U.S. Politics megathread (merged)

[JFK-1]

1 minute ago, Barack said:

He's not the best option. But by ****, he's certainly not the worst.

 

Biden's a one term President, let's be honest. The battle then becomes Trump's spawn, plus Pompeo, Cruz & Cotton versus Beto, Kamala, Warren & A.N. other.

 

 

 i don't see any devil spawn of Trump ever getting near office if he's removed in November. They're as knee deep in the criminality and corruption as he is and perhaps even more so. And if he's removed it's all going to come out. It may even be the case that they're more likely to end up in prison than he is. 

[JFK-1]

1 minute ago, Barack said:

Well, you'd think so. Eric & Junior are too stupid for words. If they think Dad wouldn't roll them over...

 

Think about what's going to happen if he loses and Biden is president? Think about all the decent people he has mindlessly abused and outright lied about. Think about all the government bodies he has insulted and abused.

He's gone way beyond differences of political opinion. He's created deep and deserved hate for himself from all corners. Even from within Republicans.

That's not going to go away. If he's removed and has no further power to interfere with all these bodies he has abused they're going to be all over him like a rash.

[JFK-1]

1 minute ago, Barack said:

The sad reality is, that Junior is well thought of amongst the low hanging fruit.

 

Aside from this,  if Biden wins and doesn't instruct his AG to go after and indict every single complicit person in the last 4 years...then he's already failed as President.

 

 

The House and Senate need to be taken. Then it needs to be written into law, that what's gone on before regarding Presidential and AG obstruction, never happens again. Irrespective of party or president.

 

The only good thing Trump has done during the entire fiasco since he was elected is to demonstrate to them how open to abuse and corruption their system is. I would be surprised if there were no movement to make sure nothing like him can ever get away with this again.

And I see no way all these government agencies including intelligence agencies wont be driven to take revenge on him. The only thing I can see of any benefit to him is that there may be a reluctance to go down a path well trodden by tinpot dictatorships Trump himself would love to emulate.

It's been a common factor that previous leaders in such regimes were hounded and jailed or even executed after being removed from office. There may be a reluctance to look like that despite the fact in this case it's more than warranted.

But not everyone will be so reluctant. There are too many powerful individuals and agencies out there he has abused for all of them to be so forgiving. As I said, he has created an enmity probably never seen in US politics before.

As for any Trump when this is over every last one of them are going to be poison. Trump Jr in particular is being pointed out by people in the know as one who may be in prison even before his father is.

We all know there has been collusion with Russians. We don't know how deep it runs but the chances are there are people who do. And they're not all going to keep quiet.

And a quote from the ex Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, imprisoned for lying on behalf of Trump who has a book coming out soon, before the election.
 

Quote

"I know where the skeletons are buried because I was the one who buried them,"

 

And another quote from Cohen posted just an hour ago.

Michael Cohen says Trump will 'do anything' to stay in office, even start a war

[JFK-1]

 

[SpruceBringsteen]

This about as close as the ****ing idiot has ever come to being "Nixoned".

 

Check in tomorrow when it'll warrant absolute zero mentions. 

[JFK-1]

This woman has posted two videos in which she breaks down the same question. Why do 38% of Americans support Donald Trump?

While she has some interesting comments to make in the first video I have posted her part 2 because I think it's more focused on the point at the current stage of it's evolution.

If anyone finds it interesting and wants to hear her part 1 which contains a lot of historical commentary on how in her view it all led to the current state of affairs, you can easily find it by simply copying the title of her video then search youtube replacing part 2 with 1.
 

 

[JFK-1]

Trump Set To Burn America Down To Win 2020

 

[milky_26]

i see he is banning racial sensitivity training that is government funded as it is "anti-american" and he believes that systemic racism is not a problem in america

[The Real Maroonblood]

3 minutes ago, milky_26 said:

i see he is banning racial sensitivity training that is government funded as it is "anti-american" and he believes that systemic racism is not a problem in america

[Cade]

Perhaps even more than winning the Presidency, the Democrats need to take both Houses.

 

If they fail to take the big job but take both houses, they can stop poundland Hitler in his tracks.  

If they win the Oval Office but lose both houses, then Biden can't do shit.

[JFK-1]

There are now others aside from Cohen suggesting that Trump may go as far as engineering a war before the election. Target Iran.

[ri Alban]

12 minutes ago, JFK-1 said:

There are now others aside from Cohen suggesting that Trump may go as far as engineering a war before the election. Target Iran.

Sounds more like China. Maybe Nostradamus was right but only in Chinese retaliation. And America is the aggressor. 

[Bigsmak]

Our American cousins need to vote - If everyone voted Trump wouldn't stand a chance.  Problem is, its getting harder for them to do so under the regime. 

[JFK-1]

19 minutes ago, ri Alban said:

Sounds more like China. Maybe Nostradamus was right but only in Chinese retaliation. And America is the aggressor. 

 

Absolutely no chance of that. The Americans would whack Trump themselves rather than allow any military confrontation with China.

[ri Alban]

3 minutes ago, JFK-1 said:

 

Absolutely no chance of that. The Americans would whack Trump themselves rather than allow any military confrontation with China.

