JUST the Stolen Documents/Mar-A-Lago/"Judge" Cannon Trial

[CU88]

Why is it so difficult for you to acknowledge the reality that our military readiness deteriorated during Obama's Presidency & it has improved under Trump ? ...for whatever partisan political reasons, it happened

For one, our military doesn't start at 100%, and then magically fall apart in 8 years. If we're blaming Presidents for spending, Bush, in his brilliance, handed Obama a gas tank that was already 1/2 empty, and didn't bother to rebuild our military after personally ordering two full scale invasions. Instead? He cut the heck out of our taxes, and told Americans to go shopping.

For two---you and your fellow Republicans told Obama that our government spending was out of control. Remember that? Not the Dems. Not Rachel Maddow-----Republican freaking voters. You TOLD Obama not to spend more money, remember?

And you and your Republican fellow voters TOLD Obama he couldn't raise taxes, remember?

You did this. You and your party. So if you want yell at anyone about not spending enough on the military.....find the nearest mirror, and yell extra loud for me.

And I'm laughing at you and VDH because you are both pretending to be too stupid to understand grammar school American Civics: that Congress pays the bills, not Obama. Obama could no more spend on the military than I can. But since you can't blame Boehner and company for shirking their duty because you and VDH won't be invited to Republican parties in DC if you say bad stuff about little R's? Oh, it's all the D President's fault. Because duh.

You refuse to acknowledge critical details that go beyond your superficial analysis. As in not acknowledging the difference in the numbers & types of forces deployed, the nature of those forces & their missions, & whether or not they are engaged in combat ops. You seem unable to grasp the reality that the vast majority of our forces currently in the ME are there for the same reasons as our forces in the NATO EU & W Pac -- to help defend our allies from a regional threat & to keep the sea lanes open.

Strawman. VDH didn't say "we're redeploying forces".

Nope. What he wrote was, and I quote "where the cost-benefit analysis is murky, we’re not going to get involved, especially in the Middle East

Sorry mate, under no circumstance is "not getting involved" the same thing as "helping defend our allies from a regional threat & to keep the sea lanes open" by sending "defensive troops".

You keep doing this. Pretending like I'm insane because I know what the phrase "not going to get involved" means.

In the ME, you seem to think that ramming through an ineffective JCPOA eliminated Iran as a threat to our allies & to the sea lanes in that region, allowing us to withdraw.

Nope. I thought it kept them from getting a bomb. It did. Scoreboard.

You, on the other hand, are insisting the JCPOA was intended to give peace between Palestine and Israel, and also give us the cure for cancer. And because it didn't do that, you insist it failed. How can I argue with such logic? I can't. Yep, you're right, the JCPOA didn't do a whole laundry list of things that no one but old salt claims it was 'supposed' to do.

Instead, it had the opposite effect -- it financed the increase in Iran's disruptive activity.

They're disrupting right now. Odd, getting out of deal didn't stop that. Does this mean old salt thinks getting out of the deal is bad now?

Yes. We chose the way NATO operated. The Cold War ended 3 decades ago. Russia is no longer a threat to (conventionally) invade France, or even Germany. We kept Germany down for so long (while rebuilding & reunifying them), that they've become pacifist free riders, leaving it to their allies to defend Europe's borders, keep the sea lanes open & maintain global stability for their commercial interests.

Yep.

NATO now exists primarily to protect the commercial interests of the EU, primarily Germany & France. US tax payers pay for that protection, with none of the trade benefits of EU membership.

Yep. And like all the other Presidents, Trump isn't doing anything about it, but making speeches. Meanwhile, Trump signed a bill blowing trillions more on the military. All while Republican millionaires in Congress act like the American people (liberals) are completely insane for wanting the same health care all those Europeans we're protecting with our military enjoy.

Almost seems like this cop to the world game is bound to blow up in its advocates faces when America finally runs out of borrowed money....

Nothing would make me happier. "Sorry, mate. America can't keep the Strait of Hormuz clear because we can't spare the dosh. You're on your own".

