Firstly he is an adult, and secondly he is a person who for many years has organized a beauty pageant, socialized with the most beautiful women in the world. It is hard to believe that he ran to a hotel to meet with our girls of a low social class, although they are the best in the world. But finally, you know, what I want to say, prostitution is a serious, ugly, social phenomenon, young women do this connected to the fact that they cannot survive any other way and that is a problem of society but people who order false information and spread this information against the elected President, who fabricate it and use it in a political fight, they are worse than prostitutes.Ah! This pithy statement proceeds in stages:
1. Defense of Trump: He's got so much access to the most beautiful women that it makes no sense to think he'd consort with low women.
2. Defense of prostitutes: Our prostitutes are great prostitutes!
3. Feminist/left-wing critique: Don't speak of prostitution in terms of low women choosing a degraded way of life. Society forces them into it, and society deserves the blame, and we must improve it.
4. Attack on the purveyors of fake news: Worse than prostitutes!
IN THE COMMENTS: Lyssa quoted "It is hard to believe that he ran to a hotel to meet with our girls of a low social class, although they are the best in the world" and asks: "Did Trump craft this statement? It sounds so much like something that he would say. Maybe he'll fire back at the perceived slights to America's prostitutes."
Freeman Hunt scripts tweets for Trump:
"Even prostitutes are poor in Russia. Sad! American prostitutes at all income levels. Bad work but more money in US!"
"Poor women forced to hook in Russia! Sad! Americans prostitutes by choice. Some big $$$! Against law though. Don't do it! Gross!"
"Americans richer than Russians. No need to be prostitutes! Russian prostitutes better because American prostitutes lazy. Just guessing!"
"Putin wrong. American prostitutes best in world! Have heard. No experience. Always gotten from classy women free. Not prostitutes!"
Posts
216 comments:
1 – 200 of 216 Newer› Newest»Now Putin is a genius too!
He might appear so from your vantage point.
The media that Trump played like a violin throughout the election is certain that Trump can only be in submissive thrall to Putin. Because, you know, he says nice things about him. QED.
The one person who almost certainly believes nothing of the sort is Vladimir Putin.
I'm not the one humping the genius of a former KGB agent turned dictator of a failed state.
"It is hard to believe that he ran to a hotel to meet with our girls of a low social class, although they are the best in the world. "
Very Trump-Like phrase there.
A challenge for those who wish to take it: Convert that to a true Trump phrase. (doing so would be beautiful, so beautiful)
heh!
SoLast...
I was going to say "although they are the best in the world." was very Trump-like.
He forgot to add that Trump is a germaphobe, case closed. Did someone ask him what film they have on Bubba, Hillary, Kerry, etc.?
It is hard to believe that he ran to a hotel to meet with our girls of a low social class, although they are the best in the world.
Did Trump craft this statement? It sounds so much like something that he would say. Maybe he'll fire back at the perceived slights to America's prostitutes.
"I'm not the one humping the genius of a former KGB agent turned dictator of a failed state."
-- Russia is not a failed state. A failed state is one that is falling apart, losing political authority due to external or internal forces, such as say, Libya. Russia is a strong state, with expanding spheres of influence and power.
Look, I don't like Putin and I've been wary of Russia since Romney, you know, before it was cool when the left, and others--maybe even yourself, it was too long ago for me to remember--were laughing about the right's continued desire to refight the Cold War.
If you honestly view Russia as a failed or failing state... well, your analysis has flaws.
At some point -- now reached, I submit -- the talk about Putin rightly moves away from fake news, cartoonish spy plots and prostitutes, to the more deadly- serious topic of Russian war crimes and genocide in Syria. John McCain and Marco Rubio are talking about it. And before the Trumpkins write them off as part of a now-irrelevant "eGOP," they had better remember just how badly they need every single Republican vote in the Senate.
It is going to be an interesting 8 years with Trump and Putin. They both fight dirty as hell, while appearing light hearted. Let's see if Trump can undermine the power of the Russian state by increasing production of fossil fuels. Then let's see how Putin tries to stop him. Obama was no match, but maybe...
This is going to be a serious bromance!!
"...although they are the best in the world." During most of the post- WWII period, this could've been said of American prostitutes. Now Russians claim the title. Sad!
Tell me his interpreter is not Boris Badenov?
The UN reports that the best prostitutes in the world are in Angola. Russia ranks only #6.
Putin is a pretty good liar. Much better than Hillary. Her lies were always mechanical whereas Putin has a certain panache. Obama is a good liar, but it is hard to rank him because the media just bent over for the guy. Under pressure, Obama gets tongue tied and begins to stutter so that counts against him.
