President Trump

[Mogul]

BTW, I don't think Trump is fine. I think Biden is worse.

Jesus fucking Christ :olo:

I really miss this place sometimes lol

[Eraser]

I do believe in start contrast to what the Orange hate machine, I feel Joe Biden does care about Americans despite where he stands politically.

[youtube]ySgshytcIv0[/youtube]

[Eraser]

I really miss this place sometimes lol

We miss you too! <3

[Eraser]

I continually see people make claims about Obama/Biden being such warmongers, but how factually true is this really? At the risk of sounding pretty ignorant, weren't it Bush and Bush Sr who started both gulf wars, invaded Afghanistan and generally fucked things up in the Middle-East? I'm aware it's tempting to think Obama should've ended those things, but I'm also realistic enough to understand it's a lot easier to start a war than to end one, especially when you've got most of the senate against you.

[raw]

Obama was notorious for his drone attacks as Mazda has stated. You're right to think that the Bushes are worse IMO as Bush Sr. also had Bill Barr as his fixer to shut down investigations into the Gulf War.

[raw]

Bill Barr has always been a piece of Jabba-The-Hut shit.

[Eraser]

Obama was notorious for his drone attacks as Mazda has stated.

Yeah but isn't that just verging on semantics? "Drone attack" sounds very scary because it's such an, for lack of better terms, inpersonal way of doing combat. Like it's worse than sending an F-16 out there dropping a bomb on the same target. I'm not trying to argue that war in general is OK, but when Obama got into his presidency in 2009, he also inherited the Iraq war and America (and allies) were knee deep into shit caused by George W Bush (all on the basis of lies as well). If you find yourself in the middle of a war, shooting shit is an inevitability. And again, one could argue he should've just withdrawn and kept it at that, but I'm not convinced that's as easy to do as it is to say. Just look at Trump who on more than one occasion has talked about a full withdrawal but never actually got that far.

Is there substantial evidence that Obama was ordering drone strikes for some ulterior motive other than enforcing control and maintaining stability of the region? And is there reason to think Obama did worse than Bush Sr? Worse than Clinton? Worse than Bush Jr? Worse than Trump?

[Eraser]

More on that:

Number of drone strikes under Trump far exceed those under Obama
https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/2019/ ... -s-numbers

https://theintercept.com/2019/10/02/tru ... lties-war/

Number of deaths in middle east have soared under Trump
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyl ... story.html

Trump has revoked a rule (instated by Obama) forcing american intelligence services to report drone strike civilian casualties
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/30/opin ... obama.html

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47480207

So why is Obama the warmongering one infamous for drone strikes?

[Captain]

Obama administration buried videos of American soldiers gleefully ripping apart innocent bystanders, paramedics, and journalists in Iraq until Manning and Assange exposed them. Obama signed the decrees to jail them indefinitely and if it weren't for the Ecuadorian embassy, Assange would've ended up at Guantanamo—the illegal CIA torture facility that he promised to close. Now he's being tortured and mistreated at UK's Belmarsh with no due process.

Did you forget about all of that and Snowden's exposure of the NSA's illegal wiretapping too in the Obama years?

Is there substantial evidence that Obama was ordering drone strikes for some ulterior motive other than enforcing control and maintaining stability of the region? And is there reason to think Obama did worse than Bush Sr? Worse than Clinton? Worse than Bush Jr? Worse than Trump?

"Murdering people indiscriminately with bombs from the sky = stability" :alert:

The reason the US has so fully embraced drones is because it further dehumanizes war and killing, as proven by reputable human rights advocates around the world. Hiring psychotic Call of Duty fanboys to drop bombs on radar blips from the comfort of their hometown prevents any of them from ever realizing the deadly consequences of their actions. If they're not on the ground walking through the remains of the women and children they blew up, they're unlikely to reject the military and become anti-war activists.

It is impossible to know exactly when Obama recognized the need to get the drone program “in a box” and to introduce “checks and balances,” as he put it, or how he ever imagined the earlier status quo could end in anything but excessive killings.

In any case, Obama chose to allow the CIA, a secretive entity with a long history of unjust killings, to carry out strikes; he chose to keep the very fact of drone killings classified, deliberately invoking the state-secrets privilege in a way guaranteed to stymie oversight, public debate, and legal accountability; and he chose to permit killings outside the greater Afghanistan war zone, in countries with which the U.S. was not at war. Those choices made more unjust killings predictable and inevitable.

That should have been obvious to a former senator and constitutional law expert who knew, among other things, that the CIA had recently run an illegal torture program. The CIA then got carried away with the power to kill in secret in multiple countries.

