DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... Russia orders all officials to fly home any relatives living abroad, as tensions mount over the prospect of a global war

You talk about fallacies but then have no issue with putting tens of millions of people into one of two groups. That might not be a fallacy in the traditional sense but it's oversimplifying things for sure.

And suggesting that 50% are turdballs is a bunch of crap no matter how you word it.

I'll give you 1% and I'm hesitant to even go there as we're still talking hundreds of thousands of people.

I think that experiment would fail miserably.

It's not that it isn't a good idea. It's just the fact that Facebook doesn't exactly bring out the politness of people.

So there really no telling who believes what, or how combative a person is based off of political leanings as such.

I mean I got guys I deployed with who post some insane violent things toward obama, but in real life those guys have never once acted so hostile toward anything.

So I dunno bro.

I'm saying that the people who liked Trump's page on Facebook were people who I have always thought to be high-quality people. In many cases I did not know they were Trump supporters or even that they leaned to the right. It just kind of hit me when I saw the list. That's all.

If we were to take a base rate of 50% turdballs, then mathematically, my observation would be extraordinarily unlikely. That would call into question of whether I have somehow only been surrounded by the "good" Trump people, whether my judgement of character is lacking, or maybe that 50% number is just a bunch of bologna.

So the alt rignt is just 1%

No, THAT is a bunch of crap.

It's funny that when Hillary made that speech attempting to link Trump to the alt-right, hardly anybody here even had any idea what the alt-right was.

I don't understand how there can be a movement with a million or so Americans in it (which is about what that 1% would represent, depending on how you define a 'Trump supporter') when nobody really even knows what it is. Actually what the alt-right is is still a little bit unclear to me although I think I have the gist of it.

Like i said. We aren't united States. Far from it.

Boy would that ever send a message. But then until they sort it out, wouldn't we be stuck with Obama? maybe you want to rethink that

For me, I think it starts with Congress. I want term Limits. I want a balanced budget and I want congress and the President all to be held accountable. I mean place major penalties on them in some fashion if they don't balance the budget..... Loss of pay, fines, whatever.

People voting "none of the above" means nothing other than a fun talking point. Now if the electoral college ends in a tie the House of Representatives picks the president.

You gentlemen are bright and would know this better than me. If there was a 169 vs 169 split, would they just recount the votes before letting the house decide?

No doubt there would be a recount or three, but if there was a tie, it would go to a vote in the House.

Pence says that Russia hacking us is real (paraphrasing of course)

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-pence-idUSKBN12G0PO

Can't believe the number of times that Pence and Trump don't agree. Interesting.

How is that possible? Peen and Haus keep saying it's fake and the Dems are making things up.

At least Pence chooses his country over Russia. I'll give him that. Wish the guys who talk highly on him on this board would do the same.

I've asked for and questioned the evidence on a number of occasions. I don't think I ever said it was fake. That is a distinction with a difference.

Pence said that evidence continues to point in that direction and there should be severe consequences to Russia or any other nation if they are indeed compromising our security. That's a good point. I'll continue to keep an open mind and look at the evidence... I won't simply take one political party's opinion of it at face value.

Trump's refusal to accept intelligence briefing on Russia stuns experts

Dana Priest, Tom Hamburger
The Washington Post
link

Former senior U.S. national security officials are dismayed at Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's repeated refusal to accept the judgment of intelligence professionals that Russia stole files from the Democratic National Committee computers in an effort to influence the U.S. election.

The former officials, who have served presidents in both parties, say they were bewildered when Trump cast doubt on Russia's role after receiving a classified briefing on the subject and again after an unusually blunt statement from U.S. agencies saying they were "confident" that Moscow had orchestrated the attacks.

"It defies logic," retired Gen. Michael Hayden, former director of the CIA and the National Security Agency, said of Trump's pronouncements.

Trump has assured supporters that, if elected, he would surround himself with experts on defense and foreign affairs, where he has little experience. But when it comes to Russia, he has made it clear that he is not listening to intelligence officials, the former officials said.

"He seems to ignore their advice," Hayden said. "Why would you assume this would change when he is in office?"

The Trump campaign did not respond to requests for comment.

Several former intelligence officials interviewed this week believe that Trump is either willfully disputing intelligence assessments, has a blind spot on Russia, or perhaps doesn't understand the nonpartisan traditions and approach of intelligence professionals.

In the first debate, after intelligence and congressional officials were quoted saying that Russia almost certainly broke into the DNC computers, Trump said: "I don't think anybody knows it was Russia that broke into the DNC. I mean, it could be Russia, but it could also be China. It could also be lots of other people. It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds, okay?"

