The Great Debate

[WyattEarp]

Here you go, Wyatt. Read up and absorb the facts over fiction that Trump lays out. My original reply was to Ritchie who believes in nonsense but since you stepped in, here you go.

Trump claimed no U.S. troops died in Afghanistan for 18 months. Here's a fact check.

Government data shows while there was an 18-month period with no U.S. troop deaths in Afghanistan, Trump was not in office for all of this time.

www.cbsnews.com

ps...what data have you provided??

See this helps to put it into context. I literally tried to determine why you were mentioning military deaths in Afghanistan at that point.

As far as fact checks, probably not one of the strongest. It could be considered quibbling. I'm guessing Trump is taking credit for negotiating a cease fire of sorts in return for U.S. withdrawal.

 

[mandrill]

 

[mandrill]

I don’t get it. Hasn’t this been done to make fun of Trump and his supporters? And they are dumb enough to like it?

Mitch likes it. Draw your own conclusions.

 

[mandrill]

See this helps to put it into context. I literally tried to determine why you were mentioning military deaths in Afghanistan at that point.

As far as fact checks, probably not one if the strongest. It could be considered quibbling. I'm guessing Trump is taking credit for negotiating a cease fire of sorts in return for U.S. withdrawal.

Didn't Trump have the Taliban visit him at Camp David or some crazy shit like that?!

 

[WyattEarp]

Didn't Trump have the Taliban visit him at Camp David or some crazy shit like that?!

Yeah, he served them barbecued pork ribs.

 

[squeezer]

Didn't Trump have the Taliban visit him at Camp David or some crazy shit like that?!

Yes he did and he probably showed them the wonderful love letter given to him by the leader of North Korea.

 

[squeezer]

Yeah, he served them barbecued pork ribs.

Wrong again, it was steak!!!

 

[mandrill]

Yeah, he served them barbecued pork ribs.

Probably claimed it was Ohio catlets.

 

[Big Rig]

I think this is a heavily skewed and limited interpretation of what is happening with German energy.

The one thing I know of the Continental European governments is that they do not like criticism from the U.S. and will not be forthright about what is happening. Hey, they're politicians too. They're not holy men.

Good point Wyatt!

Such info should come from an independent source which the moderaters did not have

They should have been better prepared for such an important debate IMHO
like Earp was in the shootout at Tombstone LOL

 

[squeezer]

 

[Skoob]

Um, there was a pandemic during your cult leader's menacing run which kind of stopped most dictators in their tracks. Yet more American soldiers were killed in Afghanistan during the Trump administration than in the Biden admin. Hmmmm, interesting little tidbit eh Scoob?

You're kidding right?

Pandemic had nothing to do with it and happened in his last year in office.

The US pulled out of Afghanistan in 2021. Biden was in office 6 months when that happened and 13 soldiers were killed during the withdrawal alone. That's about how many were killed each year in Afghanistan during Trump's term.

Do you want a real interesting tidbit? Total US soldiers killed during Trump's term in Afghanistan was about 70. During Obama's last 4 years in office: 500+

Care to twist yourself into more a pretzel?

 

[Shaquille Oatmeal]

Fact is, no one invaded anyone while he was in power.

Everyone invaded everyone when the Dems took office.

That is possibly the most cop out explanation I have come across in some time leaving out all the inconvenient facts and the foreign policy positions Trump took during his time in office. Trump consistently put down NATO, and took the side of Putin. Obviously Putin did not have a reason to invade in that case, with someone like Trump doing his work for him.

 

[shack]

Yeah, he served them barbecued pork ribs.

Back or side.

 

[Frankfooter]

It's not about any plan...it's about hypocrisy.

You just can't wrap your brain around your own hypocrisy and distract to irrelevant details.
Give it up...your distraction proves your hypocrisy.

You're trolling again.
Let us know if you ever want to get on topic.

 

[squeezer]

You're kidding right?

Pandemic had nothing to do with it and happened in his last year in office.

The US pulled out of Afghanistan in 2021. Biden was in office 6 months when that happened and 13 soldiers were killed during the withdrawal alone. That's about how many were killed each year in Afghanistan during Trump's term.

Do you want a real interesting tidbit? Total US soldiers killed during Trump's term in Afghanistan was about 70. During Obama's last 4 years in office: 500+

Care to twist yourself into more a pretzel?

