Political Roundtable Part XX

[stilldropin20]

Watch on YouTube

Mostly a Well tempered discussion.

But again it boils down to criticisms of style. Negotiation tactics. I mean it makes sense that members of the media who basically never negotiated the thing in their life DONT get it. Of course they dont get it. They hire agents to even negotiate their work contracts. They are Just completely unaware that complex and difficult negotiations are often chaotic. Subterfuge and confusion is a significant part of the process. Purposefully. People that are good at it I have layers of negotiation insulation and various team members that approach the negotiation from different angles. Basic good cop Bad cop negotiation tactics are standard in the business world. Especially from teams that negotiate for sport.

And the UNited States government(all governments) negotiate for sport. And to win. Thats why we have a godammmed army and navy!!! And also a secretary of state. and a national security advisor. We try diplomacy, even nicely. We try strong arming negotiation tactics. and we bomb and blast the phuck out of you if those tactics dont work or we use the bombs as deterrents. This good/cop bad cop thing is built into our constitution. Its the very fabric of our government. And ultimately the president decides between these very tactics and hopefully employs each tactic well. You may not like the way Trump employs these various tacitcs but you can hardly deny he is effective and that includes the short time that he has been the leader of the entire free world.

Now I’ve never read art of the deal. Not even a sentence. But I can guarantee you that the whole point of the “art” in “the deal” is winning the negotiation.

And that’s what people don’t understand. Trump is not looking to actually put a deal together. He is looking to win. And a complete win for Trump is the total submission by Kim.

That’s the goal here. A complete an entire win. Not a “deal.” And that is what Trump is trying to communicate to Kim through his media releases n Twitter posts and through John Bolton. That trump is willing (“crazy” enough) to spend 500 billion in bombs “ win” the deal.

So John Bolton nothing more than a bad cop. A tool implemented by trump. Pompeo a good cop. And the $700 billion military budget that he just got approved through congress is the deterrent. The CIA and intelligence get us the info and let's hope its good. Let's hope they are enough. If not. Prepare to get down.

And once again this is where the winning has nothing to do with Donald Trump. This is not trumps win. As much as he thinks it is. It’s not. his craziness nor his willingness to bomb North Korea is not what is the driving force to make this “deal” happen. This is entirely about the American people who have afforded Trump the political capital so as to act so crazy on the world stage and actually use meaningful threats to win the deal without the worry or reprise of losing the support of the American people.

You see some of us in this country still believe in the actual country. So we believe in borders of that country. We Still believe in winning. Still believe in having this outrageously wealthy standard of living available to all Americans and are willing to put in the work to make sure that future generations will have the same attainable standards of living.

So that means 1. protecting our country which includes the world from the destruction. It means 2. keeping as much wealth in the in the United States as possible as opposed to overseas. And then it means 3. redistribution of wealth amongst our own people. Right now the Trump administration has their hands full on those first two and a redistribution of wealth is something that’s going to have to happen in future administration‘s because the Clinton Bush and Obama administration‘s allowed too much wealth to leave the country and too much wealth to grow overseas.

Sorry not sorry. I’m an American. I want to win. I want a president that understands what is at stake. I'm not ready to lay down. We still got the best team on the court. The most fans. And most of the money, wealth. and It aint close. there is no reason to pay down. Not to China. Not to Russia. And certianly not to Iran or North Korea.


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM mobile app

[stilldropin20]

Read on Twitter

[dckingsfan]

Very stupid tweet - two minutes of thought before posting the tweet would have helped Charlie. The kids are bringing in the guns.

Maybe a better tweet like, guns aren't the problem - kids are the problem. Back in the day we didn't have these kinds of issues.

Also, possible to think before retweeting dribble?

Read on Twitter

[dckingsfan]

You realize you are reposting a tweet of a serial liar... just saying.

Read on Twitter

[stilldropin20]

Very stupid tweet - two minutes of thought before posting the tweet would have helped Charlie. The kids are bringing in the guns.

