? It's not about bashing your faith. You can flag wave all you want if it makes you happy. But I'm interested in a fact-based conversation. So tell me, what mess have you cleaned up, what catastrophe have you dealt with in a positive way in recent history, in the last fifty years let's say, when you've gone it alone (without UN authorization)? In other words what are you talking about, what good deeds are you referring to?

The UN was FDRs idea as far as I know.

The UN was probably the best idea you ever had. It's no great wisdom to recognize the destructiveness of treating it like the enemy as this administration tends to do, and the sense in more multilateralism and less unilateralism.

Horrible stuff. You should stick to the grit juice.

As @Maw said you've been mostly creating problems not solving them. So, yes, go home and let the UN which can include troops from all nations handle things. When you try to do it on your own you tend to mess it up, Tiff. That's just a fact, most recently illustrated by Iraq. So, instead of being proud about messing things up as you seem to be, you ought to show a little humility about it. Then maybe we can come together under a common banner and make things work. It won't happen though until you can face up to reality and drop the fantasy that your interventions have been heroic in recent history.

Love Michael. Pocket prez. We've got an asset, you've got an... :zip: But seriously, combine Ireland's common sense approach to politics and media with American optimism and pioneering spirit and you'd have the best of both worlds over there.

Here's the deal, just relax and copy everything we do, or more specifically me, and watch your lives/life flourish. :up:

If the US had stuck to acting within the bounds of the UN, as it originally did in Korea which was a UN operation, or would agree to do so in future, fine, but that hasn't been the history. And even if its other actions did benefit the West, so what? There's a whole world out there to worry about. My proposal is just that the rest of the world, especially Europe, pay more for their own defense and the world act through the UN, then we don't need to have these arguments and we can all drink tea or grit juice or whatever you fancy. Trump is right in his odd way, why is America paying to police the world? He just doesn't realize the answer is not charity but more like self-interest.

On the other hand, Ireland's biggest import is your fleeing people. I think there's probably more Irish in Boston than Dublin. If you guys hate us, why do you keep coming over here? — Hanover

Huh? If I hated you, why would I be giving you such good advice? Ireland has a better media environment, a better social welfare system, a higher GDP per capita, a better health care system, lower levels of poverty, and more charming people than the US. But you've got grit juice, so you win, I guess.

It's simple. European media is better and less biased than yours. Follow our relatively successful model instead of your relatively failed one. Same goes for health care etc. You're just slow learners over there.

No-one is doing that. Trump is pretending to do it. But that pretence has already fallen to pieces. Give it to the UN and China I say. Look, everywhere the US has gone since after WWII you've made things worse not better. You've caused the deaths of literally millions of innocent civilians, and especially in Asia. Go home, leave the world alone, stop messing things up for everyone else. We don't want you policing things unilaterally.

Ireland isn't safe because it's neutral. It's safe for the same reason no one steals my shoes from my unlocked gym locker. No one wants it. — Hanover

More fool you for living in a country someone wants.

Fool yourself into thinking America offers you no protection. It really doesn't matter. They'll protect you anyway. — Hanover

From who though? Europe has a nuclear deterrent that's enough to keep Russia at bay and it's not in Russia's interest to attack us. Besides, I think we ought to wean ourselves off relying on America and spend more on our own defense. Let you save money and go home. Everyone wins.

My proposal would be that you put more funding into a regulated national broadcaster like NPR so it could be something like the BBC and would not be by law allowed to be openly biased. For private organizations like CNN and Fox they could show bias if they wanted, but they shouldn't be allowed to call themselves news if they're not actually news, just like if you're selling any consumer product you're required to advertise it accurately.

(And just as a point of order, America doesn't keep me safe at night. The country I come from is neutral, and the only alliance I would support would be with the EU. America is actually more of a threat to world peace than any other country I can think of bar Russia and North Korea.)

And the solution is a government run press? — Hanover

Not exclusively but regulation works. Ever hear of the BBC? Compare that to the shitshow that is CNN and Fox.

What color were the Nazis and the Russians? — Hanover

America's not killing Nazis now Hanover or Russians (not that they ever did kill Russians). I'm not criticizing FDR here.

There's nothing moral about sitting on the sidelines criticizing the one keeping you safe at night. — Hanover

Would you consider it moral to criticize those keeping you safe at night if a left-wing US government invaded Israel and killed hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in the process? Or would you just keep your mouth shut and let it happen.

And so the Clintons were worse and the press gave them a pass. — Hanover

The US press will generally give you a pass if you do something like support or ignore Israel murdering Palestinians, generally just kill lots of brown people in the middle East for whatever reason, or support dictators, warlords who do so in whatever way it serves your interest etc. because there's not much money in making people realize how deeply and brutally immoral your country is. But yes, breach some stupid protocol or say a rude word and they will eat you up because there is a partisan audience for that. If Trump came out and actually said that, I'd be right behind him, but he's not going to give up his mass slaughter privilege. He just hasn't used it to the extent of some of his predecessors yet.

If the press is in the business of supporting candidates, then candidates ought attack those supporting their opponents. — Hanover

What do you mean "if". The vast majority of your news is privately owned, private owners have private interests, and there's no regulation concerning bias, ergo... CNN is selling anti-Trump stories and Fox is selling pro-Trump stories etc. Sure, call that out. But you can call it out in an intelligent focused way or you can just make blanket childish and unnuanced denunciations. No prizes for guessing what Trump does.

