No, the teabaggers invaded the republicans and took them mostly far right but really deep into insanity, where they aren't right or left, just angry and lashing out while accepting no responsibility for their parts in problems. They are anti tax, but pro spending, anti big government unless it's a government project they support, then big government is what's needed every time, anti regulation unless it's a regulation against something they dislike (like abortion, relaxing drug policies, marriage, equal protection under the law, etc).

Every teabagger I've met (and there are many) has been at least as if not more racist, homophobic, and bible thumping than the media makes the 'party' out to be, including (sadly) many of my own family members. They are not the fringe, they are the base, you're either lying or don't know your own group. They are also just as dumb and/or stupid as they are portrayed, my favorite slogan is "keep your government hands off my medicare", clearly the woman carrying it was so dumb she didn't understand that medicare is a government program, just like 1/2 of you don't know that the ACA is Obamacare, but HATED Obamacare with a passion while insisting the ACA is great. Not racist? Then what? Just brain dead? It's this disconnect from reality and sanity that made me run from them as soon as it was clear where the party was going....it didn't start out like it ended up, it started out more like OWS.

Haven't you been the one saying all left wingers are in perfect alignment with SJWs recently....repeatedly and smugly? Yes...that was you.

*facepalm

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@newtboy,

No, it's about law. Warren Jeffries people did all that, on a smaller scale. They weren't their own country, even though they got away with it for decades. Law.

Forgive my lack of familiarity with him, but your telling me he (on a smaller scale than Texas), stopped paying taxes, and instead collecting them. Started up his own legal and justice system. He created his own borders within which the police would not dare set foot because it would be a death sentence for them. And after he'd done all this the US military itself failed to remove him as well?

Or are you meaning not just scale, but severity and all the other rather meaningful extremes of sovereignty that the Taliban and Al Qaida achieved? It's the same then in the sense that me punching you is violent just me killing ten people is violent, but in another sense they are nothing alike...

No, but they couldn't indiscriminately bomb Houston and any large gatherings either....not even if Spencer might be there. The first American civilian they kill will start a war...a real, legitimate war.

Your not embracing the analogy. Spencer's terrorists are still killing American civilians every week, outside of Texas borders. The American military is just corrupt enough that as long as its democrats/republicans dying,(whomever we choose to not be in power) they let it slide because it shows the need for the military to 'protect' the country.

You need to take a harder look at Pakistani politics to see just how powerful Al Qaida and the Taliban's control over the tribal areas has been.

More over, all of the above definitions of state within a state violence and jihad doesn't require war as the response to acts of war. To invade Afghanistan to prevent another 9/11 is dubious at best. Even the Kissinger's of the world wouldn't count the value of that trade off, losing a couple thousand Americans to an attack each decade or so is 'acceptable' loses.
Call it the price of freedom and carry on. The real trick was that if the Taliban and Al Qaida were so tight with Pakistan's military and intelligence services, how concerned should America be that the Pakistani proxies in their tribal regions and Afghanistan are so keen to target Americans. That lead directly to Pakistan's nuclear arsenal being a big enough concern with that pairing that maybe it was time to tell Pakistan they had to end their little dance with terrorists hitting Americans and they had better make a choice who they are going to side with in the Jihad that was already being waged for 2 decades.

Then, you (We) are suggesting legitimizing their claim to be autonomous states by accepting that classification to be able to declare war against them. Horrible idea, and against international law.

I call bullshit. That's like saying if an American commits a crime outside of America, or inside it against a foreigner, America just declared war on that country. Absolute bullshit. if Pakistan's government didn't direct the attack, they aren't declaring war. You don't hold a nation accountable for the actions of a few criminals within their borders unless they are backed by that nation. Because they can't stop the monster(s) we made (neither can we) absolutely in no way means they yield their sovereignty...that's asinine. EDIT: your theory would mean the Bundies would be their own country now, sovereign and at war with America, because we were unable to stop them from taking over public land (repeatedly), and didn't prosecute any of them.

Bullshit again. Because they aren't a state, they shouldn't be treated as one, no matter what bullshit they claim. Duh. Maybe they claim to be one, but they don't run away from that claim, it just isn't given credence by accepting it. They mostly are illegal aliens in the countries they now live in.

Afghanistan had good reason to refuse Bush....and you might recall were fighting the Taliban and Al-Qaida already for control of their own country.

Afghanistan was not hosting the terrorists, they 'invaded' or morphed out of non government controlled militias (Al-Qaida started as a retirement unit for the 'freedom fighters' we trained to fight Russia) . The Afghan government has excellent reasons to never invite a super power to cross their borders ever again.....and empires have good reason to avoid doing so. Afghanistan did not start or declare war with us, some invaders and criminals squatting in caves there did.