Maybe a better tweet like, guns aren't the problem - kids are the problem. Back in the day we didn't have these kinds of issues.

Also, possible to think before retweeting dribble?

Read on Twitter

Charlie Kirk stance is same as mine.

1. lock the schools down.
2. metal detectors at single points of entry.
3. armed guards. perhaps even teachers that are former military and want to carry to protect themselves and other students.


Speaking of arming the teachers. I get a kick out the liberla left bring the teachers on TV to pretend that they essentially prefer to die over carrying a gun and shooting back.

If the liberal left gets their way, we are going to end up with a situation where there is are so many shootings per day that those same teachers will not show up TO WORK. WITHOUT a gun.

[stilldropin20]

You realize you are reposting a tweet of a serial liar... just saying.

Read on Twitter

YOU do realize that the most important so-called "truth" any politician can "tell" or fulfill are those of campaign pledges kept to the american people that they serve and then seeing that agenda through once elected. Thats THE most important "truth" in politics that matters. Pledging your agenda and sticking to it!! All that should matter!!

Everything else is spin, conjecture, opinion, and frankly purposefully maligned<--so much so that YOU DONT EVEN KNOW WHERE TO LOOK FOR THE "TRUTH."

Neither do I. Not definatively. But at least I know NOT to depend on being told the truth. Especially from bought and paid for "news" agency(s).

I'll look for my truth in between the lines using my own brain to decipher fact from fiction. It's served me quite well so far.

[stilldropin20]

Read on Twitter

Read on Twitter

[stilldropin20]

"like manafort...Podesta group had to retroactively file as a foreign agent"

Read on Twitter

[stilldropin20]

Read on Twitter

[stilldropin20]

Read on Twitter

[nate33]

shooter was yet another white supremacist

https://www.thedailybeast.com/dimitrios-pagourtzis-reportedly-idd-as-santa-fe-texas-shooting-suspect

On the same day he posted the T-shirt photo, Pagourtzis uploaded a picture of a jacket adorned with several pinned symbols. In captions, he explained the significance of each: the Communist Party’s hammer and sickle representing rebellion, Nazi Germany’s Iron Cross representing bravery, the Japanese rising sun for the tactics of kamikaze pilots, the Knights Templar’s Baphomet for evil and the Cthulhu from science fiction for power.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/alleged-school-killer-dimitrios-pagourtzis-was-nondescript-betraying-a-growing-darkness/2018/05/18/d69f5b88-5ade-11e8-8836-a4a123c359ab_story.html?utm_term=.c14aba1b445b

Let's not assign political motives yet. So far, this appears like a disturbed kid, but without a coherent political agenda of any kind.

[dckingsfan]

Very stupid tweet - two minutes of thought before posting the tweet would have helped Charlie. The kids are bringing in the guns.

Maybe a better tweet like, guns aren't the problem - kids are the problem. Back in the day we didn't have these kinds of issues.

Also, possible to think before retweeting dribble?

Read on Twitter

Charlie Kirk stance is same as mine.

1. lock the schools down.
2. metal detectors at single points of entry.
3. armed guards. perhaps even teachers that are former military and want to carry to protect themselves and other students.

Speaking of arming the teachers. I get a kick out the liberla left bring the teachers on TV to pretend that they essentially prefer to die over carrying a gun and shooting back.

If the liberal left gets their way, we are going to end up with a situation where there is are so many shootings per day that those same teachers will not show up TO WORK. WITHOUT a gun.

Then you aren't thinking either... You can never lock it down. How are you going to lock down football fields, baseball fields, etc., etc. It is one thing when you are trying to keep someone who isn't a student from getting in - but not when it is the students themselves. You would literally have to frisk every student every day.

Think please.

Even where there were police (fully armed), the shootings still went forward? Why is that? Because guns are ubiquitous to our society and students are expert at figuring out how to bypass security - they have been doing it for generations with alchohol, then drugs and now guns.

There is zero chance that it would be successful. And even less chance that it could be funded.