During the second presidential debate, Trump ignored what a U.S. government official said the candidate learned in a private intelligence briefing: that government officials were certain Russia hacked the DNC. That conclusion was followed by a public and unequivocal announcement by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security that Russia was to blame.

"Maybe there is no hacking," Trump said during that debate.

"I don't recall a previous candidate saying they didn't believe" the information from an intelligence briefing, said John Rizzo, a former CIA lawyer who served under seven presidents and became the agency's acting general counsel. "These are career people. They aren't administration officials. What does that do to their morale and credibility?"

Former acting CIA director John MacLaughlin said all previous candidates took the briefings to heart.

"In my experience, candidates have taken into the account the information they have received and modulated their comments," he said. Trump, on the other hand, "is playing politics. He's trying to diminish the impression people have that [a Russian hack of the DNC] somehow helps his cause."

On Thursday, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, said information she received has led her to conclude that Russia is attempting "to fix this election." She called on Trump and elected officials from both parties "to vocally and forcefully reject these efforts."

Trump has consistently adopted positions likely to find favor with the Kremlin. He has, for instance, criticized NATO allies for not paying their fair share and defended Russian President Vladimir Putin's human rights record.

"It's remarkable that he's refused to say an unkind syllable about Vladimir Putin," Hayden said. "He contorts himself not to criticize Putin."

Trump's running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, said in the vice-presidential debate last week that the United States should "use military force" against the Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.

Trump disagreed. Rather than challenge Assad and his Russian ally, Trump said in the second debate, the United States should be working with them against the Islamic State. "Assad is killing ISIS. Russia is killing ISIS. Iran is killing ISIS," he said, using an acronym for the Islamic State. Russia and Syria have mostly been targeting opposition groups as well as civilians trapped in Aleppo - not the Islamic State.

"That's the Syrian, Russia, Iranian narrative," Hayden said of Trump's assertions.

The Washington Post's Greg Miller contributed to this report.

Time out Buddy. I never said that. I think they probably did....good for them and bad for us.....maybe this country needs to get on the ball once again. President Obama has let this country fall to crap, but that was his plan.

Wake up calls can hurt....time to wake up and keep our eye on the eight-ball. Like I told you last night, maybe you need to refix your sights from 1000 yards to 50 yards. It's right in front of you and you can't see it. Yet, I hope.

Except it wasn't a wake up call.

What your saying is spreading misinformation.

And now you can't even defend your comments. Your boy Pence took our country over Russia, and all you can do is try and moon walk.

It's ok Peen.make sure you wear a jacket when you move to Russia. Them winters are rough bro.

More of the same kid.



I hope you heal. I really do.

Heal from what? I'm not broken I know what country I belong to.

Oh, and it sucked when FDR took over.....LOl....stay current Mac. We weren't on the threat of war with Russia....friggen North Korea is now a threat due to weak leadership the last 8 years.

Better than it is today. Is that answer enough for you?? I have spelled it out before. Everything is all screwed up at this point. I am not going to keep repeating myself because you can't keep up with what has been said..

100 million "None of the above" votes would get the attention of both parties so that in 2020 (if we are all still here)we might have somebody actually worth voting for.

Seriously,,,, We were better than today?

I want some of what you are smoking.

I wonder if people like you even understand that the Clintons and Obama all three have made it a prioirty to strip the USA of its wealth and spread it to places like Mexico. It' is their world philosophy that the USA should make itself poorer to make these other countries richer.

Why? Because they believe that if they make those countries more wealthy that it will create markets to sell USA goods and that by making them richer countries they will eventually see increased wages that catch up to ours.

The major flaw is that it doesn't work because these countries are controlled by a very small portion of the very rich and upper class who treat the avg mexican as being less valuable than their dog.

100% of our taxes are supposed to come from tariffs on foreign goods and sales tax. By raising taxes on good produced with slave labor aka china or mexico, it takes away the advantage of companies leaving the USA to avoid taxes and high labor costs.

This issue alone is enough to justify not voting for Hilary and her plans to have another 8 years of robbing Americans to build up other countries at the expense of our jobs.

I wonder if people like you remember that NAFTA was a George H.W. Bush concoction.

Clinton didn't stop it, Bush didn't try to stop it and Obama didn't try to stop it

But it's time you realize that the reason they didn't try to stop it is because all the big money folks, GM, Eaton, Ford, Chrysler etc... wanted it and that's why nobody will step up to change it.

One of the mantras of the Obama campaign in 2008 was to change NAFTA and Other trade deals that didn't seem to help the USA. He couldn't get it done, or didn't want to because of the big money boys.

Trump says he wants changes in trade laws as well. What on earth makes you think he can accomplish it if the last 4 presidents couldn't or didn't want to.'

