Syria has always been a proxy war between the US and Russia and Iran and Saudi Arabia. The US has made clear its intentions to replace the societ regimes in the middle east, that's what Syria was. The longstanding policy to that effect does not absolve Obama's administration of responsibility, nor does saying "well that's because of bashar" when that issue was created by Obama.

4/5/2017 10:41:05 AM

Geopolitics is zero sum. If you aren't gaining you're losing.

4/5/2017 10:46:10 AM

remember that time you tried to pretend like you weren't an imperialist?

4/5/2017 10:47:35 AM

Last I checked, the United States wasn't colonizing anyone.

4/5/2017 10:48:25 AM

destabilizing and overthrowing foreign governments is imperialism, you believe that it is okay to do it for american interests and also support additional military funding to do so

4/5/2017 10:55:36 AM

Somebody looked at the favoravility rating of Bannon yesterday...

Good on Trump for removing him from the NSC in any case. He had no business being on it in the first place.

4/5/2017 11:36:26 AM

Bannon is one of those unmasked by Susan Rice.

#conspiracy

4/5/2017 12:21:32 PM

I read the WSJ article yesterday evening about Rice and it seems a lot less troublesome than before. She requested to unmask one transition official but that one was never leaked. Said she DID NOT unmask Flynn who was leaked.

If that is true Inam struggling to see how that is even a story and it doesn't even make sense it was done for some political purpose because it was obviously never used!

[Edited on April 5, 2017 at 12:35 PM. Reason : Wsj cited a GOP official for that btw. It wasn't Rice or an obama person who said it.]

4/5/2017 12:34:28 PM

Of course it was nothing, that was obvious from the jump.

Tulsi Gabbard holding Assad's water is a sight to behold. She was a progressive darling during the campaign, turns out that the only credential required by the far left is endorsing Bernie Sanders because otherwise she's terrible.

4/5/2017 1:05:16 PM

Trump pulled the "spying" statement out of his ass, smeared it everywhere, then asked his team to dig deep for anything that could justify it.

It doesn't even deserve this level of discussion or credibility-- we already know he lied.Trump is trying to deflect from both his lying on the issue, and the Russian investigation, and he seems to be successful.

4/5/2017 1:14:03 PM

Quote :

"destabilizing and overthrowing foreign governments is imperialism"

Here are your options:

Russia owns Syria
Iran owns Syria
China owns Syria
United States owns Syria

Which of those would you choose? Because Syria will never own Syria, not while Iran and Russia consider it a core strategic interest.

If your answer is the United States and that's considered imperialism, then I guess I have no problem with imperialism.

Quote :

"imperialism - a policy of extending a country's power and influence through diplomacy or military force."

I guess every country on the planet that extends its power is an imperialist. Kind of renders the word pointless. Good luck navigating the world with your impractical idealism. Until humans evolve past zero sum, shit ain't happening.

[Edited on April 5, 2017 at 9:44 PM. Reason : a]

4/5/2017 9:43:02 PM

Never call yourself a liberal you imperialist pig

4/5/2017 9:52:15 PM

Quote :

"Let’s talk about the now-infamous show in which you landed the white whale that is President Trump’s tax returns—or at least two pages of them. I expected those on the right to attack that hour, but I was taken a bit aback by the number of journalists on Twitter, and even a few on the left, who criticized it. It seemed to me you did the most un-cable-news thing of all: You did not change your format, or the kind of show you do, because of a scoop. Yet you were accused of hyping and drawing it out for ratings. Are you actually more critical about that hour than I am? Have you thought, “You know what, maybe I’d change this?” Or are you feeling feisty about the negative reaction from some quarters—you know, “Screw the people at the New York Times and others who want to attack me?” I definitely wouldn’t put myself on either extreme that you just proposed there. [Laughs.] I have no regrets about how we broke that story. I’m super psyched that we got the information. The question about whether or not to take it to air was whether or not we could authenticate that it was real information. And when we got the confirmation from the White House that it was true, that it was a real document? For me, that was go time. That was the green light that we were definitely going to do it. Once we knew we were going to do it, I felt like—and I still feel like—the right thing to do was to present that information in a way that explained it well. That’s why I do a long opening segment every night. As you mentioned, that’s the structure of my show, that I try to explain the news, which means delivering information, sometimes new information that’s a scoop—but I always try to put it in context so you know if it’s important, why it’s important; what’s important about it; what else it might lead to; and where it comes from. For me, one of the most interesting parts of that discussion, which I think has had a little more focus since the initial show, is what was the origin of that tax return? The first conversation that I had with it on the air, with David Cay Johnston, who actually obtained the document, was, “Is it possible that this came from Trump himself?” I remain totally open to the idea that it came from him, in which case that itself is a fascinating part of this. And there’s been a lot of interesting reporting since we initially published the document in terms of what it means for the president’s financial entanglements [and] what else would be most helpful to see from his tax documents in terms of figuring out whether he has conflicts of interests that might be affecting his behavior as president. So, I mean, people can like me or not like me, and they can like the way I do cable news or not like it—whatever. It’s hopeless to try to keep everybody happy all the time, and I’ve never tried. But I have no regrets about how we broke that story, and I remain very proud of the fact that we got the document, that the reporter who obtained it in the first place trusted us to do it, and that we presented it in a way that I think holds up. So, people can complain, but I don’t really care."