So tell me, do you believe Trump's claims that Haitians are eating pets and states are committing infanticide which just happens to be illegal everywhere?

Scoob, watch Bill and tell me how it makes your head pop.

@wyatt.earp there is an educational bit on tariffs I think will benefit you, my friend.

 

[The Oracle]

So tell me, do you believe Trump's claims that Haitians are eating pets and states are committing infanticide which just happens to be illegal everywhere?

Scoob, watch Bill and tell me how it makes your head pop.

@wyatt.earp there is an educational bit on tariffs I think will benefit you, my friend.

I've always like Al Franken and if you are in Springfield you better keep all of your ducks in a row

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1833627872390480049

 

[WyattEarp]

@wyatt.earp there is an educational bit on tariffs I think will benefit you, my friend.

I'm glad Maher held Franken's feet to the fire on the Biden tariffs.

Their discussion did trigger my brain to focus on why the handwringing over Chinese tariffs is just that and not this big attack on the American consumer. Trump's proposing tariffs on one, single adversarial country. Historically, when tariffs have been discussed they are applied across the board on certain products regardless of origin. I have said something like this in more general terms. In the event more tariffs are applied to Chinese imports, Vietnam, India, Mexico and whoever can step in and provide these products more competitively.

As far as everything else Franken said, I think it's clear as smart as he is he's still playing hard for the Democratic team.

Maher: Let's not play team sports. Let's play truth.

PS- Kristen Soltis Anderson is so hot. She and other women like her might be one of the reasons I sometimes miss drowning myself in cable news bullshit.

 

[Dave in Phoenix]

It's disingenuous to tout the Biden economy and then say well inflation, he has no impact on that. Expanded govt. spending always powers an economy and creates a feeling of wealth. Inflation is many times the symptom of such expanded spending and a recession is the hangover.

Inflation is not the "economy" It can affect the economy but in they are two different things.

GDP is important because it gives information about the size of the economy and how an economy is performing. The growth rate of real GDP is often used as an indicator of the general health of the economy. In broad terms, an increase in real GDP is interpreted as a sign that the economy is doing well.

On a GDP basis and low unemployment the US has had a very strong, too hot economy which was due to huge demand vs restrained supplies coming out of COVID, global warming destroying crops with record heat, hurricanes, floods more servere

Trump spent more than Biden and just tossed most of it out (delayed checks to everyone since he insisted they have his signature instead of normal one (Secty of Traasury I think).

Biden spending was more targeted and largely investments in future growth (clean energy industry. chip manufacuring, infrastructure for bridges in bad need of repair) and many other future investments for the future.

Harris (who by the way is not Biden) as she as VP follows the policy of her boss (Pres). ALthough Biden was great for the economy.

Now turning to yes the mlllions of folks that are being hit by high grocery prices and other inflation factors that are global not just US, (none of which Biden or any global leader controls):

Most of Trumps proposals would skyrocket inflation (Tariffs, tax cuts mostly for his wealthy class, mass deportation reducing needed labor etc etc).

Harris has been very specific with detailed proposals to reduce costs some by tax credits (child care, earned income, down payment for new homebuyer) and tax deduction up to $50k for new small businesses etc.

She pays for this by more fair taxation with increased corp tax - but still below what it was pre-Trump and reversing the Trump tax cut for the wealthy for those making over $400k of income and some other sources.

High income individuals have the lowest top rates in US history and in most of the world (and Europe etc also have VAT taxes the consumer pays far higher than sales taxes). When I was a tax superviosor at then "Big 8" Touche Ross (Now Deloitte) it was great to have more than $50k of earned income since that was taxed at the "max tax" rate of 50% vs up to 70% on unearned income. Not to mention our silly estate laws making it easy to donate to heirs (like Trump) huge amounts not taxed so you never have to work for your money other than be a con-man whose only major property he ever made money on was the one he inherited from father Fred)

Six bankrupcies, huge judgments, and remember "I am so rich" that he doesn't need to fundraise but pays his own campaign cost? Yah he has scammed millions in fund raising, fake charity, fake university etc. And admires dictators, Hitler and autocrats.

Just not what se need in the US.

 

[Dave in Phoenix]

Their discussion did trigger my brain to focus on why the handwringing over Chinese tariffs is just that and not this big attack on the American consumer. Trump's proposing tariffs on one, single adversarial country.