In the last page I've heard that North Korea is a threat to us and that Clinton is making Mexico rich as an attempt to turn us back into an industrial society. And here I thought, I was high.

Reading it doesn't make you high, believing it does.

This really has nothing to do with elections, but it does have everything to do with Washington's failed foreign policy.

If we don't get our heads out of our arse and soon, we are going to be on an unavoidable road leading to a showdown with China and Russia.

We need to figure out some way to work together, because if we don't...the freedoms we hold dear...our way of life could be in jeopardy...and not just our way of life in the USA, but the whole world...the last thing any of us need is WW3....

One thing I'm not sure is talked about enough, is DJT's knowledge of these hacks. Roger Stone, DJT's ally, tweeted about the Podesta emails in August. Paul Manafort, another DJT ally, used to work for the pro-Russia faction of the Ukraine. DJT has even said he has real estate efforts in Russia.

North Korea is not a threat to anyone except South Korea and Japan and the overall stability of the region. In the last 5 years they have attacked and sunk numerous naval ships from both South Korea and Japan. They have also taken pot shots at US merchant ships several times to harass them. IF you think there is not a volatile and dangerous situation there then you are very wrong.

In just one week of war between North and South Korea Seoul which is a major economic interests of the USA would be gone. Not to nukes but to old fashioned artillery shells because North Korea has thousands of them that are aimed and can attack at a moments notice. There is no defense vs this kind of attack if North Korea attacks first.

Even though a good 10-15 million people would be dead inside of a week this is not the real threat. The real threat is that China would back North Korea and the USA and China would be drawn into war backing each of our allies. Both Countries would be ripe for China to mop them up later on and cease to exist.

When it comes to Mexico the USA gives so much aid per year to their government that we are the single largest source of income for their country. PERIOD. We could easily pay for a wall along the border just by not sending them aid for a single year. The reason we keep giving them aid is because China is jumping at the bit to become their new sugar daddies to gain access to their old fields and mineral rights. China is already investing in Land in Mexico because of the benefits of NAFTA. They can build a factory there and then ship to the USA to avoid tariffs of any kind by saying they were made in Mexico even though labor cost would go up by at least 200%.

In reality forcing Mexicans to stay in their own country and deal with their problems instead of running to the USA to be used as slave labor would benefit them greatly. They need to stand up to their corrupt government and kill off their drug cartels.

I'd be much more willing to make them part of the Union than to leave them floundering like they are now. At least then they would have rights and our government could root out the problems permanently. There are lots of good people in Mexico that don't deserve to be stuck under the thumb of such an incompetent government.

Agreed.
100%



Disagreed, 100%. And here's why:

China is increasingly seeing North Korea and it's "pain in the ass little brother"... and has been distancing themselves from The Kims for more than 10 years now. It's in their best interest to do so, now that they've positioned themselves as significant World Players.

They AREN'T going to jeopardize their standing on the world stage over a 'down-river country cousin' whom they've only ever used as a global bargaining chip. The INSTANT that Kim Jong Un becomes a global political liability that outweighs his usefulness to China, they'll drop him like that crazy girlfriend who was good for daily drama- but lousy in bed.

Kim Jong Il was a constant headache for them, and "Li'l Kim" is even worse. They're trying to move on from The Cold War Years,- because it's in their best interests to do so.

Trust this: China is NOT happy with the baggage NK presents. His 'Second World Wannabe' antics are f-ing with their long-range plans. They'll continue to prop him up, until the liabilities outweigh the assets.

And that time is fast coming.

NK is NOT the strategic enclave/location it once was. This isn't 1954... and China is poised to overtake Russia on the world stage in just a few years- not by military power, but by global economic means. They took steps that Russia was to stupid to capitalize on when the Berlin Wall fell... and now, Russia's on its heels. Getting left behind.

I truly think that THIS FACT ALONE is why Putin is moving so aggressively to reconstruct the Soviet Bloc. It's his best chance for long-term survival of 'the old ways'... the only system he has ever known.

The only system/world dynamic in which he (and his ilk) was relevant.

He's as old as Trump... and he's trying to play out the last moves of a game that long-since passed him by.

Trump (and folks who think like him) only seem to see the moves that Putin makes from on checkers playing board.

As a person who has played chess for 40 of his 60 years on this planet, I see a player who is grasping at straws: making bold moves on the board, hoping that something might take. It almost never works. We're talking about "crazy odds against" here.

The embargoes have crippled Russia's economy.
Oil/gas prices have been depressed for almost 2 full years.
Eastern Bloc countries are (slowly) getting their resources from places other than Mother Russia.
Russia is now dipping into her 'rainy-day fund' just to stay afloat... at a rate that will render her bankrupt in less than 12 months.