4/6/2017 1:21:06 AM

i wonder if she just doesn't realize how badly she got played or doesn't want to admit it

4/6/2017 8:57:56 AM

Probably the second one.

4/6/2017 9:24:28 AM

She's fully aware. She chased ratings and knew that flinging that bullshit headline out would give them to her. Then people saw she had nothing. She's trying to save her reputation now by acting confident in what she did. It was a simple money grab. She was probably put up to it by her editors/bosses.

4/6/2017 9:28:07 AM

a one night bump in ratings won't do anything for overall ad sales

4/6/2017 10:30:07 AM

Quote :

"a one night bump in ratings won't do anything for overall ad sales"

Quote :

"Rachel Maddow Rules Cable News After Beating Fox News For 3 Straight Weeks"

Quote :

"Rachel Maddow's MSNBC show has now beaten Fox News's The O'Reilly Factor for three straight weeks with younger viewers age 25-54."

Quote :

"Donald Trump’s White House has been been very good for Maddow; on March 15, she clocked her biggest audience ever – 4.13M viewers and 1.4M demo viewers, when she got her hands on Trump’s headline-challenged 2005 tax return."

http://www.politicususa.com/2017/04/03/rachel-maddow-rules-cable-news-beating-fox-news-bill-oreilly-3-straight-weeks.html

4/6/2017 12:25:39 PM

her ratings have been trending up in that demo (which is a super low bar because of the demo of a Fox News viewer) due to who has been in the White House since January 20th

it's not as simple as saying that a one-off stunt was a cash grab

[Edited on April 6, 2017 at 1:07 PM. Reason : it's not like ad agencies handed her a check for that nights show]

4/6/2017 1:06:46 PM

"Cash grab" was used incorrectly, though I didn't mean it literally that someone paid her money for it. I just meant that it was an attempt to continue to increase ratings which likely factors into her compensation in some meaningful way via a bonus at some point while it also factors into the overall compensation via ad and other revenue for the station itself.

These news entertainment companies try to throw something on the air every single night that continues bumping ratings.

In fact, and I don't know how their contracts work, maybe there is some sort of rule that says your advertising bill increases in direct proportion to the exact viewers watching at any given moment.

In any event, again, she read a completely mundane tax return and screamed to the heavens that she "had Trump's tax returns" which in the current climate was interpreted as "holy shit she got relevant information that will shed light onto his holdings, his relations with Russia, etc." She knew it was mundane, knew it was not newsworthy in the above context, and is now trying to make up for her credibility hit.

The next time she goes on the air screaming about some important scoop she has, my immediate response will be "bullshit." Didn't necessarily used to be that way.

4/6/2017 1:25:07 PM

https://theintercept.com/2017/04/06/top-democrats-are-wrong-trump-supporters-were-more-motivated-by-racism-than-economic-issues/

economic anxiety, tho

4/6/2017 4:01:50 PM

still missing the pieces in front of them despite them being explained over and over, the democratic party doesn't stand a chance. sad!

4/6/2017 4:21:23 PM

what fault do you find with the piece?

