CURRENT EVENTS - DECEMBER

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nycfan said:
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🎁 —> https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-ea...2?st=3WZLWK&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
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“…
The attack occurred as the soldiers were guarding a meeting between a local U.S. commander, a lieutenant colonel, and an official from the Syrian Interior Ministry about countering ISIS, according to a senior U.S. official. The U.S. soldiers were guarding the meeting alongside Syrian troops, according to a U.S. official.

As the meeting was occurring, a lone gunman popped up in a window and opened fire on the troops with a machine gun, the senior U.S. official said. The U.S. and Syrian forces opened fire and suppressed the gunman, according to the official. U.S. officials then called in a medical evacuation team, while Syrian forces pursued and killed the gunman, the official said. Three members of the Syrian security forces were wounded in the assault, according to the senior U.S. official.

U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East, said in a statement that the attack was conducted by a “lone ISIS gunman.”…”
 

For decades, an Army base in Virginia was named for Robert E. Lee, the defeated Civil War general who had owned slaves. In 2021, a new law mandated the removal of Confederate names from military assets. The base was renamed Fort Gregg-Adams to honor two pioneering Black Army officers who had overcome segregation in the military.

But after returning to office, the Trump administration was determined to rewind history. A law prevented the restoration of Confederate names, so it did it in a most unusual way. The base is now called Fort Lee again and named — officially, anyway — for Fitz Lee.
 
ZenMode said:
Does it contribute anything of value to any discussion about race?
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Maybe this is a question that isn't up to you to arbitrate. That's true about a lot of things you think you should arbitrate, but it's especially egregious here since you have never demonstrated any real understanding of race. As you've said so many times, you think race is about melanin in skin. That's the appearance of race. The human experience of race is far, far, far different, more painful, more complicated, and has played out over centuries.

You're like a bug that climbs up a blade of grass thinking it is the tallest summit in the universe.
 
Mulberry Heel said:
yet at the same time they want to be more aggressive in using our military and aggressively enforce the Monroe Doctrine and go back to being an Imperial power and being in everybody's else's business even more than we have been since WW2.
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I don't think you're the sort of chap to abandon a land that Americans fought and died for to a foreign power. And mark my word. Unless Americans act, people like you and me who take their country seriously while those mollycoddles in Washington sit on their hindsides, unless we act, Mexico, and I mean the whole of the country, will one day fly a European flag. Monroe Doctrine or no. The captain's voice had become soft and intense. He tilted his head to one side and regarded the kid with a sort of benevolence. The kid rubbed the palms of his hands on the knees of his filthy jeans. He glanced at the man beside him but he seemed to be asleep.
 
Mulberry Heel said:
It would be nice if MAGA Republicans could figure out what they really want America's foreign policy to be. OTOH they want to return to isolationism and adopt an "America First" strategy where they focus on winning the culture wars here at home (which is a really dumb strategy, btw), yet at the same time they want to be more aggressive in using our military and aggressively enforce the Monroe Doctrine and go back to being an Imperial power and being in everybody's else's business even more than we have been since WW2. As usual, their foreign and domestic policy resembles Trump's befuddled, ADHD, impulsive, reckless, and forever contradictory brain.
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They want an aggressive foreign policy where the US military is the stick in the "carrot & stick" arrangement that focuses pretty exclusively on America's well-being rather than actually assisting other countries.

So they're fine with sending the military out to engage around the world, but only when it is to directly advance US interests. There is no interest in nation-building, even if US actions are a reason the nation needs building. There is no concern for folks in other parts of the world because they are, at best, a second-level consideration behind US interests, and, at worst, not really considered people in the full sense of the term.

In short, they want aggressive American imperialism that utilizes the US military to advance US interests but that doesn't engage in world affairs unless there is a direct benefit to the US (i.e. no more of the US acting as the "world's police").
 
SnoopRob said:
They want an aggressive foreign policy where the US military is the stick in the "carrot & stick" arrangement that focuses pretty exclusively on America's well-being rather than actually assisting other countries.

So they're fine with sending the military out to engage around the world, but only when it is to directly advance US interests. There is no interest in nation-building, even if US actions are a reason the nation needs building. There is no concern for folks in other parts of the world because they are, at best, a second-level consideration behind US interests, and, at worst, not really considered people in the full sense of the term.

In short, they want aggressive American imperialism that utilizes the US military to advance US interests but that doesn't engage in world affairs unless there is a direct benefit to the US (i.e. no more of the US acting as the "world's police").
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I think that is what the smarter members of Trump 2.0 want, although even in their case it's misguided and self-defeating in the long run. I don't think many members of this administration, Trump included, are actually smart enough to have such a coherent policy as you describe. I think they're more driven by looking tough and macho and using other nations for personal grift rather than actually helping America as a whole, or just bombing and attacking other people because it seems easy and fills personal whims and impulses and boosts their self-image and allows them to tweet incessantly about how tough they are.
 


Hard to overestimate how impactful this is in Texas — there is no income tax and virtually every government service relies on property taxes.
 
nycfan said:


Hard to overestimate how impactful this is in Texas — there is no income tax and virtually every government service relies on property taxes.
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Ultimately, Abbott and the other Texan Trumplicans are out to make government fail. That’s their goal. Then, they install a “law-and-order” state that deregulates business activity.

Part of their plan is to have failing schools. Limiting counties and cities/towns ability to control property taxes is part of that plan.

Phil Berger and company won’t be far behind. Chapel Hill/Carrboro’s ability to fund its own schools is likely on a short leash.
 
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