So, fact check: liar, liar pants on fire level - we can't fund it, it won't work and hence why it is suggested - it is just serial lying and obfuscation.

[dckingsfan]

You realize you are reposting a tweet of a serial liar... just saying.

Read on Twitter

YOU do realize that the most important so-called "truth" any politician can "tell" or fulfill are those of campaign pledges kept to the american people that they serve and then seeing that agenda through once elected. Thats THE most important "truth" in politics that matters. Pledging your agenda and sticking to it!! All that should matter!!

Everything else is spin, conjecture, opinion, and frankly purposefully maligned<--so much so that YOU DONT EVEN KNOW WHERE TO LOOK FOR THE "TRUTH."

Neither do I. Not definatively. But at least I know NOT to depend on being told the truth. Especially from bought and paid for "news" agency(s).

I'll look for my truth in between the lines using my own brain to decipher fact from fiction. It's served me quite well so far.

Fact check: You realize you are reposting a tweet of a serial liar - mostly true
https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015-12-21/fact-checking-website-donald-trump-lies-76-percent-of-the-time

[nate33]

I'll trade you your opinion piece for my opinion piece (based on facts)

First, Russian intelligence hacked the email accounts of Trump’s political opponents. Then, the Russians told the Trump campaign that they had stolen the emails and could anonymously release them. Third, Russian operatives met with the highest levels of the Trump campaign in Trump Tower to discuss the “dirt” the Russians had on the Clinton campaign as “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”

After that meeting, Russia began using Wikileaks to disseminate the emails. Meanwhile, the Trump campaign began setting up multiple backchannels to Wikileaks, including through Roger Stone.

Wikileaks released emails at a time of maximum political benefit to the Trump campaign. They undermined the unifying message of the DNC with a release right before it started. And a scant 29 minutes after the Washington Post broke the news about the “Access Hollywood” tapes, which threatened to end Trump’s campaign, Wikileaks released a trove of Clinton campaign chair (and Center for American Progress founder) John Podesta’s emails.

This release was particularly odd, given that it was on a Friday afternoon and right after the biggest news story of the campaign to date; it was a release that made little sense from the perspective of an independent organization seeking to maximize attention, but was strategically brilliant from the standpoint of a campaign seeking to change the subject.

Lastly, Trump made the stolen emails a centerpiece of his final message, mentioning Wikileaks five times per day during the final month of the campaign and using specific emails — plucked out of Wikileaks’ massive data releases like needles in a haystack — to target key constituents.

Trump’s questionable ties to Russian oligarchs gave his campaign the means, motive and opportunity to collude. In fact, Trump and his team repeatedly demonstrated that they were a willing partner who would do anything to win the election. Given what we know to date, the question is not whether they colluded, but how deep the collusion went.

The Mueller investigation — now one year in — is seeking to answer that question, and it’s critically important that it be allowed to do so.

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/year-mueller-case-collusion-article-1.3993794

The fact that whoever hacked the DNC did so to hurt Clinton is not in dispute. It is not surprising that they chose to release information at key points in the campaign to hurt Clinton and help her opponent. That is not evidence of collusion with the Trump campaign. It is common sense. If you want to argue timing, let's not overlook that those Hollywood Access Tapes were released just after Hillary Clinton collapse and fainted in an apparent neurological condition. NBC had that information for months. Why release it then?

Also, regarding that infamous meeting at Trump Tower, we now know from multiple sources and extensive deposition testimony that none of the DNC email leaks were discussed whatsoever and the whole thing was just a setup so the Russians could discuss the Maginsky Act. Furthermore, the key operative in all of this, Natalia Veselnitskaya, managed to acquire a visa to come here through a rare and unorthodox State Department connection, and she met with Fusion GPS the day before the Trump Tower meeting and the day after. It looks more like a Deep State entrapment scheme than Russian collusion.

And finally, in a campaign, people always try to dig up dirt on the opposition. And they dig from domestic and foreign sources. What in the hell do you think the whole Steele Dossier was but Hillary getting dirt on Trump from foreigners? This is not illegal. It isn't even unusual.

