Hail To The Chief (Read Mod Warning In OP)

FA Hayek wrote: »

Nail on head. The mainstream media were pretty much in the pocket of Obama and they did not have much care nor passion to out the distasteful aspects of his administration.

Now we have Trump and the media have pretty much left every single journalistic principle at the door so long as the 'get him'. Hence, the false amplification of Trump and every single little thing he does or does not do wether it be positive or negative. A classic case of the boy who cried wolf.

The mainstream media, who have gotten it all wrong in the past 18 months, who should have fired all their top political journalists and analysts have instead doubled down in an effort to save face and most importantly their power as the gatekeeper of the news and truth.

My advice, put all media about Trump on mute for a few months. Don't listen to any of it.

Fox certainly wasn't in Obama's pocket. Regarding MSM, personally, I've always found the BBC to be reasonably fair-minded and as informative as a news organisation can be.

Do you think that all people should stop reading/watching/listening to all news about Trump? Do you not think there might be a problem with that?

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Not exactly; the problem was always where to send them. Letting them go scot free probably wouldn't have worked. Diplomacy takes time, and with the Congressional shift to the tGOP in 2010, that was it, the Congress has blocked every move since.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/12/obama-guantanamo-bay/511349/

The number of remaining prisoners is about 50 in total, down from 780 at its peak under GWB. The PEOTUS hasn't exactly embraced the idea of shutting it down, either, per the article quoted above and this: http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2016/11/14/502007304/trump-has-vowed-to-fill-guantanamo-with-some-bad-dudes-but-who
where he babbles on about putting *more* people there. Not clear who, but "not clear" and Trump are synonymous. Perhaps Trump thinks Americans accused of terrorism should be sent there. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and say he means Americans *convicted* of terrorism should go there. Of course, non-military prisoners (i.e., the hypothetical Americans accused of terrorism) in military prisons I *expect* is legal, there is a law that passed in 2011 that talks about this: http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/01/02/president-obama-signed-the-national-defense-authorization-act-now-what/#3bf64880700c but it's not clear to me what the state of the law is, and whether it's being challenged, etc.

But, it would be very amusing if terrorists like the Cliven Bundy crew ended up in Gitmo (amusing, in a schadenfreude kind of way.) Maybe Trump'll make that happen.

Anita Blow wrote: »

NATO is one of the single biggest tools the US has to ensure its control in the world. Trump lacks any ability to see into the medium-long term. If he loses NATO, the US loses a large amount of influence over Europe. It then spurs the EU to militarise itself (we can already see this with the recent formation of the EDF in the EU) and suddenly we have an independent military power no longer reliant on the US.
Interestingly Article 5 of NATO has only been invoked once, and it was when the 'parasitic' European members came to the defence of the US following 9/11 and joined the US in it's invasion of Afghanistan.

All well and good but looking at things from this loon's point of view he is probably asking "Do we really need NATO? What's it for? How is it good for America? Is there a cheaper way of getting what we want?"

And the answers would appear to be "Yes."

For a start America, as has been pointed out, has the biggest defence spend in the world, larger than many of the next biggest spenders put together.

Why does it need poxy little countries like Denmark, Belgium, Netherlands, Norway, Estonia etc, none of whom have a nuclear warhead between them, when it can count on the unflinching support of two nuclear-armed powers, both of whom are isolated, or in the process of becoming isolated, from their neighbours and who are happy to be at the services of America's every whim?

I refer of course to Britain and Israel, the Crabbe and Goyle to America's Draco Malfoy.

With Britain gone, who is the major military lynchpin of the EU? France. Now granted it has its nuclear deterrent and its own military industry and a historic reputation for building excellent war planes (Mirage III) but it has always ploughed its own furrow, is not part of the Eurofighter consortium and has only recently, and reluctantly, rejoined NATO fully. Would it want to shoulder the full responsibilty for defence of the EU? I suspect not

Germany has large restrictions on its own armaments industry and indeed its military. Who else is there of any size? Italy???

With the EU's largest military member now looking to cut its ties pretty drastically we are looking at a new international strategic situation that is downright dangerous. US, Britain and Israel and a very strange relationship with Putin's nuclear armed Russia. Europe represents a major power vacuum at the moment.

I'm not saying thermo nuclear war is likely to break out but remember Theodore Roosevelt's famous saying that one should speak softly and carry a large stick? The EU can shout all it likes but the other guys are the ones with the big sticks.

At the moment.

We are seeing a major strategic realignment of powers in and around Europe. Worrying times.

Little CuChulainn wrote: »

But that didn't actually happen. They were snubbed by the president for an actual appearance and they missed an interview with someone else because they assumed they would get an automatic spot.

And despite how small an issue it was, the White House did apologise and CNN and the other networks stood with Fox.

What did happen is Obama has had a go at Fox news multiple times



starts at 1.22

But now CNN and Buzzfeed got called out on there BS suddenly the press is under attack!

And even if Obama did boycott Fox, that is no cause to simply allow what went on with CNN to happen.

If Fox didn't stand up for themselves, or other media outlets didn't help then shame on them, but it in no way makes what Trump did to CNN acceptable

Satriale wrote: »

But if one does exist and we all know about it, what harm done, cant be blackmailed now.

We haven't seen it yet.