McCain to Trump: Stop cozying up to Russia

sear said:
Good question.

Answer: it's tantamount to a confession of guilt.
If Putin was proud, and secure in the legal footing of his incursions, why would he conceal the nationality and sponsorship of his invading / conquering forces?
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it was a stealth invasion. are you familiar with the story of how the frog let himself get boiled in the pot?
By very small incremental temperature increases. If you put the frog into boiling water -it would jump out.
If you put the frog ina pot ofwater and slowly increased the temps -the frog doesn't notice till it's too late he's boiled

same thing with Crimea


The more alarming issue is why REPUBLICAN presidents or president elect fawn over Putin so.
Trump seems to admire Putin.
If Trump likes Putin, then perhaps he's enraptured by Assad.
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Bush is naive.
Trump looks at the outcomes of Putin's 'leaderships"- it's effective if brutal at times



Demonstrating ignorance of fundamental economics on an epic scale.
Stores don't price merchandise on what "hands on manager"s think the price should be.

Stores price their inventory on total cost (not merely production cost but:
- production
- transport
- storage
- stocking
- display
- margin (to afford to patch the roof when it starts to leak)
- PLUS PROFIT !!

So where the %$#@ does "hands on" Putin think the money is going to come from, if the sale doesn't cover costs?

So the people will get a real bargain, right up until the moment the store goes bankrupt, and shuts down.
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again..i only saw a snippet. Russia is a capitalist economy -crony capitalist -but capitalist nonetheless.
Ditto for Romney / Utah. Where's the glory in losing $20 $Billion?

- Would Socci have been less glorious if they'd turned a profit, or at least only lost $10 $Billion?

- Would Utah's have been MORE glorious if they'd lost $10 $Billion?
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it was set up to appeal to Russian nationalism/glorification of Putin

Anyway, earlier today I heard a report that Putin has withdrawn his application for Russian membership w/ the world court.
It seems such prestige membership would be more a liability than a benefit.
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i'd have to take a look at it , before commenting
 
sear said:
I'm not a Trump partisan.
I opposed Trump's candidacy.
I agreed with David Brooks who stated that Trump's early primary victories were flukes, and that he'd never win the nomination.
After Trump won the nomination I believed the polls that said he'd lose to Hillary.

So I've been misunderestimating Trump from the beginning.

I respect Senator McCain's (R-AZ) perspective on it.

BUT !!

Let's cut the Don (R-NY) a tad of slack here.
I haven't heard Trump express support for Syria's Assad. I haven't heard Trump advocate Russian annexation of Ukraine.
I gather what Trump has done was to acknowledge Putin's leadership.

NOW:

Putin has to some degree run the Russian economy into the ditch.
- Gazprom was a major source of international revenue for Russia. BUT !! When Putin shut off the supply, albeit briefly, Western Europe realized they couldn't rely on it; and have begun to replace the Gazprom supply with alternatives.

- The annexation of Crimea has brought economic sanctions on Russia which have lowered the standard of living there.

This is the kind of leadership Trump admires?
Threedee #8 makes a painfully sharp point.

BUT !!

Let's see where it goes. I'm sure Putin may have some redeeming quality. Let's give Don benefit of doubt here. He lives in NY, not DC. And Trump will learn a lot before he changes addresses.
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You actually can't misunderestimate anyone, because it's not a real word. :cof1:
 
christiefan915 said:
Sen. John McCain on Tuesday issued a strongly worded statement warning President-elect Donald Trump not to trust overtures of peace from the Kremlin and to be cautious of supposed attempts to strengthen U.S.-Russian ties.

"With the U.S. presidential transition underway, Vladimir Putin has said in recent days that he wants to improve relations with the United States," McCain said. "We should place as much faith in such statements as any other made by a former KGB agent who has plunged his country into tyranny, murdered his political opponents, invaded his neighbors, threatened America's allies, and attempted to undermine America's elections."

The statement comes as Russia has reportedly stepped up airstrikes in Syria as part of what appears to be a renewed offensive to retake the city of Aleppo. Following Moscow's continued deployments of military might to the region, McCain said the warming of relations must stop.

http://www.aol.com/article/news/2016/11/15/mccain-to-trump-stop-cozying-up-to-russia/21606756/
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but you fucks want putin trusted instead
 
"Trump looks at the outcomes of Putin's 'leaderships"- it's effective if brutal at times" #21
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But you and I are doing the same thing.
But it can be acknowledged, without being admired.
"Russia is a capitalist economy -crony capitalist -but capitalist nonetheless." #21
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- dandy -
a) It's a nascent economy, compared to Western powers.

b) It's rather 3rd world. It's foreign trade is
- propane
- Stolich Noia
- antique Trabants

When was the most recent time you were ordering from NewEgg, or shopping at BestBuy, and decided; No! I don't want the flash drive made in Korea. I want the Russian made one!

c) For these reasons Russia hardly qualifies for G8 / G7 membership. It's economy is substantially 3rd world. It was granted access to G8 more as a courtesy than economic merit.
"it was set up to appeal to Russian nationalism/glorification of Putin"
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Obviously.
You think it's different for any other Olympic games host nation?
You think it was different for China?

You think it was different for the U.S.?

The point is Putin lacks even a rudimentary grasp of economics.

He just doesn't get it!

#23

Understood.
Yet it's one of the more well known Bushisms.

And if you read American Heritage entries for new words, you'll see that common usage is often the main reason the word is added to the lexicon.