[stilldropin20]

Very stupid tweet - two minutes of thought before posting the tweet would have helped Charlie. The kids are bringing in the guns.

Maybe a better tweet like, guns aren't the problem - kids are the problem. Back in the day we didn't have these kinds of issues.

Also, possible to think before retweeting dribble?

Charlie Kirk stance is same as mine.

1. lock the schools down.
2. metal detectors at single points of entry.
3. armed guards. perhaps even teachers that are former military and want to carry to protect themselves and other students.

Speaking of arming the teachers. I get a kick out the liberla left bring the teachers on TV to pretend that they essentially prefer to die over carrying a gun and shooting back.

If the liberal left gets their way, we are going to end up with a situation where there is are so many shootings per day that those same teachers will not show up TO WORK. WITHOUT a gun.

You would literally have to frisk every student every day.

somehow the NBA, MLB, NFL, and every single concert and music fest that ive been to in the last 2 years manages to do exactly that.

Given that I was a 20 year chicago bulls season ticket holder, i can say it was a pain to wait in line a whole extra 10 minutes to get into the united center this past year... but it was 20,000 people entering...and at least we were all safe.

I cant imagine school entry being more than an extra 2-3 minutes.

You already have all the staff you need in police and fire dept that is already on duty in any given area. and teachers already at school as well as food prep staff and janitors. train them to frisk. Have the principle supervise the search every single day.

The extra only cost is metal detectors. Make the federal government, NRA, and gun manufacturers pay for them.

Cost is minimal. Space needed is minimal. Time to search everyone everyday is minimal.

Like i said, this already works at every single NBA, MLB, and NFL stadium.

[stilldropin20]

You realize you are reposting a tweet of a serial liar... just saying.

YOU do realize that the most important so-called "truth" any politician can "tell" or fulfill are those of campaign pledges kept to the american people that they serve and then seeing that agenda through once elected. Thats THE most important "truth" in politics that matters. Pledging your agenda and sticking to it!! All that should matter!!

Everything else is spin, conjecture, opinion, and frankly purposefully maligned<--so much so that YOU DONT EVEN KNOW WHERE TO LOOK FOR THE "TRUTH."

Neither do I. Not definatively. But at least I know NOT to depend on being told the truth. Especially from bought and paid for "news" agency(s).

I'll look for my truth in between the lines using my own brain to decipher fact from fiction. It's served me quite well so far.

Fact check: You realize you are reposting a tweet of a serial liar - mostly true
https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015-12-21/fact-checking-website-donald-trump-lies-76-percent-of-the-time

Fact check: DCKINGS has appointed himself the arbiter of truth - Mostly true.

Fact check: is he telling truth? - he certainly thinks he is. and he seems to firmly believe his (bought and paid for) sources have given him a "true compass" to navigate these murky waters of "truth." - good to know!

[gtn130]

SDotard20,

Locking down schools and loading them with armed security is a dystopian hellscape, but more importantly people will just start shooting up the bus stop or the playground or...anywhere else.

Try using whatever is left of your brain

[dckingsfan]

Charlie Kirk stance is same as mine.

1. lock the schools down.
2. metal detectors at single points of entry.
3. armed guards. perhaps even teachers that are former military and want to carry to protect themselves and other students.

Speaking of arming the teachers. I get a kick out the liberla left bring the teachers on TV to pretend that they essentially prefer to die over carrying a gun and shooting back.

If the liberal left gets their way, we are going to end up with a situation where there is are so many shootings per day that those same teachers will not show up TO WORK. WITHOUT a gun.

You would literally have to frisk every student every day.

somehow the NBA, MLB, NFL, and every single concert and music fest that ive been to in the last 2 years manages to do exactly that.

Given that I was a 20 year chicago bulls season ticket holder, i can say it was a pain to wait in line a whole extra 10 minutes to get into the united center this past year... but it was 20,000 people entering...and at least we were all safe.