Well, he has been defending Russia and Putin again, while attacking China and their interests. He'll push his luck too far, imo. 

Edited September 5, 2020 by ri Alban

[JFK-1]

October surprise: Will war with Iran be Trump’s election eve shocker?

Was Donald Trump's January 3rd drone assassination of Major General Qasem Soleimani the first step in turning the simmering Cold War between the United States and Iran into a hot war in the weeks before an American presidential election?

 

Of course, there's no way to know, but behind by double digits in most national polls and flanked by ultra-hawkish Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Trump is a notoriously impetuous and erratic figure.

 

In recent weeks, for instance, he didn't hesitate to dispatch federal paramilitary forces to American cities run by Democratic mayors and his administration also seems to have launched a series of covert actions against Tehran that look increasingly overt and have Iran watchers concerned about whether an October surprise could be in the cards.

Much of that concern arises from the fact that, across Iran, things have been blowing up or catching fire in ways that have seemed both mysterious and threatening. Early last month, for instance, a suspicious explosion at an Iranian nuclear research facility at Natanz, which is also the site of its centrifuge production, briefly grabbed the headlines.

 

Whether the site was severely damaged by a bomb smuggled into the building or some kind of airstrike remains unknown. "A Middle Eastern intelligence official said Israel planted a bomb in a building where advanced centrifuges were being developed," reported the New York Times.

 

Similar fiery events have been plaguing the country for weeks. On June 26th, for instance, there was "a huge explosion in the area of a major Iranian military and weapons development base east of Tehran." On July 15th, seven ships caught fire at an Iranian shipyard. Other mysterious fires and explosions have hit industrial facilities, a power plant, a missile production factory, a medical complex, a petrochemical plant, and other sites as well.

 

"Some officials say that a joint American-Israeli strategy is evolving — some might argue regressing — to a series of short-of-war clandestine strikes," concluded another report in the Times

 

Some of this sabotage has been conducted against the backdrop of a two-year-old "very aggressive" CIA action plan to engage in offensive cyber attacks against that country. As a Yahoo! News investigative report put it:

 

"The Central Intelligence Agency has conducted a series of covert cyber operations against Iran and other targets since winning a secret victory in 2018 when President Trump signed what amounts to a sweeping authorization for such activities, according to former U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the matter...

 

The finding has made it easier for the CIA to damage adversaries' critical infrastructure, such as petrochemical plants."

 

Meanwhile, on July 23rd, two U.S. fighter jets buzzed an Iranian civilian airliner in Syrian airspace, causing its pilot to swerve and drop altitude suddenly, injuring a number of the plane's passengers.

For many in Iran, the drone assassination of Soleimani — and the campaign of sabotage that followed — has amounted to a virtual declaration of war.

 

The equivalent to the Iranian major general's presidentially ordered murder, according to some analysts, would have been Iran assassinating Secretary of State Pompeo or Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, although such analogies actually understate Soleimani's stature in the Iranian firmament.

 

In its aftermath, Iran largely held its fire, its only response being a limited, telegraphed strike at a pair of American military bases in Iraq. If Soleimani's murder was intended to draw Iran into a tit-for-tat military escalation in an election year, it failed.

 

So perhaps the U.S. and Israel designed the drumbeat of attacks against critical Iranian targets this summer as escalating provocations meant to goad Iran into retaliating in ways that might provide an excuse for a far larger U.S. response.

 

Such a conflict-to-come would be unlikely to involve U.S. ground forces against a nation several times larger and more powerful than Iraq. Instead, it would perhaps involve a sustained campaign of airstrikes against dozens of Iranian air defense installations and other military targets, along with the widespread network of facilities that the United States has identified as being part of that country's nuclear research program.

 

The "art" of the deal in 2020

In addition to military pressure and fierce sanctions against the Iranian economy, Washington has been cynically trying to take advantage of the fact that Iran, already in a weakened state, has been especially hard hit by the Covid-19 pandemic.

 

Those American sanctions have, for instance, made it far harder for that country to get the economic support and medical and humanitarian supplies it so desperately needs, given its soaring death count.

 

According to a report by the European Leadership Network,

 

"Rather than easing the pressure during the crisis, the U.S. has applied four more rounds of sanctions since February and contributed to the derailing of Iran's application for an IMF [International Monetary Fund] loan.

 

The three special financial instruments designed to facilitate the transfer of humanitarian aid to Iran in the face of secondary sanctions on international banking transactions... have proven so far to have been one-shot channels, stymied by U.S. regulatory red tape."

 

To no avail did Human Rights Watch call on the United States in April to ease its sanctions in order to facilitate Iran's ability to grapple with the deadly pandemic, which has officially killed nearly 17,000 people since February (or possibly, if a leaked account of the government's actual death figures is accurate, nearly 42,000).

Iran has every reason to feel aggrieved. At great political risk, President Hassan Rouhani and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei agreed in 2015 to a deal with the United States and five other world powers over Iran's nuclear research program.

 

That accord, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), accomplished exactly what it was supposed to do: it led Iran to make significant concessions, cutting back both on its nuclear research and its uranium enrichment program in exchange for an easing of economic sanctions by the United States and other trade partners.

