steeler wrote: 
Just a farm pond full of scum, turtles, pan fish and an occasional previously missing automobile complete with various and sundry speculation...

Here is a thought: maybe there is no swamp to drain.

 ScottFromWyoming wrote: 
Interesting ...

appropriate

 kurtster wrote: 
It's been a couple of decades or so since I read it but Don DeLillo's "Underworld" has Russia accepting nuclear waste, which they bury deep under Siberia someplace, along with an old warhead. They set off the warhead, which incinerates the nuclear waste too. I think that was what they were doing. Something with nukes that nobody else wanted to touch but were willing to pay them to do.

 haresfur wrote: 
Looking back through history, the Prime Russian Directive since at least the 19th Century has been the pursuit of a warm water seaport.  Syria.  Putin will defend Assad to the end to ensure their seaport.  Crimea, also provides a seaport, though it is bottle necked by The Bosporus.  IIRC the real reason for the Soviet incursion into Afghanistan was to push south, eventually into the Indian Ocean in the quest of a direct connection to an Ocean warm water port.

Eastern Ukraine has rich hydrocarbon deposits.  Hydrocarbons are Russia's primary source of hard currency.  Its still about a secure warm water seaport and now hydrocarbons in the 21st Century.  Unfortunately, the hydrocarbon part will be short lived and obsolete by the end of this century leaving one to wonder what Russia's new long term survival means will become the focus.

 kurtster wrote: 
The US had non-interventionist foreign policies for the first halves of WWI and WWII. I won't say much about the first, but the second was despicable.

 kcar wrote: 
The Soviet Union is being partially reconstituted exactly as you say, under the guise of "traditional territorial interests". If you consider effectively taking over half of Ukraine as merely defending traditional interests, then you are saying the traditional interests are the SU.

 kurtster wrote: 
Ya know, I addressed everyone's thoughts expressed below regarding Trump's potential foreign policy and not one response was directed at that.  Not one.

Instead its a complete redirect to something different.  I'll be happy to share my thoughts regarding those redirects, if my thoughts above are responded to.

Here is the thing about the whole "drain the swamp" promise and other promises like that:  They are born out of a need to vilify those in power with whom you have policy differences (or, in some cases, to vilify those who are contending for the office or power you are seeking, even when there might not be significant policy differences). It is not enough to attack an opponent's policies.  So, you have the recurring theme (from this year's campaign especially) of being someone who is not part of the "establishment." Someone who will "fix" what is wrong in Washington, D.C., and stand up to the Washington, D.C. "cartel."  Some billionaires are not part of the establishment. Some incumbent Senators are not part of the establishment.  Some members of the media are part of the establishment, but others are not  Trump is not alone in making these types of claims, but he did up the ante on using vilification as a campaign strategy.  Candidates for all kinds of offices are no longer just not the best choice, they actually are evil devils who need to be locked up. This is all smoke and mirrors. Us against Them stuff.  And it works.     

  

        
  

 islander wrote: 
I think that's it. The idea that someone can be completely untested, caught in documentable severe contradictions or episodes of flagrant ignorance, be morally suspect (including being tone deaf to incest), and then beginning his term by picking the same people he'd vilified...

Then I have to stop and sincerely ask myself: The folks at FOX and other alt-right sites frothed mightily and incessantly about how Obama was this or that. And from my perspective they were so totally confabulating and caught up their own echo chamber. It was pathetic.

And now, the folks talking about Trump are using the same emotive dismay and anger. But...this time it's legit, isn't it? 

 ScottFromWyoming wrote: 

 Red_Dragon wrote: 
I had a couple of Cuba Libres last night and will probably repeat the process tonight. ¡Viva!

 NoEnzLefttoSplit wrote: 
I'm not sure which is more ridiculous, the shifting rationales, or the outright denial. Of course, given the candidate, neither is really surprising.

How to Manipulate an Emotional Weakling

drainin' that swamp...

drainin' that swamp...

 kurtster wrote:
Aren't you the guy who thought trump was going to drain the swamp?

your feet kindly ask you to put away the gun.

 sirdroseph wrote: 
Exactly.  Trump ran on a non interventionist foreign policy.  Something we haven't seen since Monroe.  One reason I supported him.

To everyone else ...  To those who say Trump has no clue regarding foreign policy ...  Just exactly how much experience did the present occupant of the WH have going in ?  Was he conducting business in 20 countries prior to taking office ?  Just how many countries did he visit as an adult before taking office ?  For that matter, just what experience did he have going in in anything that qualified him for POTUS more than Trump ?  What did Obama run or operate ?

So we (the USA) are going to throw the Baltic States under the bus and give them back to Russia ?  Says who ?  And just why is it the responsibility of the USA (only) ?  Can't the EU defend itself without the help of again, the USA ?  If so why not ?  

Its time that everyone starts pulling their own weight.  The USA spent the entire 20th Century saving the world from itself and what have we got in return ?  Hate is all.

The NWO and all the Globalists can go eff themselves.