4/6/2017 4:24:20 PM

two things, primarily its based on the false premise that the sanders/warren/leftists think democrats need to focus on economic issues to capture trump voters but also because it ignores the cause of why there is such a rise in nationalist, xenophobic and racist feelings

trump brought out racists, racists voted for trump, but democrats lost because they stayed home. trump energizing racist voters doesn't explain why so many people dislike clinton, why so many stayed home. if democrats do not adopt a message that challenges power, that adopts an intersectional position on identity politics that doesn't ignore the economic parallels and overlaps, they don't have a chance in hell.

4/6/2017 4:43:47 PM

the second to last paragraph:

Quote :

"If Democrats are going to have any chance of winning back the White House in 2020, they have to understand why they lost in 2016, and that understanding has to be based on facts and figures, however inconvenient or awkward. The Sanders/Warren/Moore wing of the party is right to focus on fair trade and income equality; the calls for higher wages and better regulation are morally and economically correct. What they are not, however, is some sort of silver bullet to solve the issue of racism. As the University of California’s Michael Tesler, author of “Post-Racial or Most-Racial? Race and Politics in the Obama Era,” has pointed out, the “evidence suggests that racial resentment is driving economic anxiety, not the other way around.”"

4/6/2017 4:47:07 PM

https://twitter.com/peteralexander/status/850059818165559296

Not editorializing at all about my opinion.

But, is this not going against what he EXPLICITLY campaigned on?

4/6/2017 5:02:27 PM

bullshit that still misses the importance of intersectionalality


[Edited on April 6, 2017 at 5:17 PM. Reason : i should have said misses the point]

4/6/2017 5:12:02 PM

and what facts do you have to counter?

4/6/2017 5:13:16 PM

tesler's own data, it highlights the reaction of white democrats and others to identity politics

here is ths tl;dr
we are becoming more racist, this increased a lot during obama's first presidency. these increasing feelings drove how people feel about policy and made conservatives vote more.

people like you and shrike and the author above throw up their hands and say "see, racists are why trump won" when the reality is that not making issues intersectional in response to growing racist sentiment (and nationalist and xenophobic because of the same phenomenon), and doubling down on those same identity politics is why trump and so many republicans keep winning. identity politics are important, but you need to combat growing racism with a message that can transcend multiple groups and sanders has shown his message can do that. it doesn't mean identity politics have to be ignored, they just can't be the only thing. at some point party democrats decided they would rather take the moral high ground, and be smug and superior, instead of reaching voters and winning elections and you have to win elections


[Edited on April 6, 2017 at 5:35 PM. Reason : his book is good if you haven't read it]

4/6/2017 5:18:07 PM

Quote :

"BREAKING: Tillerson states new Trump Syria policy: regime change. "Those steps are underway" for US to lead int'l effort to remove Assad."

Translation: Russia has offered, again, to have Assad step down

4/6/2017 5:34:40 PM

http://www.pnas.org/content/111/25/9079.abstract

http://time.com/2850595/race-economy/

Quote :

"People perceive race differently during an economic downturn, a recent study suggests, and become subconsciously more prejudiced against dark-skinned people when times are tight. Researchers at New York University discovered that people with lighter skin were more likely to perceive Afrocentric features as more pronounced or "darker" during an economic downturn."

^nice way for Putin to hand Trump a win and make it look like he's a good president

[Edited on April 6, 2017 at 5:48 PM. Reason : a]

4/6/2017 5:45:30 PM

Complete 180 in policy and rhetoric. Bombing Syria as we speak.

4/6/2017 9:21:37 PM

4/6/2017 9:33:54 PM

If you want to see trumps previous thoughts on Syria, this is a good collection of his tweets http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/17-tweets-expose-donald-trump-hypocrisy-blaming-obama-syria-gas-attack-idlib-1084542694

4/6/2017 9:40:04 PM

This was inevitable really. Will be interesting to see what the gameplan is here. Is the intention just to give Assad a black eye or do they plan to go all the way to regime change? Doesn't this pave a path for ISIS to gain territory? What will Russia do? If the intention is military imposed regime change I don't see any possible upside. Trump can't pass what should have been a layup healthcare law, he has Kushner in Iraq now, I have zero confidence they know what they're doing in Syria.

4/6/2017 9:44:12 PM

https://twitter.com/christinawilkie/status/850161544273022976

MSNBC is reporting that these air strikes are all that's planned ...?

4/6/2017 10:01:49 PM

At least he knows he is desperate at this point...

[Edited on April 7, 2017 at 12:22 AM. Reason : ...]