Though the JCPOA worked well, in 2018 President Trump unilaterally withdrew from it, reimposed far tougher sanctions on Iran, began what the administration called a campaign of "maximum pressure" against Tehran, and since assassinating Soleimani has apparently launched military actions just short of actual war.

 

Inside Iran, Trump's confrontational stance has helped tilt politics to the right, undermining Rouhani, a relative moderate, and eviscerating the reformist movement there. In elections for parliament in February, ultraconservatives and hardliners swept to a major victory.

But the Iranian leadership can read a calendar, too. Like voters in the United States, they know that the Trump administration is probably going to be voted out of office in three months.

 

And they know that, in the event of war, it's more likely than not that many Americans — including, sadly, some hawkish Democrats in Congress, and influential analysts at middle-of-the-road Washington think tanks — will rally to the White House.

 

So unless the campaign of covert warfare against targets in Iran were to intensify dramatically, the Iranian leadership isn't likely to give Trump, Pompeo, and crew the excuse they're looking for.

 

As evidence that Iran's leadership is paying close attention to the president's electoral difficulties, Khamenei only recently rejected in the most explicit terms possible what most observers believe is yet another cynical ploy by the American president, when he suddenly asked Iran to reengage in direct leader-to-leader talks.

 

In a July 31st speech, the Iranian leader replied that Iran is well aware Trump is seeking only sham talks to help him in November. (In June, Trump tweeted Iran: "Don't wait until after the U.S. Election to make the Big deal! I'm going to win!")

 

Indeed, proving that Washington has no intention of negotiating with Iran in good faith, after wrecking the JCPOA and ratcheting up sanctions, the Trump administration announced an onerous list of 12 conditions that would have to precede the start of such talks.

 

In sum, they amounted to a demand for a wholesale, humiliating Iranian surrender. So much for the art of the deal in 2020.

October surprises, then and now

 

Meanwhile, the United States isn't getting much support from the rest of the world for its thinly disguised effort to create chaos, a possible uprising, and the conditions to force regime change on Iran before November 3rd.

 

At the United Nations, when Secretary of State Pompeo called on the Security Council to extend an onerous arms embargo on Iran, not only did Russia and China promise to veto any such resolution but America's European allies opposed it, too.

 

They were particularly offended by Pompeo's threat to impose "snapback" economic sanctions on Iran as laid out in the JCPOA if the arms embargo wasn't endorsed by the council.

 

Not lost on the participants was the fact that, in justifying his demand for such new U.N. sanctions, the American secretary of state was invoking the very agreement that Washington had unilaterally abandoned.

 

"Having quit the JCPOA, the U.S. is no longer a participant and has no right to trigger a snapback at the U.N.," was the way China's U.N. ambassador put it.

 

That other emerging great power has, in fact, become a major spoiler and Iranian ally against the Trump administration's regime-change strategy, even as its own relations with Washington grow grimmer by the week.

 

Last month, the New York Times reported that Iran and China had inked "a sweeping economic and security partnership that would clear the way for billions of dollars of Chinese investments in energy and other sectors, undercutting the Trump administration's efforts to isolate the Iranian government."

 

The 18-page document reportedly calls for closer military cooperation and a $400 billion Chinese investment and trade accord that, among other things, takes direct aim at the Trump-Pompeo effort to cripple Iran's economy and its oil exports.

 

According to Shireen Hunter, a veteran Middle Eastern analyst at Georgetown University, that accord should be considered a world-changing one, as it potentially gives China "a permanent foothold in Iran" and undermines "U.S. strategic supremacy in the [Persian] Gulf."

 

It is, she noted with some alarm, a direct result of Trump's anti-Iranian obsession and Europe's reluctance to confront Washington's harsh sanctions policy.

 

On June 20th, in a scathing editorial, the Washington Post agreed, ridiculing the administration's "maximum pressure" strategy against Iran. Not only had the president failed to bring down Iran's government or compelled it to change its behavior in conflicts in places like Syria and Yemen, but now, in a powerful blow to U.S. interests, "an Iranian partnership with China... could rescue Iran's economy while giving Beijing a powerful new place in the region."

 

If, however, the traditional Washington foreign policy establishment believes that Trump's policy toward Iran is backfiring and so working against U.S. hegemony in the Persian Gulf, his administration seems not to care.

 

As evidence mounts that its approach to Iran isn't having the intended effect, the White House continues apace: squeezing that country economically, undermining its effort to fight Covid-19, threatening it militarily, appointing an extra-hardliner as its "special envoy" for Iran, and apparently (along with Israel) carrying out a covert campaign of terrorism inside the country.

 

Over the past four decades, "October surprise" has evolved into a catch-all phrase meaning any unexpected action by a presidential campaign just before an election designed to give one of the candidates a surprise advantage. Ironically, its origins lay in Iran.

 

In 1980, during the contest between President Jimmy Carter and former California Governor Ronald Reagan, rumors surfaced that Carter might stage a raid to rescue scores of American diplomats then held captive in Tehran. (He didn't.)

