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 Frazzled wrote:


In more news: Clintons gave NYT charity $100,000 same year the NYT endorsed her candidacy.
http://freebeacon.com/politics/clinton-donated-100k-to-new-york-times-group-the-same-year-paper-endorsed-her/

Oi...

Hypocracy is thick here...

NTY fething hates the Citizens United ruling, but will gladly accept this.

O.o


Automatically Appended Next Post:
EDIT: Oh my... Bernie is within 8pts to Clinton.
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/wisconsin-straw-poll-surprise-a-narrow-clinton-win-118727.html

Whoo, Bernie for president!

Here's a question for America dakka members: do you think Britain is a smart country?

I ask this, because something remarkable happened today in the UK parliament.

As you know, Scotland voted NO to breaking away from the UK last September.

Afterwards, London promised new powers for Scotland for staying in the Union (a comparison for those in the USA would be states rights against Federal rights)

Well, today, London told Scotland that it's getting less than was promised AND London could veto these powers, if Scotland used them to do something that London didn't like...

Now, given that the UK made similar mistakes in pre-revolutionary America, and pre-Irish independence, you would think that London would know better than making these mistakes AGAIN

Is it just me, or does nobody read a history book anymore?

I'm pro-Scottish independence, but I cannot believe that London would blunder like this

What's going on?

Final someone I can agree with. Lets bring this place down!

 Frazzled wrote:
Final someone I can agree with. Lets bring this place down!

To paraphrase a well known saying, to lose one colony is unfortunate, to lose two and then a third is downright carelessness

Today, IMO, was the last chance to save the UK, but they blew it.

Whats today my man?

 Frazzled wrote:
Whats today my man?

Today, in the UK parliament, a bill giving more powers to Scotland, was presented to the house.

Naturally, it was watered down so much as to make it useless!

Frazz, I thought UK politics was your passion?

 whembly wrote:

 skyth wrote:
It's later here. I'm guessing the more conservative the place, the shorter rhe hours.

That's not really true. There's no pattern like that.

New York votes only on one day AND you must show valid ID

I've never had to show ID to vote here in New York.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Whats today my man?

Today, in the UK parliament, a bill giving more powers to Scotland, was presented to the house.

Naturally, it was watered down so much as to make it useless!

Frazz, I thought UK politics was your passion?

Thanks. We'll start lighting the boilers on the Texas. now is the time to strike!

I'm pretty sure you only need ID when signing up in NY (understandably). Otherwise you just need your name.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
I'm pretty sure you only need ID when signing up in NY (understandably). Otherwise you just need your name.

And it's only one day.

Well, I agree in that part. Just not that you have to show your ID.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

Now, given that the UK made similar mistakes in pre-revolutionary America, and pre-Irish independence, you would think that London would know better than making these mistakes AGAIN

Do the Scots drink tea, or do they only drink Scotch?

If they do drink tea, I'd definitely start to worry.

Obama needs to seriously come up with a plan to deal with ISIS and hopefully get Hillary in on the plan. This is getting damn dumb
Two years now we're goat roping with ISIS

I'm not sure what else we can do short of sending troops TBH.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
I'm not sure what else we can do short of sending troops TBH.

We could stop sending sorties to crater dirt roads in the desert. (yes, we sent multiple sorties to crater a DaIsh LOC. They then drove around the craters.)

We could come up with ROE that let more than 20-30% of sorties actually drop ordnance.

We could come up with a comprehensive strategy at the national level using ALL the elements of DIME in a coherent and coordinated fashion AFTER having stated what our goal/objective is and WHY it is of US National interest to pursue that goal with the resources necessary to ensure achieving it.

I could go on. There are plenty of things short of conventional 'boots on the ground' we could do which we are not doing, or are currently doing as a 'check the block' exercise.

For start we can start sending in the Dark Side to nail out some ISIS leaders a bit more

 Jihadin wrote:
For start we can start sending in the Dark Side to nail out some ISIS leaders a bit more

Did you notice the Army Homepage was hacked today?

 CptJake wrote:

 Jihadin wrote:
For start we can start sending in the Dark Side to nail out some ISIS leaders a bit more

Did you notice the Army Homepage was hacked today?