AReasonableMan: "I'm not the one humping the genius of a former KGB agent turned dictator of a failed state"
Putin is no genius, but we must all understand that the Russians have been masters of propaganda, misinformation and skullduggery for hundreds of years.
Secondly, there is nothing "Ex" about his KGBism. Just some label changes.
Thirdly, and most importantly, the dems, in there desperate search for a reason for their loss have consciously and purposely handed handed Putin his biggest propaganda victory ever. Most ironically Putin was handed this victory thru no effort on his own.
And thus, as in the Soviet days, the Russians biggest allies and useful idiots are the western lefties.
It has always been thus and it will always be thus.
President Elect Trump on hearing this: "Oh, piss on 'em! Piss on the whole, goddamn lot of 'em".
News Headline: Trump Takes Golden Showers Fetish National.
@Bob E.
The UN reports that the best prostitutes in the world are in Angola.
I've read Havana, because the prostitutes get paid in foreign cash by tourists, & so they are the best paid "workers" on the island short of top party leaders. They make waaaaay more than Cuban doctors, for example. There's little sense of Catholic shame left among the population, & so there's little to no social opprobrium heaped on them. As ways to get ahead (no puns please) go, there's far worse in Cuba.
In Havana, good girls, if they're pretty as well, do.
This pithy statement proceeds in stages
It's called sentences, which are part of a paragraph.
Putin is just laughing his butt off in Red Square. He's playing the hysterical purveyors of "the election was fixed by Russia" trope like a master conductor.
Boris Badenov indeed.
And how has no one yet cited the fake Kazakhstan national anthem from the Borat movie: "Kazakhstan, prostitutes cleanest in the region, except of course for Turkmenistan's."
Trump hired two Russian prostitutes because he heard for the right amount of money they'll fight like jack rabbits.
"This pithy statement" Almost Trumpian in its pithiness, but not quite.
'the best in the world'. Wow, he's done a lot of comparison shopping!
I didn't believe the story, but if I did I can't imagine Putin's denial having any effect. If he was blackmailing Trump, what would we expect him to say? Spill the beans right now?
And the "low women" comment is particularly unconvincing. History is filled with many examples of "men who could do better" cavorting with "low women" (see Hugh Grant). This reasoning of Putin's is worse than saying nothing at all.
Chuck said... [hush][hide comment]
At some point -- now reached, I submit -- the talk about Putin rightly moves away from fake news, cartoonish spy plots and prostitutes, to the more deadly- serious topic of Russian war crimes and genocide in Syria. John McCain and Marco Rubio are talking about it. And before the Trumpkins write them off as part of a now-irrelevant "eGOP," they had better remember just how badly they need every single Republican vote in the Senate.
Careful there, USA dropped 22,110 bombs on Iraq and Syria in 2015. , over 24,000 in 2016.
A pro-Trump Althouse commenter recently tried to insult me by calling me "commie Chuck." Think about that one.
I blame moose and squirrel.
Putin asks and answers:
...
Ah! This pithy statement proceeds in stages:
...
5) Putin never actually answers the question.
In Mother Russia, prostitutes hire you....
"A pro-Trump Althouse commenter recently tried to insult me by calling me "commie Chuck." Think about that one."
Insults are apparently a lost art!
Chuck said...
A pro-Trump Althouse commenter recently tried to insult me by calling me "commie Chuck." Think about that one.
Are you bragging, or complaining?
I would think that the liberals would put down their blind Trump hatred for a moment and see they are being played by Putin. As I told a liberal pal of mine, I hated seeing Putin run circles around Obama all these years and actually resent having it done to our entire press now. Russia is not our friend, but you have to play smart to get any where with those birds.
Putin isn't stupid. ARM thinks do, but ARM is wrong. Nothing new there.
Commie Chuck sure spends a lot of time complaining about being "attacked or insulted" here at Althouse. Doesn't he tell us every few days that he doesn't give a fuck about any of us? Funny that we're so far under his extremely thin skin.
One more point, Commie Chuck: Trump doesn't need every vote from the GOPe losers in the Senate. Dream on, comrade -- you're clueless and your fellow cuckservatives have outlived their purpose. Don't be upset now -- remember -- you don't care what I think! Lulz
Bragging, of course. About the fact that the Trumpiest of Trumpkins seem to hate the GOP, or whatever it is that they think the GOP is, more that a brutal former KGP dictator. In that, they are a bit like the Democrats who hate the GOP more than a Castro or an Ortega or a Chavez or a Mugabe.
What's still more funny is hearing all of Trump's cabinet nominees agree with the so-called eGOP. On Russia, on the TPP, on immigration, on waterboarding, etc.
"I would think that the liberals would put down their blind Trump hatred for a moment and see they are being played by Putin."