 

According to other reports, the Reagan campaign had made clandestine contact with Tehran aimed at persuading that country not to release its American hostages until after the election. (Two books, "October Surprise" by Gary Sick, a senior national security adviser to Carter, and "Trick or Treason" by investigative journalist Bob Parry delved into the possibility that candidate Reagan, former CIA Director Bill Casey, and others had engaged in a conspiracy with Iran to win that election.)

 

Consider it beyond irony if, this October, the latest election "surprise" were to take us back to the very origins of the term in the form of some kind of armed conflict that could only end terribly for everyone involved. It's a formula for disaster and like so many other things, when it comes to Donald J. Trump, it can't be ruled out.

 

https://www.salon.com/2020/08/16/october-surprise-will-war-with-iran-be-trumps-election-eve-shocker_partner/

[ri Alban]

13 minutes ago, JFK-1 said:

October surprise: Will war with Iran be Trump’s election eve shocker?

Was Donald Trump's January 3rd drone assassination of Major General Qasem Soleimani the first step in turning the simmering Cold War between the United States and Iran into a hot war in the weeks before an American presidential election?

 

Of course, there's no way to know, but behind by double digits in most national polls and flanked by ultra-hawkish Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Trump is a notoriously impetuous and erratic figure.

 

In recent weeks, for instance, he didn't hesitate to dispatch federal paramilitary forces to American cities run by Democratic mayors and his administration also seems to have launched a series of covert actions against Tehran that look increasingly overt and have Iran watchers concerned about whether an October surprise could be in the cards.

Much of that concern arises from the fact that, across Iran, things have been blowing up or catching fire in ways that have seemed both mysterious and threatening. Early last month, for instance, a suspicious explosion at an Iranian nuclear research facility at Natanz, which is also the site of its centrifuge production, briefly grabbed the headlines.

 

Whether the site was severely damaged by a bomb smuggled into the building or some kind of airstrike remains unknown. "A Middle Eastern intelligence official said Israel planted a bomb in a building where advanced centrifuges were being developed," reported the New York Times.

 

Similar fiery events have been plaguing the country for weeks. On June 26th, for instance, there was "a huge explosion in the area of a major Iranian military and weapons development base east of Tehran." On July 15th, seven ships caught fire at an Iranian shipyard. Other mysterious fires and explosions have hit industrial facilities, a power plant, a missile production factory, a medical complex, a petrochemical plant, and other sites as well.

 

"Some officials say that a joint American-Israeli strategy is evolving — some might argue regressing — to a series of short-of-war clandestine strikes," concluded another report in the Times

 

Some of this sabotage has been conducted against the backdrop of a two-year-old "very aggressive" CIA action plan to engage in offensive cyber attacks against that country. As a Yahoo! News investigative report put it:

 

"The Central Intelligence Agency has conducted a series of covert cyber operations against Iran and other targets since winning a secret victory in 2018 when President Trump signed what amounts to a sweeping authorization for such activities, according to former U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the matter...

 

The finding has made it easier for the CIA to damage adversaries' critical infrastructure, such as petrochemical plants."

 

Meanwhile, on July 23rd, two U.S. fighter jets buzzed an Iranian civilian airliner in Syrian airspace, causing its pilot to swerve and drop altitude suddenly, injuring a number of the plane's passengers.

For many in Iran, the drone assassination of Soleimani — and the campaign of sabotage that followed — has amounted to a virtual declaration of war.

 

The equivalent to the Iranian major general's presidentially ordered murder, according to some analysts, would have been Iran assassinating Secretary of State Pompeo or Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, although such analogies actually understate Soleimani's stature in the Iranian firmament.

 

In its aftermath, Iran largely held its fire, its only response being a limited, telegraphed strike at a pair of American military bases in Iraq. If Soleimani's murder was intended to draw Iran into a tit-for-tat military escalation in an election year, it failed.

 

So perhaps the U.S. and Israel designed the drumbeat of attacks against critical Iranian targets this summer as escalating provocations meant to goad Iran into retaliating in ways that might provide an excuse for a far larger U.S. response.

 

Such a conflict-to-come would be unlikely to involve U.S. ground forces against a nation several times larger and more powerful than Iraq. Instead, it would perhaps involve a sustained campaign of airstrikes against dozens of Iranian air defense installations and other military targets, along with the widespread network of facilities that the United States has identified as being part of that country's nuclear research program.

 

The "art" of the deal in 2020

In addition to military pressure and fierce sanctions against the Iranian economy, Washington has been cynically trying to take advantage of the fact that Iran, already in a weakened state, has been especially hard hit by the Covid-19 pandemic.

 

Those American sanctions have, for instance, made it far harder for that country to get the economic support and medical and humanitarian supplies it so desperately needs, given its soaring death count.

 

According to a report by the European Leadership Network,

 

"Rather than easing the pressure during the crisis, the U.S. has applied four more rounds of sanctions since February and contributed to the derailing of Iran's application for an IMF [International Monetary Fund] loan.

 

The three special financial instruments designed to facilitate the transfer of humanitarian aid to Iran in the face of secondary sanctions on international banking transactions... have proven so far to have been one-shot channels, stymied by U.S. regulatory red tape."

