Squire wrote:President Coup Survivor just gave a shout out to Pennsylvania.

That totally confused me and I thought I had misheard.

Apparently not.

jerseyhoya wrote:

drsmooth wrote:drumpf calls on Congress to declare war on ISIS, which is not actually a national actor, among several other problems with his raving fantasies

he could actually be your POTUS candidate, Rs - if you don't do something about it in the next few days

Think he's right on this one

A declaration of war would legitimize ISIS, that is fucking insane.

Whether they are basically as an organization an invisible target you don't believe that ISIS is legitimate? The world is already at war with ISIS.

Swish has me on ignore :*(

Congress won't even vote on Libya. They won't put up a vote on isil(s)

WilliamC wrote:Whether they are basically as an organization an invisible target you don't believe that ISIS is legitimate? The world is already at war with ISIS.

By declaring war you are acknowledging them as a state actor. You do not have to declare war against a terrorist organization by either American or world political standards.

The upside to declaring war would be we can all pretend to hold up our swords and yell "huzzah!". The downside would be the lack of any tangible benefit.

Jeez, saying huzzah sounds pretty neat.

buzzkillington over here am i rite?

So considering there's no real requirement for being in ISIS aside from declaring your allegiance, if we were technically at war and an American declared their allegiance to ISIS, could that person then be executed for treason? Seems like they could, but I'm not really sure.

Can't wait to see 13 year olds playing that prank on each other on facebook.

I dont know if they would bother with the treason charge. It could have been used already and hasnt

It's ridiculously hard to prove a treason charge. It's been over 60 years since the last conviction.

WilliamC wrote:I don't think Trump is an idiot at all like some think but I do believe he is dangerous.

Oh, yes, he's an idiot. He's an appalling idiot. That, among other things, is why he's dangerous

jerseyhoya wrote:

drsmooth wrote:drumpf calls on Congress to declare war on ISIS, which is not actually a national actor, among several other problems with his raving fantasies

he could actually be your POTUS candidate, Rs - if you don't do something about it in the next few days

Think he's right on this one

you think a lot of things.

America "warred" against the Barbary Pirates - I'm trying to think of another instance, other than domestic "wars on poverty", where our nation state declared war on....an idea, or a mob of thugs who were not actually organized into a nation but were kinda-sorta squatters in other nations' territories. Please do tell me how would work. Better: tell me how the deranged fool in the nosecone of your party believes it would work. Nor how Elliot Abrams, or other endless-war neocons, imagine it would work. Especially with a congress who basically, if the sitting POTUS asserts that it's sunny out, all pop open umbrellas.

WilliamC wrote:It is pretty upsetting but I'd say 80% of my family and extended family are now Trumpians and in the general central PA area I would say he has almost 80 percent favor.

WC, would you say their vote is more an "against HRC" than a "for drumpf" vote? Because the man is a serial failure, an insinuating bigot, an evident misogynist, and a far more rancid liar than she is. He lies in every sentence, pathologically, and badly. He's not even a good liar. He's a coarse, cheap, cowardly bum, a filthy creep with finicky gestures and a ridiculous comb-everywhere. He's a repulsive, vain, uninformed and uninformable clown unfit to represent the USA. That's principally why I'm struggling to imagine anyone old enough to vote being "for" him.

A Turkish military copter with eight officials landed in northern Greece and they're looking for political asylum

First, for many, if not most, Trump supporters I'm not sure there's a bright line between voting for Trump or against Hillary. It may well be one and the same.

Trump supporters believe (or they're at least willing to give him the chance) that Trump can "Make America Great Again." And we all know what that means: It means a return to a white, male dominant society which puts "those people" (Latinos, Muslims, LGBT, women, etc.) back into their place. It means bringing back all those jobs lost to globalization and eradicating the threat of terrorism, by brute force, if necessary. It means telling all those one percenters that they no longer can buy elections.

And, best of all, it means accomplishing all those goals through simple, black and white solutions: Deport the others, build a wall, don't let more others in, punish domestic and foreign offenders as if they're naughty schoolchildren.

Of course, anybody with a brain knows that all these notions are a bunch of romanticized, simplistic fairly tales of a world which no longer exists (if it ever did) and of a future which can never be. The demographics of America are changing inexorably. There's no rolling back the clock to a lily white, exclusively male-dominated culture. There's no way to eliminate ISIS by force and certainly no way to eliminate terrorism as a tactic forever. Nor is there any way to eliminate the corruption of money in our politics, at least as long as Citizens United is the law of the land.

Trump's ascendancy is nothing more and nothing less than a manifestation of what we've seen over and over in human history: When the masses feel disenfranchised and oppressed enough, they find a way to express their unrest with and distrust for their government (a/k/a "The Establishment"). If the unrest is virulent enough the mobs may simply take to the streets. If a leader arises at the wrong place at the wrong time, the mob follows that leader to express their discontent.

Trump is simply another in a long line of leaders throughout history who have cynically capitalized on the unrest of a significant portion of the mob who are so fearful of the world in which they live and what's happening to that world that they're willing to suspend their disbelief and embrace someone who tells them he, if just given the chance, can legislate the tides, solve all their grievances and return them to their rightful place of prominence in a world which never has nor ever will exist. And, at least in this instance, by voting for Trump they can simultaneously embrace those fairly tales while rejecting the embodiment of all the changes in Hillary who, as if her support for "those people" isn't enough, can also not be trusted.

If you're angry enough, naive enough and desperate enough, it's not that hard to overlook a few warts on the guy who has promised you deliverance, especially if simultaneously you get to put the leader of "those people" back in her place.

drsmooth wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:

drsmooth wrote:drumpf calls on Congress to declare war on ISIS, which is not actually a national actor, among several other problems with his raving fantasies

he could actually be your POTUS candidate, Rs - if you don't do something about it in the next few days

Think he's right on this one

you think a lot of things.

America "warred" against the Barbary Pirates - I'm trying to think of another instance, other than domestic "wars on poverty", where our nation state declared war on....an idea, or a mob of thugs who were not actually organized into a nation but were kinda-sorta squatters in other nations' territories. Please do tell me how would work. Better: tell me how the deranged fool in the nosecone of your party believes it would work. Nor how Elliot Abrams, or other endless-war neocons, imagine it would work. Especially with a congress who basically, if the sitting POTUS asserts that it's sunny out, all pop open umbrellas.

Doesn't necessarily have to be a formal declaration of war, but we should have an updated AUMF laying out the priorities in targeting and destroying ISIS.

No real indication that gulen organized it but Erdogan is using it as reason enough to further clamp down

US and Germany 'supports' Turkish democratically elected government. There's no other choice but I kinda wish the military uprising had taken Erdogan to reassert actual secular democracy.