Obama couldn’t foresee that?

Many others could.

That more checks and balances were needed from day one was a no-brainer. Yet reporting by the New York Times suggests that Obama was directly complicit all along in efforts to obscure the true costs of drone strikes to innocents. As the newspaper put it on May 29, 2012, in a major investigative article:

Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties that did little to box him in. It in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent…

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... es/511454/

If it still has to be explained to you how alike Bush, Obama, Clinton and Trump are, I'm not sure anything will change your mind. It's like you only see him as the guy from the "hope and change" campaign posters.

[Transient]

Yeah but isn't that just verging on semantics? "Drone attack" sounds very scary because

Obama dropped bombs on innocent civilians and covered it up. He's a war criminal and should be in jail for it. The Bushes committed their own war crimes they should be in jail for, but I want all presidents held equally accountable for their actions.

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^^THIS^^

The rule of law should be consistent.

[Eraser]

Oh I agree, but it seems weird to single out Obama when George W Bush lied to be able to invade a country. Let's not mention those responsible for Vietnam.

[raw]

There's a lot of American politicians that need to be held accountable. However, I think the people are fed up these days. Lets home for some change.

[Captain]

Oh I agree, but it seems weird to single out Obama when George W Bush lied to be able to invade a country. Let's not mention those responsible for Vietnam.

You don't seem to understand. Obama isn't being singled out, I am trying to point out his policies and actions have been similar to Trump in many ways. The reason this distinction has to be made is because post-Trump, Obama has been completely whitewashed as this brilliant, kind, incredible democratic bastion of hope and enlightenment who brought peace and joy to America and the world. Even the people who once called out Bush are now saying "hey he wasn't so bad, he made some mistakes but he did it all for good reasons with a true heart." Out of the three, Obama is the best salesperson the US military-industrial has because he's intelligent, well-spoken, and charismatic.

Why does this matter? Because people who live in the spin cycle of mainstream news believe Trump should be held accountable for his crimes (just the financial and political ones since killing non-Americans is fine) while Obama, and now Bush, get a free pass. That's the ignorant attitude that puts more nepotist neolibs and far-right shitheads in power.

[Whiskey 7]

I really miss this place sometimes lol

WB Mogul

.......... everyone's mad as hell all of a sudden

Politics

Good luck USA

[seremtan]

write in: Kanye and Louis CK :olo:

[raw]

I was filling in my ballot and was rudely interrupted by a gentleman who said, “I'mma let you finish, but Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time! One of the best videos of all time!”

[Captain]

If Oprah's not running, who will be my moral compass?

[raw]

I blame Ross Perot.

[HM-PuFFNSTuFF]

A coal lobbyist runs the EPA

An oil lobbyist runs the DOI

A pharma exec runs HHS

A Raytheon lobbyist runs DoD

A Verizon lawyer runs FCC

A banking exec runs Treasury

A shipping heiress runs DOT

A private equity kingpin runs Commerce

An unqualified billionaire runs DoED


BUT...

Biden is a lifelong politician so Trump is better (and somehow different duuurrrrrrrppppp).

[Don Carlos]

Today is the day, folks

[Transient]

Here's hoping for a blowout.

[raw]

VOTE OUT FASCISM AND AUTOCRACY!

[Κracus]

Imagine if you could strip party affiliations and just look at the state of who you're voting for in an election. No conservative, no democratic bullshit, just two people.

You have an ex vice president, seems creepy around women but could just be old person creepy. Has otherwise been a decent public servant in his tenure.

The other guy is a narcissist by definition, has several sexual assault allegations, has settled sexual assault allegations in the past, cheated on his wife while she was pregnant with porn stars. Used money donated to him for his campaign to pay off said prostitutes. Most of his senior campaign staff is now in jail or has been jailed for breaking laws. Has many failed businesses, has ties with Russian mobsters, provably lies pretty much every day. Appears to fly off the handle constantly, doesn't seem qualified and has many conflicts of interest among other ethical dilemmas. Oh he's also been given a chance at the job and was impeached. Used to be friends with Jeffrey Epstein.

The funny part is if you flip the democrat and the conservative here there's no way a conservative would vote for Trump. People that vote for Trump are literally stupid. I mean that in the full definition of the word. Aside from the fact that by all the evidence out there that he's planning a coup voting for him is honestly the dumbest thing you could do. The guy who still believes the central park 5 are guilty, to this day, despite DNA evidence clearing their names. A racist who rails against the ability for the other party to even vote. Yeah you've got to be fucking stupid.

[HM-PuFFNSTuFF]

several sexual assault allegations,

not to quibble but 26 is more than several