4/7/2017 12:19:02 AM

^^^ Russia is still in the lead. Assad will step down, he will either live a comfortable life somewhere of he is lucky or Russia will allow the US to kill him so Russia is still the good guys to pro-Assad factions . Russia will replace Assad with someone they approve and will gain a military foothold in the region as they escalate actions against ISIS.

4/7/2017 5:52:10 AM

congress never voted on acts of war in syria. basically makes trump a war criminal. same for obama

4/7/2017 7:28:29 AM

That in and of itself doesn't make either a war criminal, at least internationally. In violation of the Constitution but not war criminals. Of course, both have indiscriminately killed civilians as well which does.

4/7/2017 7:45:03 AM

^^ but not Bush though, eh?



[Edited on April 7, 2017 at 9:00 AM. Reason : "BASICALLY"]

4/7/2017 9:00:30 AM

^congress passed something in 2001 to go after 9/11 conspirators

4/7/2017 10:44:20 AM

Weak jobs number today.

Fake news or thanks Obama?

4/7/2017 10:46:16 AM

Weak jobs numbers = Trump's fault. Great job numbers, great economy = trickle down from Obama's policies.

4/7/2017 11:26:20 AM

^That would be correct, considering Trump hasn't done anything yet and Obama left office with 75 months of consecutive jobs growth.

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/01/december-jobs-report/512366/

4/7/2017 11:46:29 AM

Coulter, Ingraham, Cernovich and Spencer really going after Trump right now.

Interesting to watch his base get pissed off.

Of course the establishment loves a good military campaign so it may cancel out his bases anger.

4/7/2017 3:42:03 PM

Does anyone actually believe this bombing is anything other than a smoke screen to pull attention away from the Russia investigation? If so, I have some lovely beachfront property in Arizona for you.

4/8/2017 11:54:49 AM

Quote :

"people like you and shrike and the author above throw up their hands and say "see, racists are why trump won" when the reality is that not making issues intersectional in response to growing racist sentiment (and nationalist and xenophobic because of the same phenomenon), and doubling down on those same identity politics is why trump and so many republicans keep winning. identity politics are important, but you need to combat growing racism with a message that can transcend multiple groups and sanders has shown his message can do that. it doesn't mean identity politics have to be ignored, they just can't be the only thing. at some point party democrats decided they would rather take the moral high ground, and be smug and superior, instead of reaching voters and winning elections and you have to win elections"

Establishment Democrats ain't trying to here this shit. They want a simple, two-bit analysis that doesn't challenge their parties capitalist policies that bring forth downward class mobility that drive disenfranchised whites to a ultra-nationalist message. They don't want to address their own parties complicit behavior in imperialist policies and the destabilization of sovereign nations at the behest of global corporate interests.

Nawww, they just want to point at economically frustrated, often low information voters, and scorn them for not being as "cultured," "educated," and open minded as they are. They'd rather deride these voters for not having a college degree and blame them for their own shortcomings (a la, a lack of boot straps).

And the weirdest part? Ask any of these democrats if people are born racist. They will overwhelmingly tell you that people are NOT born racists. Logically, this means that people learn racist behavior. But if you ask them what kind of conditions bring forth racist sentiments, they will conveniently ignore economic anxiety as an indicator that someone may sympathize with a nationalist message.

As for the Intercept piece posted earlier, Mehdi Hasan has been pushing this opinion for quite some time, including during his stay at Al Jazeera. Check out this interview with Noam Chomsky, where he casually dismisses Noam's careful analysis and plays the "naw, they just racist, yo" card:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1B_DKL7eH4

4/8/2017 2:53:49 PM

Kinda funny trump defended oreilly last week saying he didn't think oreilly did anything wrong, and this barely makes the news. Defending a serial sexual harasser would have been a big scandal for practically any previous presidential administration.

4/8/2017 3:52:21 PM

Quote :

"But if you ask them what kind of conditions bring forth racist sentiments, they will conveniently ignore economic anxiety as an indicator that someone may sympathize with a nationalist message."

Do people actually contest this? The bottom rung economically are always the most susceptible to nationalistic racism. Trumpism is almost wholly scapegoating subsets of people to explain his base. His entire platform was built around it.

Anyway, the scary thing about Syria is that Trump CRAVES praise. He has been getting it from the MSM and even Democratic members of congress for dropping "for show" bombs. That is not a good thing.

4/8/2017 7:27:24 PM