US Politics

racism was the big factor in trumps victory

Of course, just as it was with Brexit

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-39497447

It's difficult not to see Trump's missile strike as a jingoistic ploy to divert attention from the net that is closing in about all the Russian links. And as many have noted if he cared about the welfare of Syrians he wouldn't be pursuing his restrictive immigration policy.

It's a fair turnaround from his Tweets when Obama was intervening in Syria.
#badman

Given he warned both the Russians and the Syrians beforehand, few lives were lost and Sputnik photos show only a couple out of maybe a dozen fighter planes destroyed (and no runway busting, which you'd want to do if you actually wanted to degrade the facility), I think this is just a very handy way to put clear water between Trump and the Kremlin.

I'm hoping that it's just opportunistic, because if they got Assad to gas a bunch of innocents to create a fucking narrative then everything is wrong in this world.

How come Melania is featured waterskiing in the latest Thunderbirds-themed Halifax advert?

I'm burning all my Ice T cassettes when I get home. I expected better of him.

And Woody Harrrellsson has gained weight too.

Good thread here with a more detailed and similar takedown

https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/850380219961815040?s=09

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/851767718248361986

USA, USA!

Amazing, there is a response that starts:

Donald you need to chill bruv.

That's not the amazing part. The amazing part is that tweet is from Ronnie O'Sullivan, the snooker player.

https://twitter.com/ronnieo147/status/851773980860194816

Used there instead of their tho so I doubt he'll hold much sway with the Don

sean spicer's hot take on events in syria:

"even hitler didn't use chemical weapons"

winning bigly.

The apology is PR gold dust. By saying "..there is no comparison" to Holocaust he appears appropriately humbled, but essentially he is just maintaining his stance by making a pointless distinction.

He is part of the administration that denied the holocaust, he may genuinely believe what he was saying (and then had to awkwardly backtrack) on live TV.

Trump says he told President Xi about US missile strikes in Syria over “the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake”

https://twitter.com/BraddJaffy/status/852153553493864452

Iraq? Syria? One of those forrin places anyway.

Uuurgh i cant stand the fawing and fan girl of the interviewer, shes like a giddy school girl, but i guess thats how Trump wants the interview to go. Oh and america the bestist military tech ever.

All that 'mother of all bombs' stuff is just so exciting. There's even a video where we can see the thing go off.
It's like we're back to the good old days of the late 1990s early 2000s, with all sorts of guided, surgical, pre-emptive and so on.
How to stop never-ending hand wringing about the 'legacy' of those wars? Turns out was much easier than anyone would have thought; just start the whole thing all over again.

Mother of all diversions bomb you mean?

Afghanistan, Korean peninsula, Syria just three places where Trump has engaged military personel this week.

A quick look at Wikipedia tells me it's not necessarily considered the most effective way of bombing something either. Repeated strikes with smaller bombs could supposedly work better, and to me the latter seems perfectly doable against an enemy with no air force of their own. Also, Wiki estimates that one such bomb costs $16 million. (But then again, for that money you get a bomb with its own PR package.)
Apparently, the only use that could just about defend such a cost would be a considerable underground cave system.

My guess is they looked around until they could find an enemy location with a cave system just complex enough to justify the need to drop a media friendly bomb. I've seen no report on how much the loss of that location actually hurt the enemy tactically.