Originally about tariffs and watches ... now just political rambling

p4ul

Goddam Commies. 😉

YY77

RFK Jr didn't get the memo.

Tony C.

In his book to which I linked, there are four pages of references, and you respond with that ad hominem, and a couple of critical links?

I could provide numerous corroborating sources.


That is a straw man, as he has never claimed to be an expert on ballistics, and your second claim is false.

It appears that you didn't even bother to read the linked paper. In it he references evidence from a trial that was held in Ukraine itself. That trial was completed in October of 2023. Here is an excerpt from an article written by Kit Klarenberg, an excellent independent journalist, and published in The Grayzone in December of that year:



To attempt to discredit Katchanovski on the basis of his lack of ballistics expertise, when a Ukranian court found that the evidence “was quite sufficient to conclude categorically that on the morning of February 20, 2014, persons with weapons, from which the shots were fired, were in the premises of the Hotel Ukraina,”, is, at best, suggestive of a bias on your part.

Katchanovski asserts that "the trial produced an extraordinary volume of evidence proving protesters were shot at from various buildings controlled by pro-Maidan elements,”, and that "over 100 witnesses, including 51 anti-government activists injured during the shooting, testified to having been shot from these areas, or seeing snipers located there.”. Again, that was evidence that came from a trial held in Ukraine, where there would have been tremendous pressure to produce very different results.

The conclusions arrived at in the Ukrainian court case were arrived at five years after the NY Times article to which you linked was published, and fly directly in the face of the author's claims.

Klarenberg article


What really "says it all" is that of the numerous fact-based observations that he presented in the material that I posted, your only attempted rebuttal is a wave of the hand dismissal of that one line.

ErichPryde

And @glownyc @Tony C. I generally agree with Dan abd @pdxleaf here. The president of the United States has some responsibility for interacting with other nations via foreign policy. Sometimes those actions could be called policing or even imperialistic. I liked Obama as a President. I didn't vote against him his first term and voted for him his second. It really is not worthwhile to deny that he engaged in these sorts of actions that fall squarely under what we have established as actions that Presidents are responsible for deciding. Having mixed feelings about these sorts of actions is healthy and normal.

This current argument about whether or not it was bad or he did it is almost like jumping backwards in time several decades in political discourse. One of my biggest complaints from that period was this sort of call out of what the other guy was doing coupled with denial that "we" were doing it. It's never been helpful, and I hope we can move past it, because there is part of me that wonders just how much it has fueled "the quiet part out loud."

for me, this very much goes back to being honest about, and understanding what policies we are supporting when we vote.

BUT- what I think is more important is that most prior presidents tried to measure their actions (no matter how much you may or may not agree with those actions) constitutionally and legally, and for the most part considered how our actions impacted our allies and us as americans.

texasmade

I work at a large global logistics company, and our volumes from China to US dropped like 70% this month.

Tony C.

Trump is certainly far more crude than his predecessors, but the implication that only he is corrupt, or that he is far more corrupt, are wrong, and (in the second case) unclear at best.

Clinton started his presidency with a net worth of $1.3 million, and after leaving office, had accumulated a wealth of $120m.

Obama accumulated a net worth of $70 million, from $1.3 million before becoming President.

To illustrate a broader point, Janet Yellen, who served as Chair of the Federal Reserve, then Secretary of Treasury, reportedly "earned" $7m in speaking fees (paid by the very banks that she oversaw) during the period between those two roles.

Over her long career, Nancy Pelosi's salary never exceeded ~$200k, yet she amassed a fortune of well over $100m.

Those are just a few examples.

Politics in the U.S. is a corrupt game, and I am certainly not excusing Trump's behavior. But while a bloody, poorly executed robbery may be more unpleasant to witness, "white collar" crimes can be equally, if not more damaging, and should not be ignored.

Taddyangle

Has this changed after a week?

Evitzee

And the polls show Trump would still win today vs Harris/Walz. The Dems are bankrupt with no ideas, no platform and no leader except maybe the ex-bartender Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or CA Gov Newsom. The Dems are less popular than used car salesmen. That's why we got Trump.

Archer

So you want to go back under British rule?