 

To no avail did Human Rights Watch call on the United States in April to ease its sanctions in order to facilitate Iran's ability to grapple with the deadly pandemic, which has officially killed nearly 17,000 people since February (or possibly, if a leaked account of the government's actual death figures is accurate, nearly 42,000).

Iran has every reason to feel aggrieved. At great political risk, President Hassan Rouhani and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei agreed in 2015 to a deal with the United States and five other world powers over Iran's nuclear research program.

 

That accord, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), accomplished exactly what it was supposed to do: it led Iran to make significant concessions, cutting back both on its nuclear research and its uranium enrichment program in exchange for an easing of economic sanctions by the United States and other trade partners.

Though the JCPOA worked well, in 2018 President Trump unilaterally withdrew from it, reimposed far tougher sanctions on Iran, began what the administration called a campaign of "maximum pressure" against Tehran, and since assassinating Soleimani has apparently launched military actions just short of actual war.

 

Inside Iran, Trump's confrontational stance has helped tilt politics to the right, undermining Rouhani, a relative moderate, and eviscerating the reformist movement there. In elections for parliament in February, ultraconservatives and hardliners swept to a major victory.

But the Iranian leadership can read a calendar, too. Like voters in the United States, they know that the Trump administration is probably going to be voted out of office in three months.

 

And they know that, in the event of war, it's more likely than not that many Americans — including, sadly, some hawkish Democrats in Congress, and influential analysts at middle-of-the-road Washington think tanks — will rally to the White House.

 

So unless the campaign of covert warfare against targets in Iran were to intensify dramatically, the Iranian leadership isn't likely to give Trump, Pompeo, and crew the excuse they're looking for.

 

As evidence that Iran's leadership is paying close attention to the president's electoral difficulties, Khamenei only recently rejected in the most explicit terms possible what most observers believe is yet another cynical ploy by the American president, when he suddenly asked Iran to reengage in direct leader-to-leader talks.

 

In a July 31st speech, the Iranian leader replied that Iran is well aware Trump is seeking only sham talks to help him in November. (In June, Trump tweeted Iran: "Don't wait until after the U.S. Election to make the Big deal! I'm going to win!")

 

Indeed, proving that Washington has no intention of negotiating with Iran in good faith, after wrecking the JCPOA and ratcheting up sanctions, the Trump administration announced an onerous list of 12 conditions that would have to precede the start of such talks.

 

In sum, they amounted to a demand for a wholesale, humiliating Iranian surrender. So much for the art of the deal in 2020.

October surprises, then and now

 

Meanwhile, the United States isn't getting much support from the rest of the world for its thinly disguised effort to create chaos, a possible uprising, and the conditions to force regime change on Iran before November 3rd.

 

At the United Nations, when Secretary of State Pompeo called on the Security Council to extend an onerous arms embargo on Iran, not only did Russia and China promise to veto any such resolution but America's European allies opposed it, too.

 

They were particularly offended by Pompeo's threat to impose "snapback" economic sanctions on Iran as laid out in the JCPOA if the arms embargo wasn't endorsed by the council.

 

Not lost on the participants was the fact that, in justifying his demand for such new U.N. sanctions, the American secretary of state was invoking the very agreement that Washington had unilaterally abandoned.

 

"Having quit the JCPOA, the U.S. is no longer a participant and has no right to trigger a snapback at the U.N.," was the way China's U.N. ambassador put it.

 

That other emerging great power has, in fact, become a major spoiler and Iranian ally against the Trump administration's regime-change strategy, even as its own relations with Washington grow grimmer by the week.

 

Last month, the New York Times reported that Iran and China had inked "a sweeping economic and security partnership that would clear the way for billions of dollars of Chinese investments in energy and other sectors, undercutting the Trump administration's efforts to isolate the Iranian government."

 

The 18-page document reportedly calls for closer military cooperation and a $400 billion Chinese investment and trade accord that, among other things, takes direct aim at the Trump-Pompeo effort to cripple Iran's economy and its oil exports.

 

According to Shireen Hunter, a veteran Middle Eastern analyst at Georgetown University, that accord should be considered a world-changing one, as it potentially gives China "a permanent foothold in Iran" and undermines "U.S. strategic supremacy in the [Persian] Gulf."

 

It is, she noted with some alarm, a direct result of Trump's anti-Iranian obsession and Europe's reluctance to confront Washington's harsh sanctions policy.

 

On June 20th, in a scathing editorial, the Washington Post agreed, ridiculing the administration's "maximum pressure" strategy against Iran. Not only had the president failed to bring down Iran's government or compelled it to change its behavior in conflicts in places like Syria and Yemen, but now, in a powerful blow to U.S. interests, "an Iranian partnership with China... could rescue Iran's economy while giving Beijing a powerful new place in the region."

 

If, however, the traditional Washington foreign policy establishment believes that Trump's policy toward Iran is backfiring and so working against U.S. hegemony in the Persian Gulf, his administration seems not to care.

 

As evidence mounts that its approach to Iran isn't having the intended effect, the White House continues apace: squeezing that country economically, undermining its effort to fight Covid-19, threatening it militarily, appointing an extra-hardliner as its "special envoy" for Iran, and apparently (along with Israel) carrying out a covert campaign of terrorism inside the country.

