US Politics

oh how glorious would that be

Yup. It's when not if.

Everyone up to date on Mike Pence?

don't tell me

kkk connections and links to the mob ?

They denied Reagan's dementia too, if I recall.

He was a Democrat in the 80's, got involved in politics, inspired by Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. and became a born again christian at college where his political views changed.

From there he became rather right-wing – all the usual republican stuff in terms of guns, renewable energy, abortion etc etc. How much of it is his real opinion is entirely up for speculation though.

He's not the Zodiac killer though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence

i for one, am looking forward to the first mid-term presidential divorce case.

There were some entertaining signs about Melania at the women's march. Quite a few people had variations on this theme.

I wouldn't have liked to be Melania after that footage of Trump turning round to look at her was circulated. It's clearly going to be a difficult time for her.

This is fact. Im sure they are already sitting on impeachable info in his taxes.

Meanwhile his people are deleting tweets from National Parks.

I doubt it'll come from his taxes. More likely one of the three-letter agencies will eventually gather enough unequivocal evidence of outside influence that it would deem him compromised.

He is in debt to more than one foreign government, don't underestimate how bad full financial disclosure will be. Thats why they are still hiding it.

And its not in Russia's interest to keep him in power, getting him in power, letting him run amok then dumping the dirt and letting him get impeached does even more damage.

(I weep for my country)

I wouldn't have liked to be Melania after that footage of Trump turning round to look at her was circulated.

What footage is that?

Pence is the type of arsehole that wants to defund Planned Parenthood, because they have the audacity of offer abortions... as 3% of their income VS all the STD testing, cancer screening, contraception....

A manipulatable idiot VS somebody with principles who doesn't care how many victims he makes with his anti-abortion stance, women will die.

With recognition of the harm Trump's policies will cause to those living in America, I must say there's something about the isolationism that is... good? Less bad? Lucky? It's a huge - and positive - change from Bush's neo-conservative "Project for a New American Century" madness.

I'd be much happier if Britain wasn't pretending it too could play the isolationist super power game.

Yeah, it seems like less of a bad thing when a heavily armed superpower decides to do it but makes a small country like this look like something out of the Wicker Man.

What footage is that?

There's a link to a twitter upthread that's since been deleted. I believe this is where she looks pretty down / miserable for the duration, lights up when Trump turns to look at her, then turns off again instantly the minute he turns back again.

It's hard not to have some level of sympathy for her - I imagine she was resigned to making a deal with the devil for her lifestyle but probably couldn't reasonably expect this.

The problem is that its really not better, less bad or positive than the Obama doctrine. Bush was shit, specifically when it came to military intervention. But, he also pushed policies regarding humanitarian aid and specifically aids prevention and eradication that trump will unwind. And what we know of the Trump/Tillerson ideas about foreign policy isn't really isolationism. More lighting someones house on fire then going home, until you get bored and burn another house down.

he turns round does an air kiss to her, she lights up at the precious moment, as soon as his back is turned she pulls an awkward face and looks, well, awkward

I purposefully didn't mention Obama because I didn't want to see an argument follow. Obama's foreign policy - especially extrajudicial murder - was bad. What I wanted to do was compare it to the last Republican regime. A policy which wanted to reshape the world in the image of America via interventionist policies.

Trump may turn out to not be an isolationist, however. You're right. And then everything will be just as bad/worse. But thus far, beyond making some dumb phone calls, his policy seems to be directed toward economic isolationism.

http://theslot.jezebel.com/melania-trump-definitely-loves-her-husband-and-is-very-1791531766

The reality is that direct intervention, or as you prefer extrajudicial murder, is and always has been a part of of the toolkit used by powerful nations. For me the smaller the footprint the better, and the Obama doctrine of foreign policy embodied that. Especially since allot of it was cleaning up after Bush.

Economically its America First, rather that isolationism. But they have done more then make dumb phone calls already regarding FP.

I'll repeat this re: Obama

I purposefully didn't mention Obama because I didn't want to see an argument follow.

Anyway, you clearly have a better sense of his FP than I do. What is it that you're referring to? I'm missing some key events/issues. What I've seen has been about economic isolationism, and withdrawal, or shift of, military burdens away from the US (Nato, East Asia) when it comes to alliances. Two other FP issues come to mind - his policy on Taiwan (mentioned) and his policy on Israel.

Israel policy is moving beyond talk, relocating the embassy is the end of the two state solution.

Taiwan is just part of the China problem. Baiting a trade war, Tillerson talked about kicking the Chinese off disputed island during his confirmation hearing.

Talks of removing Russian sanctions (FUCK)

Withdrawing or limiting support to Nato/UN

Already working towards ending/limiting humanitarian aid in the developing world.

A good inside story of the first 5 days

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/01/trump-aides-cant-stop-blabbing-about-how-hes-a-madman.html