____________

Putin is desperate... and that is why he's ramping up his attacks, his Crimea annexation initiatives, his presence in Syria, and his cyber-attempts to keep Hillary Clinton out of office. He knows that she has 'continuity' with the present admin from her days as Sec. Of State, -and his best chance at short-term survival is to manipulate a political neophyte into the office of POTUS.

Putin is a wounded, cornered animal.

He's hitched his last, best hope for survival on another wounded, cornered animal... in the form of a political 'never-was' who is clearly out of his depth as a serious World Player.

Russia remains relevant as a world power ONLY if Donald Trump is elected POTUS.

If anyone else is elected, China needs only to talk with US, to make things happen.

The KGB is 20th C.
Trump is 20th C.

The 20th C. has been dead for 1.6 decades already.
New solutions are being primed to eradicate old problems.
Get on board- or get left behind.

You can call me crazy but for some reason I think Trump would get along with Putin better than Clinton for some reason. I think he would conduct the interaction like a business deal. Clinton on the other hand, is dangerous, I wouldn't know what to expect from her. That might sound crazy to some but that's how I feel.

You had a lot to say. You ignore one fact though. North Korea or Russia when desperate will go on a rampage that will cost millions of lives. A korean war will mean 5-10 million dead in 7 days just from South Korea alone. That's a fact and its why anyone pays attention at all to them. patriot missile defense systems don't do anything versus 1,000s of long range ballistic artillery.

Also Russia is no where near broke. They recently made a major deal to sell oil to China. They are fine.

I'm glad you touched on it. If we got into a conflict with Russia, how long would it take before its civilians rebelled?

Yeah...

All Trump is gonna do is disrespect China and [censored] them off. People discuss Hillary not being friends with Russia. Do you think China and Trump will be buddies?

[quote][/quote]http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/16/news/economy/russia-cash-reserves-depleted/

Russia is bleeding cash at an alarming rate.

After almost two years in recession, the country's rainy day fund has shrunk to just $32.2 billion this month, according to the Russian Finance Ministry. It was $91.7 billion in September 2014, just before oil prices started to collapse.

And it's getting worse. Analysts expect the fund will shrink to just $15 billion by the end of this year and dry up completely soon after that.

"At the current rate, the fund would be depleted in mid-2017, perhaps a few months later," Ondrej Schneider, chief economist at the Institute of International Finance, wrote in a note this week.
The government's reserve fund is designed to cover shortfalls in the national budget at times of low oil and gas revenues.
Russia's 2016 budget is based on the assumption the country would be able to sell its oil for $50 per barrel.

But the average oil price in the first eight months of the year was less than $43 per barrel. Oil now makes up just 37% of all government revenues, compared to roughly 50% just two years ago.
The government will reveal next year's budget after a parliamentary election this weekend.

This slump means the government is having to tap the rainy day fund again and again. The government indicated that once the reserves are depleted, it may have to turn to its welfare fund. Kremlin says the welfare fund has over $70 billion in it. The fund is not intended to cover budget shortfalls, but rather to finance future pensions and large-scale investment projects.

Schneider said the assets in the fund are less liquid, so it might even be technically impossible for the government to withdraw from it aggressively.

Russia's central bank cut interest rates on Friday, to 10% from 10.50%, in a further attempt to kick start the economy.
The central bank still has $395 billion in international reserves, down from $524 billion in October 2013. The bank burned through more than $140 billion in foreign currency reserves between 2014 and 2015, trying to defend the ruble from collapsing.

The strategy didn't work and the bank slowly abandoned it. The ruble dropped to the lowest ever in January, when it was trading at 82 rubles per U.S. dollar. It is now trading at 65 rubles per dollar.
Related: Russians are getting angry about the economy
The slump in oil prices has hit Russia at the time it was already suffering because of economic sanctions imposed by Western countries over its role in the crisis in Ukraine.

They've cut off Russia's most important companies from European financing, banned imports of certain products and froze funds of key officials.

Russia retaliated by imposing import restrictions on European food products. That caused a headache to European farmers, but also pushed Russian inflation to double digit levels.

http://www.nationaldebtclocks.org/debtclock/russia

$150,000,000,000.00

http://www.nationaldebtclocks.org/debtclock/unitedstates

$20,000,000,000,000.00

And half a trillion in interest every year... more than 3x Russia's total debt.

"Well, what about GDP" you ask. US's GDP is 8x Russia's, hardly enough to compensate for that huge difference.

USA GDP: Gross domestic product: 16.77 trillion USD (2013)
Russia GDP: Gross domestic product: 2.097 trillion USD (2013)