Huh? Trumps proposed tariffs are 10% on ALL foreign countries and 60% from China. The current Biden tariffs are narrowly targeted to key industries related to US manufacturing of clean energy and stuff like chips so we don't have to rely on China or Taiwan to supply the most advanced military's electronics etc.

 

[dirtydaveiii]

You're kidding right?

Pandemic had nothing to do with it and happened in his last year in office.

The US pulled out of Afghanistan in 2021. Biden was in office 6 months when that happened and 13 soldiers were killed during the withdrawal alone. That's about how many were killed each year in Afghanistan during Trump's term.

Do you want a real interesting tidbit? Total US soldiers killed during Trump's term in Afghanistan was about 70. During Obama's last 4 years in office: 500+

Care to twist yourself into more a pretzel?

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Argument
An expert's point of view on a current event.
Calling Trump an Anti-Imperialist Is Nonsense
The anti-war left shouldn’t fall for this dishonest pitch.
By Matthew Duss, the executive vice president at the Center for International Policy.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to guests at a 2023 forum in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to guests at a 2023 forum in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to guests at the 2023 NRA-ILA Leadership Forum on April 14, in Indianapolis, Indiana. Scott Olson/Getty Images
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April 18, 2023, 1:02 PM
View Comments (2)
There’s a song on the Lemonheads’ underrated 1996 album Car Button Cloth that I love for very personal reasons. “The Outdoor Type” is a jangly pop tune in which the narrator admits that he had earlier misled his partner about his true interests:

I can’t go away with you on a rock-climbing weekend;

What if something’s on TV and it’s never shown again;

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It’s just as well I’m not invited, I’m afraid of heights;

I lied about being the outdoor type.

I love this because I also misrepresented my enthusiasm for rock climbing to someone I very much wanted to spend more time with. And I was thinking about the lies we tell people we’re trying to lay because of the spate of recent articles trying to convince us that former U.S. President Donald Trump is an anti-imperialist.

Sen. J.D. Vance claimed in January that the most important part of Trump’s legacy is his foreign policy. “My entire adult lifetime has been shaped by presidents who threw America into unwise wars and failed to win them,” Vance wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. “In Mr. Trump’s four years in office, he started no wars despite enormous pressure from his own party and even members of his own administration.”

Trump “has done more to restrain the US imperium than any politician in 75 years,” Christian Parenti wrote in Compact recently. This, Parenti claimed, is the real cause of his prosecution by the Manhattan district attorney. “Trump has been investigated, impeached, and indicted not because of the crimes of which he is accused,” wrote Parenti, “but because he has dared to oppose the imperial foreign policy favored by elites.”

Sohrab Ahmari, a former neoconservative now aligned with the Trumpist right, and one of the founders of Compact, followed up with a piece hailing Trump as “the one figure who in my lifetime has meaningfully rolled back the self-righteous imperium” scolding the anti-war left for not embracing Trump as its true hero. “The left suddenly turns ultra-principled when it comes to judging Trump’s record as an anti-imperial president: He wasn’t a total pacifist! He talked about ‘taking their oil.’ What about Yemen? Come on.”

These pieces foretell a larger effort to seduce the anti-war left with the idea that Trump, despite all evidence to the contrary, is an attractive partner for the project of reining in the American empire—that he really is the Outdoor Type. (Although for Vance, who went from outspoken Trump critic to cravenly falling in line when his political ambition required it, a better tune might be Stephen Stills’s “Love the One You’re With.”)

These pieces all rest heavily on the claim that Trump launched no new wars. That’s true as far as it goes. But it was certainly not for lack of trying. Trump might not have started any wars, but he massively inflamed existing ones—and came close to catastrophic new ones.

Let’s review the record. Despite inveighing against “endless wars,” Trump massively escalated the country’s existing wars in multiple theaters, leading to skyrocketing casualties. In Afghanistan, he substantially upped the amount of airstrikes, leading to a 330 percent increase in civilian deaths. In Yemen, he escalated both U.S. counterterrorism activities and support for the devastating Saudi-led war against the Houthis. According to the United Kingdom’s Bureau of Investigative Journalism, there were 2,243 drone strikes in just the first two years of Trump’s presidency, compared with 1,878 in the entire eight years of the Obama administration.