You are never going to make o s change his view on history and facts...

[CU88]

No, that's not what it looks like at all.

"West Point is looking into it and we do not know the intent of the cadets," said Lt. Col. Christopher Ophardt, director of public affairs, in an email.

Cmdr. Alana Garas of the Naval Academy said in an email, "We are aware and will be looking into it."

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/mi ... y-n1102366
Your statement is a classic example of the kind of misleading trash that makes social media the cesspool that it is, to say nothing about it being highly offensive to a group of young men and women who are generally considered to be a pretty fine lot of folks.

More evidence of white power activisim is the US Military.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2 ... tle-bulge/

Had this been a Black Power post how the r's would be outraged!

DEPLORABLE

[cradleandshoot]

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justic ... s-n1103451

The FBI's submission to the court made assertions that were "inaccurate, incomplete, or unsupported by appropriate documentation," the report said.
Rosemary Collyer, presiding judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, said in the unusual public order that the report "calls into question whether information contained in other FBI applications is reliable." She ordered the FBI to explain in writing by Jan. 10 how it intends to remedy those problems.

Looks like Comey and his merry band of folks gots more splainin to do.

Collyer said the FBI's handling of the Page case "was antithetical to the heightened duty of candor" required by the law that established the surveillance court. Judges on the court rely entirely on the government's submissions. Because they are the only documents the court sees, the government has a heightened duty of candor, she said.

[old salt]

You are never going to make o s change his view on history and facts..

Not from someone unwilling to acknowledge that our military readiness has improved over the last 2 years.

...& afan still hasn't carefully read (& thought through) this VDH statement :
"where the cost-benefit analysis is murky, we’re not going to get involved, especially in the Middle East'
& considered how it applies to our most recent force number changes in Syria & Saudi Arabia,

[Typical Lax Dad]

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justic ... s-n1103451

The FBI's submission to the court made assertions that were "inaccurate, incomplete, or unsupported by appropriate documentation," the report said.
Rosemary Collyer, presiding judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, said in the unusual public order that the report "calls into question whether information contained in other FBI applications is reliable." She ordered the FBI to explain in writing by Jan. 10 how it intends to remedy those problems.

Looks like Comey and his merry band of folks gots more splainin to do.

Collyer said the FBI's handling of the Page case "was antithetical to the heightened duty of candor" required by the law that established the surveillance court. Judges on the court rely entirely on the government's submissions. Because they are the only documents the court sees, the government has a heightened duty of candor, she said.

Judge didn’t say it was illegal.

[old salt]

No, that's not what it looks like at all.

"West Point is looking into it and we do not know the intent of the cadets," said Lt. Col. Christopher Ophardt, director of public affairs, in an email.

Cmdr. Alana Garas of the Naval Academy said in an email, "We are aware and will be looking into it."

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/mi ... y-n1102366
Your statement is a classic example of the kind of misleading trash that makes social media the cesspool that it is, to say nothing about it being highly offensive to a group of young men and women who are generally considered to be a pretty fine lot of folks.

More evidence of white power activisim is the US Military.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2 ... tle-bulge/

Had this been a Black Power post how the r's would be outraged!

DEPLORABLE

Thank goodness the precious WokeVolk have not declared a "thumbs up" to be hate speech, ...yet.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technolo ... o-looking/

Here’s what you should know about the “Okay” hand sign by now: In early 2017, a bunch of trolls on 4chan thought it would be funny to trick the media into claiming the “Okay” hand sign — thumb and forefinger making a ring, other fingers pointed out — is a secret Nazi symbol. Prominent figures on the pro-Trump Internet were into it for the same reason’s they’re into a lot of things: to “trigger” liberals. The trolling worked. Then actual white nationalists started using the symbol, too.

The “Okay” hand sign now lives in a purgatory of meaning, along with other memes that have been at least partially radicalized because online racists thought it would be funny to radicalize them. Pepe the Frog lives there, too, as does “Kek,” originally an inside joke from World of Warcraft that, by way of 4chan, now appears on banners stylized to look like Nazi flags at white nationalist rallies. We’re in purgatory, too, paralyzed by the desire to react strongly to expressions of racist extremism while also acknowledging that the “Okay” hand sign simultaneously does and does not signify those beliefs.

