What has Pres. Trump done wrong so far.

Michael Everett wrote:

pappilon wrote:Oh,...wait You're from Bristol. I'm assuming you weren't paying attention like ... at all during the campaign because that's not Bristol Connecticut. Drain the swamp, destroy the "deep state" blow it up, MAGA appoint incompetents like Neil Gorsuch to the federal judiciary ... Definitely a plan with a lot of bluster and misdirection by tweet to obscure the real work of downsizing the government.

...yep, I’m not from Bristol Connecticut. As someone from England (which is not in America), I had an outside view of the campaign. Yes, I missed many American-cultural-specific details, but the pattern was fairly clear. Trump won due to a surprisingly well-targeted campaign and because he wasn’t Hillary Clinton.
As for Trump’s actions, he’s a Big Picture man. The downside is that for people like that, it is only too easy to forget that the Big Picture is made out of loads of Little Pictures and keeping track of them all is very difficult.
Doing so with the entire world watching just makes it even more stressful...

I can understand you missing lots of the nuance of the campaign. I actually was pretty unglued until I had the forethought to scroll back to check your location.

Yes I am aware that there is a Bristol in some Merrye Olde Englande which is apart from the US. I keep thinking Down East somewhere between Canada and Iceland.

So just so we're all clear... pretty much everyone knows Trump deployed the National Guard to the Southern border because Fox News has been hyperventilating for a week about an "immigrant caravan" coming up from south America... right? I mean, that was obvious enough nobody missed it?

gcomeau wrote:So just so we're all clear... pretty much everyone knows Trump deployed the National Guard to the Southern border because Fox News has been hyperventilating for a week about an "immigrant caravan" coming up from south America... right? I mean, that was obvious enough nobody missed it?

I guess I kinda did. Mostly because I avoid all the cable news channels like the Black Plague. MSNBC, CNN, FOXNEWS, they all just keep my internal BS-omometer spinning. Makes my head hurt. Heck I even avoid KATU (Ch2) news for the same reason. I recognized its right leaning bias long before this latest mandatory reading of the fake news disavowal form from corporate. Heck before that happened, I didn'r even know who owned the station.

Well Trump just spiked the Iran nuclear deal, over the objections of everyone else on earth who has actually READ the freaking deal (except Netanyahu, who was just pissed there was ever any deal of any kind).


So... he took a deal that Iran was in compliance with which prevented them from EVER acquiring nuclear weapons so long as it was in effect... lied and said that deal let them restart their nuke program in 7 years (it did not) so that made it like the worst deal EVER... and to correct that fictional problem he is trying to kill the deal so they can restart their nuke program RIGHT NOW.


Genius. Pure, freaking, genius.

Think he'll do a 180 if Fox News decides to say that he dun goofed?

Michael Everett wrote:Think he'll do a 180 if Fox News decides to say that he dun goofed?

They would have to tell their viewers Obama was right about something to do that... never happen (outside of Shep Smith's show at least).

gcomeau wrote:

Michael Everett wrote:Think he'll do a 180 if Fox News decides to say that he dun goofed?

They would have to tell their viewers Obama was right about something to do that... never happen (outside of Shep Smith's show at least).

So the US imposes sanctions against Iran like we did against Cuba. How well did that work out? Yes the collapse of the Fidel Castro regime, after the guy got so old he couldn't get out of bed.

Or, how about sanctions against PDRK? That worked out well with China and Russia both making end runs around them. Russia is Iran's new partner in Syria, do we actually believe Russia will not do all in it's power to subvert any sanctions against Iran?

I guess when all else fails do something, anything, else that has a long history of failure.

In today's world of interlocking economies, world trade and transport how is it that sanctions are very effective against most countries?

Take Syria as an example. If the US, and those allies who agree to support the US, impose trade sanctions against Syria why would they be effective? Russia or China could both supply whatever trade to Syria which is blocked by the US. Trade in goods, services or materials. China and Russia would both be glad to do so if for no other reason than to stick it to the US and Western powers.

More over, what stops country X from buying whatever Syria wants/needs and selling it to Syria through a third party? By daisy-chaining through other sources Syria can still get virtually anything, even US made goods.

Fireflair wrote:In today's world of interlocking economies, world trade and transport how is it that sanctions are very effective against most countries?

Take Syria as an example. If the US, and those allies who agree to support the US, impose trade sanctions against Syria why would they be effective? Russia or China could both supply whatever trade to Syria which is blocked by the US. Trade in goods, services or materials. China and Russia would both be glad to do so if for no other reason than to stick it to the US and Western powers.

More over, what stops country X from buying whatever Syria wants/needs and selling it to Syria through a third party? By daisy-chaining through other sources Syria can still get virtually anything, even US made goods.

Exactly. Except for what the US did to Huawei. Trump banned sales of chips and software to the company for selling to Iran and N.Korea and repeatedly lying about it.

Fireflair wrote:In today's world of interlocking economies, world trade and transport how is it that sanctions are very effective against most countries?

Take Syria as an example. If the US, and those allies who agree to support the US, impose trade sanctions against Syria why would they be effective? Russia or China could both supply whatever trade to Syria which is blocked by the US. Trade in goods, services or materials. China and Russia would both be glad to do so if for no other reason than to stick it to the US and Western powers.

More over, what stops country X from buying whatever Syria wants/needs and selling it to Syria through a third party? By daisy-chaining through other sources Syria can still get virtually anything, even US made goods.

Which is what makes this such a massive clusterfuck. The only way to make this work is if Trump starts sanctioning companies many of which are in US allied states that did NOT pull out of the deal. Further fracturing those alliances he has already severely weakened.

And all so he could cancel an agreement Obama made just because Obama made it. And we all know damn well that's the reason, if he read more than a single paragraph of the actual agreement before killing it I'd be shocked. He has repeatedly demonstrated he doesn't have the first clue what the deal contained.