And though Trump gets a lot of bias thrown at him, that's a good thing within limits. It's better for the media to tend toward being critical of power, as long as it's factual, than the opposite. It's better for us to know the bad stuff they do than miss some of the good, as the bad is likely to be more damaging if missed. So, CNN is biased against Trump because they hype up the negative, they don't make it up though. Trump does say the stuff they report him as saying. He does constantly lie etc.

It doesn't matter that you know you're right as long as you believe you are (in order to be authentic). You can be skeptical about knowledge claims including your own and still take a position, and legitimately consider it right.

Yes, it's interesting that he's the most popular President among Republicans in a generation. Sad for them.

His lies serve a purpose. In that he is dangerous and vicious and psychopathic. The correct treatment for Trump is to be collected like a vicious animal and placed in a cage somewhere, or euthanized. — tim wood

I think we need some perspective here. I don't think he's vicious and psychopathic as much as stupid, incompetent and corrupt like much of the administration. Rationally, I don't see how the harm he has done so far can be considered more than the Clintons who presided over a genocide by proxy of half a million children in Iraq (media outrage quotient = roughly zero), or Bush 2 who went in and caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of more civilians in the same country. Obama was no angel either. He needs to be opposed and called out and he's dangerous for democracy and has caused much harm but he's not the cold killer the Clintons were, or that Bush and Cheney were, or that Putin is. He's a different kind of beast.

Originally, but that doesn't mean he's not grateful for Putin supporting him. His is a pretty black and white world, you like me, I like you. Maybe there is compromat too. But that's less likely than a combination of gratitude and general love for dictators in my view.

My bet is Trump won't even bring it up with Putin. Not because of compromat but because Putin helped him get elected and he's happy about that. He's that simple-minded.

Why this advice to change course? — Hanover

It's a rhetorical point not actual advice. Spinning barbs his way is its own form of entertainment, which I'll make the most of while he's still around. As you may have noticed I'm not uni-critical here. I take Madeline Albright's crimes, for example, far more seriously than Trump's stupidities (until he starts a nuclear war). It's fun to mock him though and he more than deserves it.

My point is not that he'll care, it's that I don't get why you feel the need to protect him. As far as I remember, you supported Kasich who despised Trump and certainly isn't defending him now. This is not necessarily a progressive vs conservative issue. Many traditional conservatives are as critical of him as anyone else. So, why have his back?

Agreed. As I said, he needs to stfu now. Putin will likely throw him some bananas though and we'll get more of this crap over the next few days.

Look @Hanover, when your dumbass, sexist, neo-nazi sympathizing president gets an invitation to Europe, which he doesn't even deserve, he needs to stfu and be polite and not lecture us about, of all things, our culture, which is the absolute last thing he knows anything about, or we will mercilessly take the piss out of him in every way possible (including with reference to the zoological world). It's acerbic European humour. And his supporters are just going to have to eat that up.

That's about as dumb an argument as saying that calling Trump a big-nosed tightwad would be as anti-semitic as if he were Jewish.

If you think that's a double standard you don't know what racism is. Do you think I'm racist for calling Trump an ape? Or do you think it's OK to call black people apes as if that isn't a historically recognized racist way to refer to them? Which is it?

To be fair, comparing Trump to an ape or a monkey isn't entirely objective, and many apes and their supporters would probably, with some justification, object to the comparison.

clever comments — Hanover

Why thank you m'am. *Takes a bow*

The most annoying of all are those who really think they're objective. — Hanover

Like declaring a popular vote loss as a "huuuge victory". Probably right.

Still amused that Trump had the star-defying audacity to talk to Europeans about their culture. This is a guy with all the culture of a limp penis after an extended bout of fapping to a Stormy Daniels' vid, to whom a cheeseburger is haute cuisine, and the Kardashians are film noir. What Trump knows about culture could be tattoeed on the pinky of one his very small hands and there'd still be room left over. Back to the zoo with you monkey boy! :monkey:

It's possible to get it right and still not be persuasive you know.

The brown people are destroying our culture thing again. Fuck off, Trump. We don't need your advice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAI9UpfvZmw

Live Rosenstein press conference.

Beat me to the punch. Funny how Mueller keeps discovering stuff seeing as it's all fake news...

Well, yes, capitalism is inherently violent and exploitative, although that hasn't really been the focus here, which has been the individual propensity to violence due to ideological disagreement. Also, it's not just particularly white westerners, but particularly everyone in western countries who consume significantly more in resources than those in developing nations.

:cheer: :cheer: :cheer:

Dunno what it is, but it sounds hella good.

Well, Trump humiliated himself and Boris will be the one eating the shit soup in the end, so all good I guess.

You know this, you've studied psychology. The average mass of mankind isn't very enlightened, despite living in democracies today. — Agustino

Sure, but people in advanced democracies are generally very adverse to violence against one another unless its sanctioned either by a specific authority, e.g. Milgram, or crowd, in-group, Stanford Prison etc., which is not a situation that most people find themselves in very often. The general public is much more prone to be manipulated to be passive and complacent than aggressive and violent I think.

He pissed on her in the article and then told her it was raining in the press conference. I'm watching the press conference now. He just called his own interview fake news, and then said he was confused and thought the UK wouldn't be able to trade with the US. You might as well have a chimpanzee up there. He has no idea about anything including what his own words meant or why he said them.

I watched this as you made it sound like Strzok came off badly but the Republicans were destroyed here. And in the video you presented it was Gohmert who was told to take his meds as he went nuts on attacking Strzok for adultery. The same Gohmert who sucks up to porn star fucking Trump. What a scumbag. :vomit:

https://www.msnbc.com/mtp-daily/watch/podhoretz-on-gohmert-that-s-scum-to-ask-about-strozk-s-wife-during-house-fbi-hearing-1275830851783