Exactly, the terrorist organizations aren't the fault or beneficiary of the government's in the countries where they hide or invade, they are the fault of those that support them, oddly missing from the travel ban and our assassination plans. See how that might piss off Afghansans and Pakistani?

are you implying that I'm a stupidhead?

I think education could definitely have a role. I don't think you'd need too much to connect the dots between the country who dropped the bomb out of the sky and the huge wound it created in your heart. Having enough heart or brain power to believe these foreign invaders have your best interests would be harder and may be beside the point if it pushed you over the edge.

To be fair, we have an obligation to physically defend Ukraine. They gave up their nukes for our promise (by treaty) to keep their borders secure. It was Putin starting a war by invading them, we just walked away from our obligation to avoid war.
And no, I don't want war with Russia, but neither do they. If we had mobilized troops into Ukraine, I doubt the Russian invasion would have continued to expand, but even if it did come to war that's what we promised, we lose all future credibility if we don't keep our international obligations.

Strangely, the thing that seems to be most important in stopping nuclear war with Russia is Trump's outrageous friendly relationship with Tsar Putin, because he's already made it clear that he has no qualms about using nukes against those he thinks are enemies.

Do you have to demonize a man who assassinates his enemies and expands his country? There's no question that he's done those things, so I don't get his point at all. You don't have to demonize a demon.

How does he think he knows what classified proof there may be? His statement makes him seem silly, he's complaining he hasn't seen this proof, knowing he shouldn't be able to see it.

Russia incontrovertibly militarily and financially supports our enemies and attacks our allies. That alone makes them threat #1. Period. They are also expansionist on multiple fronts, which is hyper threatening.

It's only unwise to build up Polish border forces if you want Poland to be Russian.

Be clear, Putin didn't "put Trump into the whitehouse", but he certainly helped. The argument that he didn't just install him is a red herring, designed to distract from the legal and illegal things Russia did to effect the election, a plan that worked better than they ever hoped.

Fake news hysteria?!? Fake news is one of the most important issues today, because it denies progress on ANY other issue by confusing the facts, making negotiation impossible.

I hate hearing about Bakers "promise"....it wasn't in writing, it wasn't from America or NATO, it wasn't binding in any way even then, and thinking we should stand by it in the face of Russia breaking treaty after treaty is just insane and naïve. Remember, Russia promised to never invade Ukraine (including Crimea).

I don't really think Aleppo was liberated....there's nothing left to liberate there but rubble.
Really, he's claiming that when Mosul was "liberated", Iraq just let the enemy drive away? That's bullshit. We have bombed the fleeing militants, and the Iraqi have fought them with vigor this time.

For a professional on US, Russia relations, he's got some strange ways of seeing things.
I do agree with him that, to Russia, bolstering Assad IS fighting terrorism. I think we failed miserably when we didn't take Assad out after he gassed the populace AND support/safeguard the local populace (if not their militias)....no question in my mind, that's when we lost Syria. Once Daesh and others were allowed to take over the anti-Assad side, there was no "winning" that war.
I also agree, with our current leaders, the nuclear safeguard is no safeguard at all, it's a sword of Damocles, not a shield.

For all I know, the Syrian secessionists (if that's what the original local revolutionists should be called) are all gone and the fighters of today are nearly all foreign invaders

Given that both the government and ISIS armies both specifically targeted them first they likely are all gone. If you go back to Al Jazeera's coverage of the early Russian offensives, their airstrikes and attacks were ignoring the ISIS held territory and only hitting the moderate/legitimate rebels. Similarly, pretty much all reports of the ISIS foreign fighters coming in were that they never pretended to support the rebels, but merely replaced them demanding obedience or death.

@radx

The foreign element is fighting both sides of the war. The strongest fighting force on the 'rebel' side is ISIS and the strongest fighting force overall is the Russians fighting for Assad. If foreign support makes the rebels illegitimate doesn't it do the same for Assad?

Yeah, can't classify invaders as good guys unless they went there to free the people. A better culture doesn't equal right to take over someone else's plot of land.

I would be interested to know if there have been any studies (not sure how they would go about it) to see how many fighters in Syria are locals and how many are foreign mercenaries (not including the Russian army). I don't deny that you may be 100% correct, but I would like to see some figures to confirm, and to see just how bad this issue has gotten. For all I know, the Syrian secessionists (if that's what the original local revolutionists should be called) are all gone and the fighters of today are nearly all foreign invaders, I just don't know, I've never seen data about that.

