

 

Spicer did a poor job of defining his dimension when winging it at the podium, though he later managed to clarify it as population centers on the second or third try. Of course, one could say that an internment camp is also a population center of sorts; maybe it's a dimension that isn't as illuminating as he thinks and the analogy he's trying to draw falls apart quickly upon inspection.

 

I'm not sure I've seen mentioned that surely Spicer didn't just think this analogy up on the fly and on his own, while trying to defend actions. He's not with the president for many minutes in a day, but he runs around with the inner circle, and it's not hard to guess that the H word must have been bandied about in the past several days, if that was his go-to at a presser. That might be more concerning to me than Spicer's fumbling for words, if it reflects a shallow and inarticulate way of deciding what to do in Syria. And that's why Chief's wise advice to not get lost in the weeds might not be totally applicable.

[nicksaviking]

I agree, Spicer is feeble minded and the people feeding him his intel and his talking points are equally inept. But the goal of his Hitler analogy wasn't to dismiss the Nazi's actions, the goal clearly was to inflate Assad's villainy because justifying their actions and their future actions was obviously the entire point of the press conference.

 

The guy isn't pro-Nazi or a Holocaust denier (well maybe he is, but not based on this incident) he and his cohorts are just really, really, really bad at propaganda and debate and have almost no common sense.

[Mike Sixel]

 

I agree, Spicer is feeble minded and the people feeding him his intel and his talking points are equally inept. But the goal of his Hitler analogy wasn't to dismiss the Nazi's actions, the goal clearly was to inflate Assad's villainy because justifying their actions and their future actions was obviously the entire point of the press conference.

 

The guy isn't pro-Nazi or a Holocaust denier (well maybe he is, but not based on this incident) he and his cohorts are just really, really, really bad at propaganda and debate.

 

Kind of like the left, trying to paint Trump as such? the left is completely inept right now, outside it's bastions.

[drjim]

have the Dems won a single special election yet.....

Meh. That was basically unwinnable.

[Mike Sixel]

 

Meh. That was basically unwinnable.

 

that's kind of my point. they are "fighting" a battle rigged against them. Oh, and they suck at it too.

[drjim]

 

that's kind of my point. they are "fighting" a battle rigged against them. Oh, and they suck at it too.

 

I think they'll be fine. Dems will win Georgia and Montana, and are well set up for a massive House gain.

 

Flipping a +27 seat (either way) is virtually impossible.

[twinsnorth49]

So, what about this guy made anyone say "yeah, press secretary, perfect"?

 

Scary

[D. Hocking]

Gleefully recounting his decision to bomb another country with a giddy fan-girl interviewer and making sure he points out everything went perfectly - not one miss while remembering more about the cake he was eating but not which country he bombed.  

 

 

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/04/trump-syria-chocolate-cake-mar-a-lago

 

His every word is either a brag or a lie or cutting down an enemy (he also mentioned Hilary is lucky Comey helped her out otherwise she would be on trial today.  I am not sure he remembers Comey's announcement ten days before the election....)

 

[ashbury]

I thought you must be exaggerating about fan-girl, but the way she leaned forward to coax him to tell what he was already going to tell... fan-girl is about right.

[D. Hocking]

 

I thought you must be exaggerating about fan-girl, but the way she leaned forward to coax him to tell what he was already going to tell... fan-girl is about right.

 

Sadly, there are so many things this past year, that if I saw on paper a year or two  ago, I would have assumed was an exaggeration or fabrication or too out there for even an Onion article, but are in fact reality.

[Willihammer]

 

I agree, Spicer is feeble minded and the people feeding him his intel and his talking points are equally inept. But the goal of his Hitler analogy wasn't to dismiss the Nazi's actions, the goal clearly was to inflate Assad's villainy because justifying their actions and their future actions was obviously the entire point of the press conference.

That's how it sounded to me too. Similar to some of the refrains before the Iraq invasion. "Saddam bombs his own people, he invades his neighbors. How many lives would have been saved if Hitler had been stopped when he started doing those things?"

[drjim]

So the US just dropped the biggest non-nuclear bomb in the arsenal on Afghanistan (for the first time ever). Seems like a big deal.

[Mike Sixel]

 

So the US just dropped the biggest non-nuclear bomb in the arsenal on Afghanistan (for the first time ever). Seems like a big deal.

 

Isn't this how Iron Man started?

 

Apparently, violence is the answer to the world's many problems, not asylum from it, or spending on NATO, or the State Department (diplomacy is hard and expensive)....

[Badsmerf]

To me this bomb is a big deal. Most powerful non nuclear bomb dropped to crush tunnels? I'll be anticipating how great and smart they were for doing this (snark obviously). I don't look at it as bad, just a huge bomb at this point. Let's hear the results of it I guess.

[D. Hocking]

I don't trust him for doing this for the right reasons or having a long-term plan of what to do next or considering the long-term consequences of his action.  He has a superficial knowledge of the situation at best.

[PseudoSABR]

Well, we can look forward to Trump using the phrase "Mother of all Bombs" over and over and over again...

[TheLeviathan]

I get the angst, but in terms of Afghanistan, this isn't all that different than droning the hell out of the place in secrecy. Hell, at least this is out there in the open.