That's not new

This was some outfit calling themselves the Syrian Electronic Army. Had some interesting pop-ups during the day.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2015/06/08/us-army-website-wwwarmymil-syrian-electronic-army-hack/28703173/

You figure they update the security word(s) every six months and not use the same word(s) past nine months

IIRC it was just their public site, nothing important on there.

Its not. Its a website keeping anyone who is interested into whatever operations is going on around the world. Pretty good site though to keep current around the world

Just a heads up for the thread. Much as I had to say in the UK politics thread, this is a US politics thread. US. If you want to discuss UK politics, create your own thread. Cheers

 Jihadin wrote:
Obama needs to seriously come up with a plan to deal with ISIS and hopefully get Hillary in on the plan. This is getting damn dumb
Two years now we're goat roping with ISIS

Derp he has a plan. Prevent defense until the clock runs out. Its working so far.

Frankly I'm getting sick of the usual chickenhawks shouting "Send in troops! Send in troops!"
No.

 Frazzled wrote:

 Jihadin wrote:
Obama needs to seriously come up with a plan to deal with ISIS and hopefully get Hillary in on the plan. This is getting damn dumb
Two years now we're goat roping with ISIS

Derp he has a plan. Prevent defense until the clock runs out. Its working so far.

Frankly I'm getting sick of the usual chickenhawks shouting "Send in troops! Send in troops!"
No.

The problem with his 'plan', as you define it, is that it vastly increases the likelihood he or his successor will send in boots on the ground, because his 'prevent defense' isn't working well.

 CptJake wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 Jihadin wrote:
Obama needs to seriously come up with a plan to deal with ISIS and hopefully get Hillary in on the plan. This is getting damn dumb
Two years now we're goat roping with ISIS

Derp he has a plan. Prevent defense until the clock runs out. Its working so far.

Frankly I'm getting sick of the usual chickenhawks shouting "Send in troops! Send in troops!"
No.

The problem with his 'plan', as you define it, is that it vastly increases the likelihood he or his successor will send in boots on the ground, because his 'prevent defense' isn't working well.

Sure it will. Lets assume ISIL gains control of all off Iraq and Syria and turns it into a religious dictatorship. That would make it different than Saudia Arabia...how? How owuld it be different than Pakistan? SA is just an older version. ISIL wants us there, it gains followers.

Besides Erdogan lost his election. If he loses power Turkey moves back towards secularism and ISIL's channels of support will start to dry up.

ISIL is in Libya as well. Are you going to invade Libya too?

You'll have a very difficult time finding where I advocate a 'boots on the ground' strategy against DaIsh.

I don't see the Saudis burning captured pilots alive, nor governing their country quite the way DaIsh governs their territories. You may not see a difference, but that would be because you choose not to.

My bottom line is the Obama administrations version of strategy is pathetic. There is no coordinated strategy at the national level and the resources being expended are a massive waste since they are not being expended towards any goal. And we are putting pilots and flight crews into danger flying sorties where they may or may not even be allowed to engage, and when they do they are generally not engaging targets worth the cost and risks. Eventually a plane or chopper goes down due to enemy fire, a maintenance issue, or crew error, and a US trooper gets the flaming cage treatment. When the public asks 'Why? Was it worth it? What was achieved?" the answer is not going to be a good one.

Add in the growing likelihood of Iraqi troops turning on US trainers in a green on blue incident (could end up being a DaIsh loyalist/infiltrator, DaIsh in captured uniforms, a shia troop still loyal to the Mahdi Army, or just some poor fether more scared of fighting DaIsh than pulling a trigger on an American).

And then there will be folks who push to 'boots on the ground' and they won't have much opposition.

SA doesn't govern territories like ISIL-now. However they have no problem with public executions, flogging (witness the 1,000 whip sentence just given toa blogger), amputation, etc. ISIL is just SA 60 years ago.

Not referring to you. I am seeing all the Republican chickenhawks out there, again. I won't vote for them, won't vote to send American sons and and daughters anywhere. Frankly there's nothing there thats worth it and the multiple times we have been there have led to worse and worse outcomes.

Frazz... what if the Dalsh sets off a massive bomb (or god forgive, a WMD) in mecca? Or, Jerusalem?

I'm curious if your viewpoints are like those in the US pre-Pearl Harbor?

EDIT: I think someone's worried about Rubio's chances...