 

Over the past four decades, "October surprise" has evolved into a catch-all phrase meaning any unexpected action by a presidential campaign just before an election designed to give one of the candidates a surprise advantage. Ironically, its origins lay in Iran.

 

In 1980, during the contest between President Jimmy Carter and former California Governor Ronald Reagan, rumors surfaced that Carter might stage a raid to rescue scores of American diplomats then held captive in Tehran. (He didn't.)

 

According to other reports, the Reagan campaign had made clandestine contact with Tehran aimed at persuading that country not to release its American hostages until after the election. (Two books, "October Surprise" by Gary Sick, a senior national security adviser to Carter, and "Trick or Treason" by investigative journalist Bob Parry delved into the possibility that candidate Reagan, former CIA Director Bill Casey, and others had engaged in a conspiracy with Iran to win that election.)

 

Consider it beyond irony if, this October, the latest election "surprise" were to take us back to the very origins of the term in the form of some kind of armed conflict that could only end terribly for everyone involved. It's a formula for disaster and like so many other things, when it comes to Donald J. Trump, it can't be ruled out.

 

https://www.salon.com/2020/08/16/october-surprise-will-war-with-iran-be-trumps-election-eve-shocker_partner/

Boris better keep The UK out of this.

And The World should attack the US if he starts this shite. 

Edited September 5, 2020 by ri Alban

[JFK-1]

A worrying indication of the way Trump thinks? A tweet from 2011 when Barack Obama was heading into a re-election year.
 

 

[Justin Z]

19 hours ago, Maple Leaf said:

 

There isn't anything.  The members of his cult love him and nothing will change that.

 

I checked in on Facebook, on an old friend I'd not spoken to in quite some time because I can't stand her slavishness to the cult of Trump. I was hoping maybe recent events could have had an impact. First thing I see on her timeline

 

 

This was a reasonable, decent person five years ago.

 

We're so far gone as a country, so beyond ****ed.

[JFK-1]

8 minutes ago, Justin Z said:

 

I checked in on Facebook, on an old friend I'd not spoken to in quite some time because I can't stand her slavishness to the cult of Trump. I was hoping maybe recent events could have had an impact. First thing I see on her timeline

 

 

This was a reasonable, decent person five years ago.

 

We're so far gone as a country, so beyond ****ed.

 

It's gone beyond troubling. I have been reading countless articles detailing that vast numbers of these people, in the millions, are declaring they will accept nothing but Trump being re-elected.

If he isn't the election is rigged and there's going to be a revolution. And there lies the real fascism.

And you and I both know Trump is going to encourage it to a fever pitch. Whereas if I were encouraging people to violence I would be jailed. He's going to deny the result if he loses. And who knows what the outcome of that is going to be among these millions of crazies.

[Maple Leaf]

14 minutes ago, JFK-1 said:

 

It's gone beyond troubling. I have been reading countless articles detailing that vast numbers of these people, in the millions, are declaring they will accept nothing but Trump being re-elected.

If he isn't the election is rigged and there's going to be a revolution. And there lies the real fascism.

And you and I both know Trump is going to encourage it to a fever pitch. Whereas if I were encouraging people to violence I would be jailed. He's going to deny the result if he loses. And who knows what the outcome of that is going to be among these millions of crazies.

 

All I can say is that the lucky ones on the outside are looking on, aghast at America's rapid decline.

[JFK-1]

14 minutes ago, Maple Leaf said:

 

All I can say is that the lucky ones on the outside are looking on, aghast at America's rapid decline.

 

I don't know if they can ever recover from the disaster that is Trump. If he were re-elected it's over for this country. And even if not it's going to be an uphill battle to recover any credibility and trust from the international community.

Video set to begin when David Frum, a man who worked for the Bush administration and who I know you're familiar with, begins to speak of that problem.

 

 

[Sharpie]

25 minutes ago, JFK-1 said:

 

I don't know if they can ever recover from the disaster that is Trump. If he were re-elected it's over for this country. And even if not it's going to be an uphill battle to recover any credibility and trust from the international community.

Video set to begin when David Frum, a man who worked for the Bush administration and who I know you're familiar with, begins to speak of that problem.

 

 

 Do you ever have these discussions and pass on this information to groups in the United Staes particularly the area where you live. In your first sentence you refer to they, are you sufficiently divided or uninvolved in your place in the United States that you refer to they as opposed to we. You certainly do your research, and produce interesting and informative points, but are you if not involved locally not preaching to the we can do nothing masses in JKB, some of us in Canada, who I suspect like yourself have no ability to vote or try to enact change. I am despite the recent allegation a total critic of Trump, but I know as a threat to Trump or his election my words are just  me farting in the wind.

 

[Justin Z]

1 minute ago, Sharpie said:

 Do you ever have these discussions and pass on this information to groups in the United Staes particularly the area where you live. In your first sentence you refer to they, are you sufficiently divided or uninvolved in your place in the United States that you refer to they as opposed to we. You certainly do your research, and produce interesting and informative points, but are you if not involved locally not preaching to the we can do nothing masses in JKB, some of us in Canada, who I suspect like yourself have no ability to vote or try to enact change. I am despite the recent allegation a total critic of Trump, but I know as a threat to Trump or his election my words are just  me farting in the wind.

