He's unquestionably getting pardoned. I disagree that we should feel good about another rich asshole getting off the hook because some other rich asshole wouldn't like it.
would_be_appreciated
joined 1 month ago
Assuming by "economy" we mean "wall street's ledgers," there could easily be a massive correction/recession/depression coming up, and the president wouldn't make much of a difference there. What they do to recover from it could differ a lot, as seen with Trump/Biden, Bush/Obama, or any number of older examples.
What is your alternative to sanctions?
The short answer:
The same alternative that's been the best and most effective alternative throughout literally all of history: diplomacy with a focus on improving the lives of the general populace. Working with the UN as well as groups like Amnesty international, Doctors Without Borders, and Reporters Without Borders to accomplish that end goal.
The longer answer:
We knew the Taliban was going to get back into power after the U.S. influenced those events. We knew somebody like Maduro was going to get into power after the U.S. influenced those events. And we knew somebody like Putin was going to get into power after the U.S. influenced those events. These were either a result of total incompetence (likely, in at least Afghanistan's case) or intentional (as with something like Allende/Pinochet). It's not easy for anybody to prove which of these was intentional, but it's worth noting they're not always trying their best to help the people of the country they're intervening in or the people of the U.S., they're trying their best to accumulate wealth and power.
Historically, problems like this have always popped up because of power and wealth imbalance. You can prevent these problems by ensuring people are living happy, healthy lives. Sometimes, as with South Korea, Japan, Israel, or West Germany, it means propping up their economies and making sure they develop quickly. They become allies awfully quickly that way, even if they were sworn enemies just a few years prior (as with Japan or Germany). But even if you can't occupy them with military force and control their every move, softening relations tends to lead to better outcomes. North Korea was actually being somewhat cooperative with Clinton until W threw a shitfit. Iran's compliance with safety inspectors has been directly related to how the international community - mainly the U.S. - treats them. Calling these two countries the Axis of Evil along with Iraq and then invading Iraq was a very, very poor way to keep them from developing nuclear weapons.
So no, I don't believe in just letting them "do whatever they want" because that's also shown to be a terrible mistake time after time. Letting Hitler do whatever he want obviously was a mistake, but letting Hitler get into power in the first place by imposing a crushingly bad economy on the Germans was what created the opportunity to make that mistake in the first place. The U.S., as the most powerful economic and militaristic country in the world for decades, and as one that has consistently intervened to cause these issues in a very direct way, can fix these issues if they want to. Hell, they could prevent some of them just by not doing shit like this in the first place.
The real answer:
The U.S. has over 13,000 people in the U.S. Foreign Service. It's their job to figure out the intricacies of diplomacy, not ours. People are dying and they're failing to solve that problem.
And lastly, I'm pretty sure you've decided I'm on the wrong side so you won't read any of this and you certainly won't look at it as a nuanced, good faith approach, but it was a good exercise for me anyway.
It's not about feeling bad for Maduro or the Russians, it's about wanting the U.S. to be more productive instead of whatever this is. Snatching up Russian yachts hasn't done shit to stop hundreds of thousands of people being killed or wounded in Ukraine. Taking Maduro's plane isn't going to give freedom of press and election oversight to the Venezuelans.
It's just grandstanding and trying to make people feel like the "right side is winning" when actually, everybody's going to keep on losing because the power majority isn't actually fixing anything.
Wet-bulb weather is when, because of a combination of humidity and heat, you can’t naturally cool off with things like sweat.
This isn't quite right, even though the gist of it ends up being right. This is one of very few things I'm legitimately an expert in, so I don't want to let it go uncorrected not because it makes a big difference, but because it just feels weird not to and maybe somebody will be interested.
Dry bulb temperature is what you typically read when you're looking at a thermometer. The bulb, the thing that's checking the temperature, is literally dry. To get a wet bulb reading, you essentially put a wet sock around a thermometer (to get a "psychrometer") and swing it around for a while, because you get a different reading when the water is evaporating off it. So when the air is fully saturated (100% humidity, standing in a cloud), your wet bulb and dry bulb readings will be the same. In all other cases, your wet bulb temperature will be lower.
"Wet bulb weather" isn't really a phrase people use. High wet bulb, high relative humidity, high absolute humidity - all the same thing (and in fact, if you have just one of those and the dry bulb temperature, you can calculate the others). They just measure how wet the air is in slightly different ways.
Yeah, his alternative energy push was definitely positive, he just didn't have the political capital or savvy to make anything of it. He admittedly walked into a pretty raw deal with stagflation and an energy crisis, but he handled them so poorly it's hard to justify cutting him any slack. Telling the public energy is in short supply so they're going to have to make sacrifices is a losing strategy no matter what you're advocating for.
He's referring to this cover from April 14, 1980: https://content.time.com/time/magazine/archive/covers/1980/1101800414_400.jpg The full article is here: https://time.com/archive/6857830/key-to-a-wider-peace/
It's not hard-hitting journalism by any means, but it recognizes the idea that maybe not everybody loves the idea of Israel wiping out the Palestinians. That's progress to some degree for US mass media 44 years ago.
The AP article for those that don't want to listen: https://apnews.com/article/raiders-nfl-vegas-police-allegiant-stadium-5239b9962c23a6512fa2f694add9b9ea
The highlight for me is this:
The Las Vegas Police Protective Association, with the backing of the department, said they are concerned such technology compromises the officers’ privacy.
It's worth noting they're only doing this for workers, not for attendees. The police would presumably by fine with it if it were just attendees and not workers, because it wouldn't include them.
It worked out pretty well for Carter's policies, even if he only got one term. Carter ran openly as a centrist, and his fiscal conservatism was very popular. The left-ish wing of the Democratic party started an "Anybody But Carter" campaign during the primaries for exactly that reason. Lots of policies he advocated for got passed during his presidency: he deregulated the airlines, the trucking industry, railroads, banking - and that was a great trial run for Reagan's followups (and Bush, and Clinton, and W).
But Carter was both too conservative and wildly incompetent for the job. With somewhat liberal Dems having the majority in both houses and universal health care being a big issue at the time, and with Ted Kennedy as majority leader trying to push it through, Carter still opposed it on the basis of cost. Of course it died, as did any other progressive or even moderately liberal ideas that cost money.
What I'm saying is fuck Carter. He's done a great job rehabbing his image but he was a bad president his presidency is rightfully maligned by both the right and the left. But he got a lot of policies through that he liked.
I actually really hate NPR for this article because they waffled so much.
After confusion over his stance on abortion rights, former President Donald Trump is clearing things up.
His stance was not confusing and was abundantly clear, as they state later in the article:
On Thursday, Trump indicated he would vote in favor of abortion rights in his home state of Florida, where it is on the ballot. Saying he thinks the "six week [ban] is too short," he said he favored "more time."
When asked explicitly, "so you'll vote in favor of the amendment?", Trump seemed to affirm that he would.
"I'm going to be voting that we need more than six weeks," he told NBC News in an interview, before saying he favored exceptions in abortion law for the life of the mother, rape and incest.
They don't even give that part straight. Saying he "indicated" makes it sound like there was some wiggle room, or miscommunication, possibly on the part of the reader/listener. There wasn't. He plainly said in no uncertain terms that he was voting for the amendment. Then his campaign said WAIT NO DON'T SAY THAT because they think it's a dumb move given his base. So he reversed his position.
He didn't "clarify" shit. He said one thing and within a DAY he said the exact opposite.
I've never seen this - not just from that instance, but literally anywhere on the internet, even back in the forum or bb days. But I've been looking for something like that for years, and I'd be interested. Do you know of any specific examples of this happening?