I cant imagine school entry being more than an extra 2-3 minutes.

You already have all the staff you need in police and fire dept that is already on duty in any given area. and teachers already at school as well as food prep staff and janitors. train them to frisk. Have the principle supervise the search every single day.

The extra only cost is metal detectors. Make the federal government, NRA, and gun manufacturers pay for them.

Cost is minimal. Space needed is minimal. Time to search everyone everyday is minimal.

Like i said, this already works at every single NBA, MLB, and NFL stadium.

Now if we just charged $100 per day for each student to attend - then we could afford that...

[nate33]

Read on Twitter

In other words, both the NYT and the Post chose to provide so many details about the FBI informant that everyone would know exactly who it was, while coyly pretending that they were obeying FBI demands not to name him. How does that make sense? Either these newspapers believe the FBI’s grave warnings that national security and lives would be endangered if it were known who they used as their informant (in which case those papers should not publish any details that would make his exposure likely), or they believe that the FBI (as usual) was just invoking false national security justifications to hide information it unjustly wants to keep from the public (in which case the newspapers should name him).

It is difficult to understand how identifying someone whose connections to the CIA is a matter of such public record, and who has a long and well-known history of working on spying programs involving presidential elections on behalf of the intelligence community, could possibly endanger lives or lead to grave national security harm. It isn’t as though Halper has been some sort of covert, stealth undercover asset for the CIA who just got exposed. Quite the contrary: that he’s a spy embedded in the U.S. intelligence community would be known to anyone with internet access.

Equally strange are the semantic games which journalists are playing in order to claim that this revelation disproves, rather than proves, Trump’s allegation that the FBI “spied” on his campaign.

Whatever else is true, the CIA operative and FBI informant used to gather information on the Trump campaign in the 2016 campaign has, for weeks, been falsely depicted as a sensitive intelligence asset rather than what he actually is: a long-time CIA operative with extensive links to the Bush family who was responsible for a dirty and likely illegal spying operation in the 1980 presidential election. For that reason, it’s easy to understand why many people in Washington were so desperate to conceal his identity, but that desperation had nothing to do with the lofty and noble concerns for national security they claimed were motivating them.

The mainstream media is not an honest arbiter of truth. They are the propaganda arm for Democrats and anti-Trump neocons.

[FAH1223]

From inside Iran

The other art of the deal, Tehran-style
Iran hosted the International Conference in Support of the Palestinian Intifada and poured cold water on Trump's withdrawal from the nuclear deal
By PEPE ESCOBAR MAY 18, 2018 6:15 PM (UTC+8)

Two men bargain over the price of a carpet in a bazaar in Iran, but would Donald Trump cut a better deal? Photo: AFP/Atta Kenare


The art of the deal, when practiced for 2,500 years, does lead to the palace of wisdom. I had hardly set foot in Tehran when a diplomat broke the news: “Trump? We’re not worried. He’s a bazaari (merchant trader)” – implying a political compromise will eventually be reached.

The Iranian government’s response to the Trump administration boils down to a Sun Tzu variant; silence – especially after the Fall of Flynn, who had “put Iran on notice” after a ballistic missile test that did not infringe the provisions of the Iranian nuclear deal, and the idea of an anti-Iran, Saudi Arabia-UAE-Egypt-Jordan mini-NATO. The Iranian naval drills – from the Strait of Hormuz to the Indian Ocean – had been planned way in advance.

I was in Tehran as part of a small group of foreign analysts, guests of the Majlis (Parliament) for the 6th International Conference in Support of the Palestinian Intifada. No one in Trump’s circle would be caught dead in such a gathering – featuring parliamentary delegates from more than 50 nations, a de facto mini-UN. Yet what they missed at the impressive opening in a crowded, round conference hall was the center of power in Iran on display; Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, President Hassan Rouhani and Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani.

Khamenei admitted “the existing crises in every part of the region and the Islamic ummah deserve attention,” while reinforcing the key issue is Palestine. Hence the conference could become “a model for all Muslims and regional nations to gradually harness their differences by relying on their common points.” The Wahhabi House of Saud, incidentally, was nowhere to be seen.