Governor Palin's "refudiate" may also end up there, apparadently.
 
sear said:
But you and I are doing the same thing.
But it can be acknowledged, without being admired.
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it's the play that's admirable. where has the west outplayed him?
Not the Uk, not Syria, not Egypt, -not even Iran where we sent them billions of $$ so the can cheat on their nuke program.
Putin comes in -throws his AF behind Assad,and get's a working ( if not partnership) relationship going with Iran.

Meanwhile the saudi's are forced to beg Obama not to forget them -Obama throws a consolation meeting for the Sunni states,
and king Abdullah doesn't even show up. Egypt moves closer and closer to Russia with economic ties as well as military.
Obam is reduced to sitting on the sidelines complaining about Putin's "bad boy slouching"
- dandy -
a) It's a nascent economy, compared to Western powers.
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extractive economy based on natural resources. and what do sanctions do but make it more difficult to diversify?


c) For these reasons Russia hardly qualifies for G8 / G7 membership. It's economy is substantially 3rd world. It was granted access to G8 more as a courtesy than economic merit.
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agreed

Obviously.
You think it's different for any other Olympic games host nation?
You think it was different for China?

You think it was different for the U.S.?

The point is Putin lacks even a rudimentary grasp of economics.

He just doesn't get it!
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the gambit. expand and conquer now, push back on NATO expansion -rely on nationalism ( the Games) to make it a success.

The question is...what do we do about any of this? more of the same? (no)
 
"where has the west outplayed him?" #26
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Putin has out-maneuvered the West militarily.

The West has out-maneuvered Putin economically.

Whether it's a Russian net-loss I can't say; it's subjective.

BUT !!

I can say; Russia has paid a NEEDLESSLY high price for Crimea!

- Crimea was crammed full of ethnic Russians.
If they'd simply had a referendum Putin might have gotten Crimea without having to take a tank out of the motorpool.
Lose the vote; THEN roll the tanks.
But Putin's such a boor, he didn't even try it. And the price Russia and Russians are paying as a result is staggering.

- Russians collectively are paying this price in lower standard of living. And Putin has them believing, it's because of an antagonistic outside world, that Putin is heroically protecting them all from.
" push back on NATO expansion " #26
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It's one of the extremely few issues I agree with Putin on.

It was gratuitously foolish on a cosmic scale to expand NATO after the Wall fell!
NATO could have defended any nation on Earth. We don't need no stinkin' treaty for that.

FORMALIZING it by taking former Soviet States into NATO merely feeds Russian military hawks red meat.

It is a blunder on a cosmic scale!!

And Russia's / Putin's push back is PRECISELY what should have been expected as a consequence!

YOU IDIOTS !!!
What the ^%$# did you think was gunna happen!

t #27

Good one!
I got a chuckle out of that one.
Democrats simply lack the creative spark to butcher the language the way Republican presidents do (although I think Trump was good natured / joking about "bigly". I think he knew it wasn't a proper word when he said it; but was amusing the crowd.

But when Bush said "misunderestimate" I gather he actually thought it was a legitimate word.
 
^ if a referendum failed -Putin would be in an untenable place. This way he can annex Crimea (land access to Sevastopol)
and claim he did it to protect "Russian speaking people"
 
#29

Sure.
But it's a two-edged sword.

- Had he forced a referendum, &

- had he lost,

Putin could have claimed the result was rigged by an aggressive West that has already demonstrated its aggressive intentions with NATO expansion into former Soviet States.

Trust me.
Russian justification for military aggression is nearly a national sport.

You are right.
Legitimacy would have been impaired.

Can you make a persuasive argument that the resultant impaired legitimacy would have been less valid than what he's got now? PUTIN ANNEXED CRIMEA!! Where's the legitimacy? Where was the emergency that demanded immediate decisive Russian military action?

It was conquest, pure & simple.
 
anatta said:
Russia is a western state that is 1/2 in Asia/ we want to keep them oriented toward the west -not China
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people dont understand this. If Russia goes to the US side china is screwed. All their plans hinge on russia taking their side.
 
tsuke said:
people dont understand this. If Russia goes to the US side china is screwed. All their plans hinge on russia taking their side.
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well we sure don't want Russia and China to unify at the strategic/military/economic level..

Did you ever read about Nixon's "ping pong diplomacy" when he went to China?
One of the main (successful) goals was to drive wedges thru the large Communist powers back then
 
Darth Hussein Omar said:
Maybe Putin recognizes that Trump is a true outsider. Bush was anything but an outsider.

What's in our self-interest in being on a Cold War footing with Russia?
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My opinion is that Putin showed us who he is and we should believe him. He is not a trustworthy individual. Here's an article from a few years ago. Try and ignore that it's about bush, it applies to Obama and Clinton also. https://www.yahoo.com/news/m/b07e3ca6-d219-34ca-81d1-4eea0707657e/ss_the-seduction-of-george-w..html

We don't need to be on a Cold War footing but we should remember that we're dealing with a former KGB agent and proceed cautiously.
 
"We don't need to be on a Cold War footing but" c9
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"But"!! we don't want to "enable" a global thug.

If Germany / Merkel had annexed Crimea, invaded Ukraine w/ mercenaries, and went bombing hospitals in Syria; Obama would tell her to knock it the %$#@ off!
So we should apply a lower standard for Russia / Putin?

I don't THINK so !!
 
#39

I think that's an over-simplification.

I'd say: Trump loves himself more than the United States of America.
 
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