empty whippet box posted:

Can I get a link, yo?

quote:

Obama flipped this plea on its head. “When you have a professional army,” he once told me, “that is well armed and sponsored by two large states”—Iran and Russia—“who have huge stakes in this, and they are fighting against a farmer, a carpenter, an engineer who started out as protesters and suddenly now see themselves in the midst of a civil conflict …” He paused. “The notion that we could have—in a clean way that didn’t commit U.S. military forces—changed the equation on the ground there was never true.” The message Obama telegraphed in speeches and interviews was clear: He would not end up like the second President Bush—a president who became tragically overextended in the Middle East, whose decisions filled the wards of Walter Reed with grievously wounded soldiers, who was helpless to stop the obliteration of his reputation, even when he recalibrated his policies in his second term. Obama would say privately that the first task of an American president in the post-Bush international arena was “Don’t do stupid poo poo.”

Obama’s reticence frustrated Power and others on his national-security team who had a preference for action. Hillary Clinton, when she was Obama’s secretary of state, argued for an early and assertive response to Assad’s violence. In 2014, after she left office, Clinton told me that “the failure to help build up a credible fighting force of the people who were the originators of the protests against Assad … left a big vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled.” When The Atlantic published this statement, and also published Clinton’s assessment that “great nations need organizing principles, and ‘Don’t do stupid stuff’ is not an organizing principle,” Obama became “rip-poo poo angry,” according to one of his senior advisers. The president did not understand how “Don’t do stupid poo poo” could be considered a controversial slogan. Ben Rhodes recalls that “the questions we were asking in the White House were ‘Who exactly is in the stupid-poo poo caucus? Who is pro–stupid poo poo?’ ” The Iraq invasion, Obama believed, should have taught Democratic interventionists like Clinton, who had voted for its authorization, the dangers of doing stupid poo poo. (Clinton quickly apologized to Obama for her comments, and a Clinton spokesman announced that the two would “hug it out” on Martha’s Vineyard when they crossed paths there later.)

Party Plane Jones posted:

21https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/887563925935542272

Synthbuttrange posted:

‘Don’t do stupid stuff’?

That's just plain anti American!

enraged_camel posted:

Blind Pineapple posted:

I'm kind of shocked this hasn't been a bigger story.

evilmiera posted:

3 of those animals should be invisible, one should be shuffling back and forth between existing and not.

SgtScruffy posted:

It's great how there's 5 that are labeled, and a shitload more unlabeled because he can't think of any more accomplishments but wants to insinuate there are more

SgtScruffy posted:

It's great how there's 5 that are labeled, and a shitload more unlabeled because he can't think of any more accomplishments but wants to insinuate there are more

evilmiera posted:

3 of those animals should be invisible, one should be shuffling back and forth between existing and not.

Pellisworth posted:

And of those, his only actual significant accomplishment has been appointing Gorsuch. Which was entirely the doing of our favorite evil tortoise.

I'm surprised he didn't include something about withdrawing from the Paris Accords or the Muslim ban, because that's about all of the immediate harm done so far.

Trabisnikof posted:

lol you're giving them way too much credit. Trump campaigned on a healthcare plan where "no one would die in the street." They aren't open about it at all, they lie through their teeth.

Shifty Pony posted:

Yeah the subject matter doesn't piss me off any more than I get angry about how a talking cat in a can't be real. There's just something about the drawings though that really grates on me and the best I can explain it is to compare it to the intentionally over-labeled, badly-caricatured "this is how you should feel!" cartoons of Kelly.

For fucks sake his "caricature" of CNN is a body with a CNN logo for a head. I know conservative "humor" is generally awful low effort poo poo but drat.

pumpinglemma posted:

The CNN thing is probably a reference to the the_donald gif Trump tweeted of himself beating up CNN shortly after the dickhead from Montana choke-slammed a reporter, then won his special election and faced no meaningful consequences from either the law or his party. Because in Garrison's world, that's something to be proud of.

evilmiera posted:

3 of those animals should be invisible, one should be shuffling back and forth between existing and not.

dr_rat posted:

Also how, because the cartoonist has no idea to draw, he's made it so the only way could even fit in that car is if he has the tiniest of baby legs.

Reverand maynard posted:

is it depicting trump driving into the sunset and leaving his campaign promises behind? Is the wall depicted as a unicorn because neither one of them will ever be seen on the US/Mexico border? I'm legit confused can we get someone with a SILENT MAJORITY avatar to explain that cartoon because its 6 am and I'm still drinking Dayblazer and can't understand what the gently caress that cartoon is trying to say

enraged_camel posted:

Reverand maynard posted:

yeah I realized that after I posted it but that still begs the question: is it depicting him leaving his campaign promises in the dust?

Reverand maynard posted:

yeah I realized that after I posted it but that still begs the question: is it depicting him leaving his campaign promises in the dust?

Reverand maynard posted:

yeah I realized that after I posted it but that still begs the question: is it depicting him leaving his campaign promises in the dust?

Dirk the Average posted:

My personal expertise is in cardiovascular implants, and there have been huge advances in even just the past decade to the point where some procedures no longer call for open heart surgery. Yes, companies charge more for the device, but it's legitimately both significantly more complicated and costly to make (some delivery systems are one-shot disposable devices that cost in the hundreds to thousands to manufacture), and also a giant step forward for patient welfare.

FizFashizzle posted:

Original expression is "all hat, no cattle," which means a person is all talk.

pumpinglemma posted:

The CNN thing is probably a reference to the the_donald gif Trump tweeted of himself beating up CNN shortly after the dickhead from Montana choke-slammed a reporter, then won his special election and faced no meaningful consequences from either the law or his party. Because in Garrison's world, that's something to be proud of.

Data Graham posted:

No kidding. One of the links I followed yesterday had user comments right up top by the story or video or whatever it was, and one of the topmost responses was a right wing guy saying quite eruditely that Democrats won't ever win by being polite. "We won everything even after one of our guys choke slammed a reporter," he said quite proudly.

Not a hint of shame at winning by these tactics or by having to put up with these people. No sense of having been "tainted" by foul discourse. No sense that there has been any loss of honor or decorum. And certainly no sense that governing is the thing to be interested in, or doing good for the people who elected you. All that matters is winning, by any means necessary.

There Bias Two posted:

Am I remembering correctly that Trump doesn't actually have a license?

Kylra posted:

Blackmail.

Kekekela posted:

The rhetoric I've heard from some recently is that it's not a right it's a responsibility (otherwise the poor medical doctor becomes an indentured servant).

WampaLord posted:

To be fair, that's true for a lot of people who lived in NYC their whole lives, not just rich weirdos.

Kekekela posted:

The rhetoric I've heard from some recently is that it's not a right it's a responsibility (otherwise the poor medical doctor becomes an indentured servant).

I feel like they're floating a trial balloon to see if it's too over the top prosperity-gospely but early results look good (or terrifying, depending on your perspective)

Mantis42 posted:

I can't believe someone who's friends with Kissinger could be have horrible opinions on foreign policy!

FizFashizzle posted:

yeah who was that on chris matthews yesterday, some representative who was also a doctor?

Matthews straight up asked "is being healthy a right" and the guy responded "they don't have a right to my expertise and experience" which you'd think be hard to reconcile with the hippocratic oath