 

"They" are fact-immune. That's the biggest hurdle to making any inroads.

[Maple Leaf]

36 minutes ago, JFK-1 said:

 

I don't know if they can ever recover from the disaster that is Trump. If he were re-elected it's over for this country. And even if not it's going to be an uphill battle to recover any credibility and trust from the international community.

Video set to begin when David Frum, a man who worked for the Bush administration and who I know you're familiar with, begins to speak of that problem.

 

 

 

Thanks for that video.

 

I like David Frum; he's a well-spoken, reasonable conservative and I wish there were more like him. I also like the interviewer, Steve Paikin.  His shows are always worth viewing.

[JFK-1]

12 minutes ago, Justin Z said:

 

"They" are fact-immune. That's the biggest hurdle to making any inroads.

 

Indeed. It was mentioned in that video that he said he could walk down the street and shoot somebody and it would have no effect on his fanboys. What am I supposed to say that would?

[JFK-1]

39 minutes ago, Sharpie said:

 Do you ever have these discussions and pass on this information to groups in the United Staes particularly the area where you live. In your first sentence you refer to they, are you sufficiently divided or uninvolved in your place in the United States that you refer to they as opposed to we. You certainly do your research, and produce interesting and informative points, but are you if not involved locally not preaching to the we can do nothing masses in JKB, some of us in Canada, who I suspect like yourself have no ability to vote or try to enact change. I am despite the recent allegation a total critic of Trump, but I know as a threat to Trump or his election my words are just  me farting in the wind.

 

 

I refer to them as they because i'm not American, have no desire to be an American, never will have a desire.

[Jambo-Jimbo]

22 hours ago, JFK-1 said:

 

A major facet of it is simply racism. Do you think the lovers of confederate statues he woos are truly concerned about historical artifacts? If they were then that statue would be far better off in a controlled museum environment for preservation.

Obviously they're not, they simply want to maintain these symbols of racism in a glorified manner. The KKK don't endorse Trump for law and order. Neither do the vast majority of those behaving like cultists as they whoop/genuflect at every incoherent utterance he makes.

Another irony here is that the dictator like buffoon claiming to be for law and order is actually encouraging and creating anarchy. He's been openly ignoring and effectively dismantling all the 'checks and balances' they so proudly declare makes them such a great nation.

Give him another 4 years of dismantling it and you will be looking at  an authoritarian state in all but name. I don't know what the military view of that would be as they became required to pledge allegiance to Trump rather than the constitution and the nation.

James Comey, former director of the FBI was fired when he declined to pledge allegiance to Trump. And keep that in mind, he actually demanded loyalty to him not to the nation from the director of a national intelligence agency. And when that was declined the man was fired.

The following is from the original pledge of allegiance in the Weimar Republic. 

""I swear loyalty to the Reich's constitution and pledge,
that I as a courageous soldier always want to protect the German Reich and its legal institutions"

It took just two years of Hitler to become this.

"I swear to God this holy oath
that I shall render unconditional obedience
to the Leader of the German Reich and people,
Adolf Hitler"

I feel they already have the embryonic stages of a Gestapo like structure in place. Large factions of the police appear to support him then there's all these quasi military nominally civilian bodies like ICE and homeland security he has been brazenly using for his own purposes.

All the signs are there.

 

Not just signs.

 

Hitler told the German people on several occasions that he'd 'make Germany great again'.

 

Mmm, now where have I heard a similar phrase to that.

 

[Maple Leaf]

19 minutes ago, Jambo-Jimbo said:

 

Not just signs.

 

Hitler told the German people on several occasions that he'd 'make Germany great again'.

 

Mmm, now where have I heard a similar phrase to that.

 

 

There's an element among Trump's base that would be delighted if Trump was to behave like Hitler.

 

Do you remember the marching mob in Charlottesville, complete with Nazi-style burning torches, chanting "Jews will not replace us!"?  There were good people in that mob, according to Trump the following day.

[Jambo-Jimbo]

46 minutes ago, Maple Leaf said:

 

There's an element among Trump's base that would be delighted if Trump was to behave like Hitler.

 

Do you remember the marching mob in Charlottesville, complete with Nazi-style burning torches, chanting "Jews will not replace us!"?  There were good people in that mob, according to Trump the following day.

 

Indeed, what worries me is that America is sleep walking right into a dictatorship.

[Justin Z]

A little glimpse of Trump's finest out to harass BLM protesters in Prescott, a town about 100 miles to the north and west of here.

 

 

[JFK-1]

31 minutes ago, Justin Z said:

A little glimpse of Trump's finest out to harass BLM protesters in Prescott, a town about 100 miles to the north and west of here.

 

 

 

I feel BLM in some respects assist Trump. It makes no sense to become involved every single time a black man is shot by police. Some of them and probably most are likely justified shootings. Justified in the US at any rate. I don't think they should be involved in this Jacob Blake thing.