It’s a trap designed to ensnare well-meaning people by hacking our tools for understanding each other. And it works every time.

The circumstances of the latest “Okay” sign blowup made the ambiguity all the more unsettling, since it involved U.S. military institutions. At Saturday’s Army-Navy game, two U.S. Military Academy cadets and a Naval Academy midshipman flashed upside down “Okay” signs on camera behind an ESPN reporter. The military academies are now investigating the intent of the students. The hand gestures they did resemble the one that the Anti-Defamation League recently added — with some ambiguity-related caveats — to their database of hate symbols. It also resembles the hand gesture associated with the “circle game,” a made-you-look prank that predates the “Okay” hand sign’s transformation into a sometimes hate symbol.

Both the circle-game and white-power versions of the “Okay” hand sign require your attention to work, and you lose as soon as you give it to them.

The circle game’s goal is to trick someone into looking at your hand while you’re making a circle with index and thumb. If you look, you get punched in the arm. It’s an old game, popularized by a 2000 episode of “Malcolm in the Middle.” But it’s also a running meme on YouTube and TikTok.

The racist version comes with its own punch. When spotted, it tends to cause unstoppable cycle of media amplification that inadvertently helps to draw mainstream attention to extremist views.

When the “Okay” sign goes viral, the silos of outrage and claims that the perpetrators were “just trolling” spread way ahead of the context. During the confirmation hearings for Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, Republican operative Zina Bash was seen resting her hand in an “Okay”-like position while visible on camera. When she used the “Okay” sign again, days later, #Resistance Twitter accused Bash of signaling to white supremacists. The likely truth is much more mundane: Bash was signaling to a colleague that her request for water had been fulfilled. Nevertheless, it caused a week of agita and speculation.

There have been other examples. An “Okay” sign appeared behind a black reporter at a Cubs game. A Coast Guard member was removed from Hurricane Florence relief efforts after he flashed the “Okay” sign during a televised media briefing.

Brenton Tarrant, the Australian white supremacist who is accused of killing 51 people in New Zealand, flashed an “Okay” symbol during a court appearance. His hand was placed down low and upside down, like the circle-game version. The mass shooting, the manifesto, the live-streaming of the Christchurch massacre were steeped in edgy meme culture and engineered to go viral to serve the gunman’s extremist views.

The Christchurch mosque shooter, steeped in online culture, knew how to make his massacre go viral

People seem to want the “Okay” hand sign to work like a secret decoder ring, identifying white supremacy for those who are otherwise unable to see it. But instead, the “Okay” hand sign works more like a sleight of hand.

To understand how, you have to understand Poe’s Law.

In 2005, a message board user writing under the name Nathan Poe described how hard it is to figure out the intent of someone else online. At the time, he was talking about creationists. Poe wrote: “Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is utterly impossible to parody a Creationist in such a way that someone won’t mistake for the genuine article.”

Poe’s law became a reference point for any situation on the Internet where you can’t truly tell someone’s motives or intentions, It explains how “just trolling” has become a powerful cover for unironic expressions of racism or extremist views online, said Ryan Milner, an associate professor at the College of Charleston who studies meme culture, in a 2017 interview with The Washington Post.

The three old rules that explain basically the entire Internet

It can be tough to understand the motivation behind the “Okay” hand sign just by looking at it. And so two things can easily happen: People get wrongly accused of promoting white supremacy because of a hand gesture they made and actual uses by attention-seeking extremists can be explained away as misinterpretations of something more innocuous.

“People embrace irony, run to it, and use it as a shield to dip into a more objectionable idea,” Milner said in 2017.

Even the Anti-Defamation League’s database entry for the “Okay” hand symbol notes the trickiness here, noting that the “overwhelming usage of the ‘okay’ hand gesture today is still its traditional purpose.” Even as real white supremacists use it to get our attention, other people will keep flashing “Okay,” for unrelated reasons, on TikTok and at school and at sporting events.