Khamenei’s was a necessary call for Muslim unity. Few in the West know that during the 1940s and ’50s, as decolonization proceeded apace, Islam was not trespassed by vicious Sunni-Shi’ite hatred – it was later fomented by the Wahhabi/Salafi-jihadi axis.

Hefty discussions with Iranian analysts and diplomats revolved on the efficacy of multilateral talking compared to advancing facts on the ground – ranging from the building of new settlements in the West Bank to the now all but dead and buried Oslo two-state myth.

On Palestine, Lebanon’s Parliament Speaker Nabi Berri offered a gloomy assessment of the three solutions now available; suicide; giving in; or running away from what’s left of Palestinian land. Later on down the hall I asked the deputy secretary-general of Hezbollah, the affable Naim Qassem, about the Trump administration’s hint of a one-state solution. His answer, in French: “One state means war. Two states means peace under their conditions, which will conduct us to war.”

The road to post-Enlightenment
As with most conferences, what matters are the bilaterals. Leonid Savin re-confirmed Russian airspace is now all but sealed with multiple deployments of the S-500 missile defense system against anything the US may unleash. Albanian historian Olsi Jazexhi deconstructed the new Balkans powder keg. Muhammad Gul, son of the late, larger-than-life General Hamid Gul, detailed the finer points of Pakistan’s foreign policy and the drive to build the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

Blake Archer Williams, otherwise known as Arash Darya-Bandari, whose pseudonym celebrates the “tyger tyger burning bright” English master, gave me a copy of Creedal Foundations of Waliyic Islam (Lion of Najaf Publishers) – a sophisticated analysis of how Shi’ite theology led to the theory of velayat-e faqih (the ruling of the jurisprudent) at the heart of the Islamic Republic of Iran. I’m considering sending the book to voracious reader Steve Bannon.

Pyongyang was also in the house. The North Korean delegate had produced an astonishing speech, essentially arguing that Palestine should follow their example, complete with a “credible nuclear deterrent.” Later on in the corridors I saluted the delegation, and they saluted back. No chance of a bilateral though to expand on the unclear points surrounding Kim Jong-nam’s assassination.

Every time I’m back in Tehran I’m impressed with the open avenues for serious intellectual discussion. Once again Tehran proved to be unrivaled all across Asia as a theater to debate all crosscurrents involving post or counter-Enlightenment, or both.

I was constantly reminded of Jalal Al-e Ahmad, the son of a mullah born in poor south Tehran who later translated Sartre and Camus and wrote the seminal Westoxification (1962).

He spent the summer of 1965 at a seminar in Harvard organized by Henry Kissinger and “supported” by the CIA, and pivoted to Shi’ism only by the end of his life. But it was his analysis that paved the way for sociologist Ali Shariati to cross-pollinate anti-colonialism with the Shi’ite concept of resistance against injustice into a revolutionary ideology capable of politicizing the Iranian middle classes, leading to the Islamic Revolution.

That was the background for very serious discussions on how Iran (resistance against injustice), China (remixed Confucianism) and Russia (Eurasianism) are offering post-enlightenment alternatives that transcend Western liberal democracy – a concept rendered meaningless by neoliberalism’s hegemony.

But in the end it was all inevitably down to the overarching anti-intellectual ghost in the room; Donald Trump, and that was even before he got a letter from Ahmadinejad.

So I did what I usually do before leaving Tehran; I hit the bazaar, via a fabulous attached mosque – to get reacquainted with the art of the deal, the Persian way.

That led me to Mahmoud Asgari, lodged in the Sameyi passage of the Tajrish bazaar and a serious discussion on the finer points of pre-WWI Sistan-Baluchistan tribal rugs from Zahedan. The end result was – what else – a win-win deal, bypassing the US dollar. And then, the clincher: “When you call your friend Trump, tell him to come here and I’ll give him the best deal.” Steve Bannon, your call.