Question for you. Did you feel safer walking Scottish streets knowing that it was pretty close to 100% certain that no one out there was carrying a gun? 

[Justin Z]

2 minutes ago, JFK-1 said:

Question for you. Did you feel safer walking Scottish streets knowing that it was pretty close to 100% certain that no one out there was carrying a gun? 

 

 

Been nearly five years since I wrote that. As you know it's only gotten worse since.

[JFK-1]

2 minutes ago, Justin Z said:

 

 

Been nearly five years since I wrote that. As you know it's only gotten worse since.

 

Some of my family actually experienced that from the opposite perspective while on holiday in Florida. They're just walking around and there's suddenly what they described as a popping sound going on.

They're looking around trying to see what this is and it dawns on them that all the Americans are lying face down. And someone close by is telling them to get down. It disturbed them. There was indeed a shooting incident going on.

[Justin Z]

Jesus.

[JFK-1]

Just now, Justin Z said:

Jesus.

 

As you're aware from your experience in Glasgow it's just not a Scottish instinct to suspect something bad is happening when a bang is heard. They look for the source. Whereas apparently Americans all hit the deck.

This was all the more disturbing for my family because they had kids with them. In fairy tale land. The world of Mickey Mouse. And now they're having to get these kids face down on the street while trying not to frighten them.

Disturbing shit for people who don't live like that as part of their everyday life.

[ri Alban]

5 hours ago, JFK-1 said:

 

I feel BLM in some respects assist Trump. It makes no sense to become involved every single time a black man is shot by police. Some of them and probably most are likely justified shootings. Justified in the US at any rate. I don't think they should be involved in this Jacob Blake thing.

Question for you. Did you feel safer walking Scottish streets knowing that it was pretty close to 100% certain that no one out there was carrying a gun? 

There guns in Scotland. In the hands of headcases. Make no mistake. 

[ri Alban]

Please God(If you exist) Take this piece of shit, DT to Hell and give the American people some peace to get on with their lives. And sort the Scumbags who infiltrate the police to conduct their evils, right out. 

Thanks! 

[The Internet]

8 hours ago, JFK-1 said:

 

Some of my family actually experienced that from the opposite perspective while on holiday in Florida. They're just walking around and there's suddenly what they described as a popping sound going on.

They're looking around trying to see what this is and it dawns on them that all the Americans are lying face down. And someone close by is telling them to get down. It disturbed them. There was indeed a shooting incident going on.

 

When a motorbike backfired in times square 

 

[JFK-1]

55 minutes ago, Mauricio Pinilla said:

 

When a motorbike backfired in times square 

 

 

If only everybody had a gun somebody could have killed that motorbike and saved all the panic. 

[Tazio]

Good to see the Trump brains trust are at it again. 

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-us-2020-54045115

[The Real Maroonblood]

50 minutes ago, Tazio said:

Good to see the Trump brains trust are at it again. 

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-us-2020-54045115

[Maple Leaf]

1 hour ago, Tazio said:

Good to see the Trump brains trust are at it again. 

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-us-2020-54045115

 

To paraphrase Trump's own words, "Those boats were losers.  I only admire boats that don't sink."

[Sharpie]

7 hours ago, ri Alban said:

Please God(If you exist) Take this piece of shit, DT to Hell and give the American people some peace to get on with their lives. And sort the Scumbags who infiltrate the police to conduct their evils, right out. 

Thanks! 

Amen.

 

[Sharpie]

So Trumps former personal lawyer has written a book. Sort of unique a proven liar calling a proven liar a liar, no prizes for anyone suggesting what the responses will be in fact I will give my guess, "he is a proven liar."

[The Internet]

2 hours ago, Tazio said:

Good to see the Trump brains trust are at it again. 

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-us-2020-54045115

 

 

 

Absolute STATE of them. A low point of humanity. 

[JackLadd]

35 minutes ago, Mauricio Pinilla said:

 

 

 

Absolute STATE of them. A low point of humanity. 

 

The term scumboat suddenly makes more sense.. 

[Justin Z]

3 hours ago, Tazio said:

Good to see the Trump brains trust are at it again. 

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-us-2020-54045115

 

This guy's satire is so good

 

 

 

But yeah in seriousness this is the perfect example of the kinds of people who think having enough money to buy a boat means they've also bought sailing skill. Their votes for Trump are the perfect analogy.

[Maple Leaf]

2 hours ago, Justin Z said:

 

This guy's satire is so good

 

 

 

But yeah in seriousness this is the perfect example of the kinds of people who think having enough money to buy a boat means they've also bought sailing skill. Their votes for Trump are the perfect analogy.

 

I love those quotes.

 

"I couldn't tell what was port, what was starboard, and a bunch of other nautical terms happened." 

 

 "If I'm not going to wear a mask, I'm damn sure not going to wear the life jacket they were throwing at me."

 

Well said, Einstein!!! 

[The Real Maroonblood]

2 hours ago, Justin Z said:

 

This guy's satire is so good

 

 

 

But yeah in seriousness this is the perfect example of the kinds of people who think having enough money to buy a boat means they've also bought sailing skill. Their votes for Trump are the perfect analogy.