To be fair, 300 barely touched on the politics involved, but they did play fast and lose with history.
Spartan soldiers were free men, and the Persian army included many who were drafted. Maybe they technically weren't slaves, but for all intents and purposes they were, so the line makes sense, even if it may be misleading without background knowledge.
True enough, from what I was taught, the Spartans weren't so interested in democracy, they seemed to believe the strongest should rule, not the weaker masses.

All that said, the Persians were invaders, so NOT the good guys in any form no matter what advantages their culture may have had. If Canada invaded the U.S., would they be the good guys just because their political system and society aren't in the toilet?

I can understand, it's not a simple issue, but this expansion happened 18-20 (invited in 97, members in 99) years ago. I simply can't grasp anyone being upset that NATO troops are in a long term NATO country.
If Putin/Russia hadn't been massing troops on it's borders, and then moving them into neighboring countries it now claims as part of Russia, the other bordering countries would not be asking for this safeguard, but to imply that NATO troops in Poland are somehow an attack on Russia is laughable. NATO troops would never invade Russia, that would certainly be WW3. As it stands, I feel like NATO probably wouldn't respond if it's troops were overrun by a Russian invasion of a member country, we (the US and others) certainly didn't help Crimea or Ukraine, even though we have a binding treaty requiring us to come to their defense, one paid for by giving up their nuclear arsenal.

Sadly, it's looking like there can be no stability/security in Europe with Russia either.

I'm not at all sure if you're referring to me in your description.
I thought I explained well why a respected reporter working for a propaganda site is both making themselves suspect and lending veracity to the propaganda machine, and that you mostly agreed.
I also mentioned Maddow specifically as being willing to fudge the news for her bias....BUT it bears mention that here she did NOT say what the narrator said she said, she said "we are about to find out if Russia MAYBE has something on our president." That's arguing that, if Trump does what Russia wants, it MIGHT be because they blackmailed him into it...or might not. If he goes against Russia on something serious like securing our allies borders from an expansionist Russia that indicates they MIGHT not be blackmailing him. This guy totally exaggerated and misstated her statement to feign outrage, he's a complete bombastic liar....sorry @enoch. That's not to say she doesn't also exaggerate and omit.

As to the troops on the border, that's what Russia did, and claimed it was just defensive until after they took Crimea and part of Ukraine proper.
As to the treaty with Russia, we also have a treaty with the Ukraine (and so did Russia) that, in return for their nuclear disarmament, we would guarantee their borders and come to their aid militarily if anyone attacked them....and we completely failed to stand up when Russia invaded TWICE. Of course now our allies want our troops ON the border, if American troops aren't killed, we don't care if Russia invades them, and they want us to keep our word, so we need our troops in harm's way to force us to live up to our responsibilities since we've horrendously failed to do so incredibly recently and now look even less likely to oppose Russian expansion.

How does Stephen know Trump is the richest president ever elected? Because Trump said so with no evidence?

So, I guess when Russia invades more Balkan countries Trump is going to take Putin's word that they aren't, just like they weren't in Crimea.

It's going to be an interesting 4 years. It's probably a good time to invest in Russian currency.

@Mordhaus, you're not understanding the point I'm making here. I didn't say mankind in general isn't shitty to each other, it is very much. What I'm talking about is how as soon as Europe reached a technological tipping point (gaining an advantage), we started to fuck with every continent on the map. Our culuture shaped how we treated the rest of the world, which meant wiping out every other culture we could dominate.
Look at the Mongols, sure, extremely violent assholes. But what happened to those that didn't oppose them? Did they try to eradicate conquered cultures? Here's the funny part, the Mongols we're known for their religious tolerance. They didn't give a shit about your culture, as long as you surrendered and accepted their rule, you had a chance to be ok. Basically, the Mongols are Negan.
Say, what happened to those cultures that came into contact with the spanish Empire or the british? Oh right, we pretty much destroyed them as well as we could. We did this in the Americas, Africa and tried it in Australia. Europeans aren't Negan, they're the Wolves.
That's why I mention Zheng He. He shows up in Africa with a giant fleet and says "Gimme some of your shit!" and fucks off right home. Comes back a couple off times and the new chinese Emperor goes "Eh, it ain't worth it!"
I'm sure ol' Zheng could be quite the bastard but he didn't set up shop in Africa and he didn't start slaughtering people because they refused to embrace Buddha.
You're absolutely right, there are mad men to be found everywhere, there's genocide and slavery all around the globe all through human history. However, there's only one group of people that made all of it an export article. Our ancestors left their neighbourhood to mess up everybody else's. We're special in that regard.
With the exception of the Mongols of course. But they've always been exceptional. I mean, they're the only empire to successfuly invade Afghanistan. You gotta respect that.