There is no way to “win” the circle game. All you can do is avoid looking for as long as you can. The game that keeps the “Okay” hand sign in the news is even harder: Getting trolled is harder to avoid when actual white supremacy has crept out of the shadows, and especially when its adherents are targeting you. You cant’ stop seeing it, and everybody keeps punching each other in the arm.

[Trinity]

What?

3692B44D-EF7E-458D-9903-3100EF918740.jpeg (169.78 KiB) Viewed 1362 times

Spetsnaz meetup in Florida?

[old salt]

WP ??? ...must be Army West Point fans.

Unfortunate branding decision.

[Typical Lax Dad]

What? 3692B44D-EF7E-458D-9903-3100EF918740.jpeg

Spetsnaz meetup in Florida?

Nothing more than A room full of Alfalfa fans

[old salt]

What? 3692B44D-EF7E-458D-9903-3100EF918740.jpeg

Spetsnaz meetup in Florida?

Nothing more than A room full of Alfalfa fans

Sure you don't mean Buckwheat ?

[Typical Lax Dad]

What? 3692B44D-EF7E-458D-9903-3100EF918740.jpeg

Spetsnaz meetup in Florida?

Nothing more than A room full of Alfalfa fans

Sure you don't mean Buckwheat ?

They all gave the Okay sign.... it became Buckwheat's signature though.

[Trinity]

Not Stymie? I’ll have to watch those again.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Not Stymie? I’ll have to watch those again.

Stymie too. I preferred Stymie to Buckwheat. His character was more developed. Spanky was the guy though....

[dislaxxic]

mmmmm....Darla....

..

[Typical Lax Dad]

mmmmm....Darla....

..

Miss Crabtree.

[holmes435]

Foreign Policy: The Military’s ‘Readiness’ Scam Worked Again - "The Pentagon always complains for more money – and politicians always eventually give in."

[ABV 8.3%]

You are never going to make o s change his view on history and facts..

Not from someone unwilling to acknowledge that our military readiness has improved over the last 2 years. Improved from what level? Pre- 9/11, where defense didn't exist, protocols ignored, but trillion$ wa$ made, b/c after 9/11, fighter jets are located only 15 minutes from any populated area of one million +, to DEFEND us......that level.

...& afan still hasn't carefully read (& thought through) this VDH statement :
"where the cost-benefit analysis is murky, we’re not going to get involved, especially in the Middle East'
& considered how it applies to our most recent force number changes in Syria & Saudi Arabia,

[ABV 8.3%]

No, that's not what it looks like at all.

"West Point is looking into it and we do not know the intent of the cadets," said Lt. Col. Christopher Ophardt, director of public affairs, in an email.

Cmdr. Alana Garas of the Naval Academy said in an email, "We are aware and will be looking into it."

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/mi ... y-n1102366
Your statement is a classic example of the kind of misleading trash that makes social media the cesspool that it is, to say nothing about it being highly offensive to a group of young men and women who are generally considered to be a pretty fine lot of folks.

More evidence of white power activisim is the US Military.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2 ... tle-bulge/

Had this been a Black Power post how the r's would be outraged!

DEPLORABLE

Really not seeing the issue with this, considering the context. But, PT barnum applies, and this "controversy" brings much needed attention to a very important battle, 75 years ago. Annervisaries don't matter. (I know, the pretends ignored Gettysburg at 150. Gee, who was POTUSA ? )

Not seeing the narrative , or evidence, of any "activism" of blanche power.

[ABV 8.3%]

Foreign Policy: The Military’s ‘Readiness’ Scam Worked Again - "The Pentagon always complains for more money – and politicians always eventually give in."

shouldn't this belong on the TAATS thread

(funny, how, mostly, the majority of DEMS voted to fund the killing war machine effort, this time around. the pretends in the CON party decided to be "unpatriotic", and ALL voted NOT to fund our troops. )

[old salt]

^^^it's a 2018 article. It should be filed under recycled old news.