Everyone's getting played by Putin. Look how easy it is--spread some funny business around, get half the country saying he plopped Trump in office like some Manchurian Candidate, the other half saying "nothing to see here, so don't look!" and we're easily divided and losing faith in our intelligence agencies and the branches of government set to investigate such things. What we're not hearing enough of is "quit running on assumptions, check this thing out and find out what if anything Putin and Co. did here".
Each half of this country hates the other half more than any foreign rival.
The most interesting thing about this is how it's still referred to as a "dossier", which gives it a patina of respectabilty that it may not yet have earned. It's provenance still not apparently worthy of much interest.
It's probably better referred to as a "pdf file".
"Commie Chuck sure spends a lot of time..."
"Commie", Chuck, though? I'm so old I remember when "Commie" used to mean something! Hell one of the most prominent Senators is a sorta-commie. You go around using that word on Chuck--who far as I know hasn't advocated forced redistribution of private property for the good of the state--then it has no meaning.
If someone wants to be respected, he/she doesn't play the victim. Victims may elicit sympathy but never respect.
Brando, it reminds me of that Twilight Zone episode where the aliens shut off electricity in a town and then randomly turn peoples power on and off till the town turns on each other. That commie, bastard, Putin has been watching our re-runs!
Chuck's a lot of things, but is not a "commie", Brando. I'm obviously being facetious and playing off Chuck's continuous whining about his treatment here.
I'd hold off on saying Russian prostitutes are the best until I see the results of the urine samples. They might have been heavily doped with performance enhancing drugs.
"It is hard to believe that he ran to a hotel to meet with our girls of a low social class, although they are the best in the world."
Did Trump craft this statement? It sounds so much like something that he would say. Maybe he'll fire back at the perceived slights to America's prostitutes.
"Even prostitutes are poor in Russia. Sad! American prostitutes at all income levels. Bad work but more money in US!"
"Poor women forced to hook in Russia! Sad! Americans prostitutes by choice. Some big $$$! Against law though. Don't do it! Gross!"
"Americans richer than Russians. No need to be prostitutes! Russian prostitutes better because American prostitutes lazy. Just guessing!"
"Putin wrong. American prostitutes best in world! Have heard. No experience. Always gotten from classy women free. Not prostitutes!"
2. Defense of prostitutes: Our prostitutes are great prostitutes!
No, they are the "best in the world."
Here's an interesting theory spurred by David Ignatius:
"...Now David Ignatius, a very savvy foreign policy thinker, wonders whether the Russians stopped Clinton for reasons of their own, and now are out to torpedo Trump after he has won. Perhaps Putin wants Trump to be president because he thinks that would be better for Russia than a Clinton presidency. But, perhaps the real game has always been to elect the weaker candidate and then destroy him when he wins.
Perhaps Putin’s goal is to destroy the United States in a way that he otherwise could not do. He doesn’t have the military or the economy to humiliate and harm the United States, but he does have the decades of perfecting the very sophisticated weaponry of disinformation and propaganda.
It’s hard for me to imagine any more effective means of destroying America than having the impetuous, uncontrolled, foolish child that is Donald Trump become president, and then undermine him with propaganda and disinformation.
Given this silly man’s history, it doesn’t seem too hard for expert hackers, propagandists, and disinformation artists to destroy him, but I think America will definitely survive Trump and Putin as well."
demulcents
I like Gorbachev better than Putin, but I don't think you can find ten people in Russia who feels the same. When you talk of a failed Russian state, he's the name to mention.
"Perhaps Putin wants Trump to be president because he thinks that would be better for Russia than a Clinton presidency."
-- Until the election, Clinton was incredibly pro-Russian, from being SoS while letting Russia run rampant and expand its sphere of influence to helping Russia secure energy independence and weaken competing energy markets to further enrich Russia.
There is no logical reason to assume Russia thinks Clinton, who only turned anti-Russia when their campaign blamed Russia for Wikileaks, would be less supportive of Russia than Trump, who comes from the very Russia-skeptical Republican party, even if he personally has not gone as far as Romney in calling them a danger.
"Brando, it reminds me of that Twilight Zone episode where the aliens shut off electricity in a town and then randomly turn peoples power on and off till the town turns on each other. That commie, bastard, Putin has been watching our re-runs!"
I loved that one--it had an early appearance of the Future Sherriff Lobo, Claude Akins!
"Chuck's a lot of things, but is not a "commie", Brando. I'm obviously being facetious and playing off Chuck's continuous whining about his treatment here."
Oh, I know--just lamenting how "commie" doesn't have the sting that say "Nazi" still does. I feel like we used it up in the '50s or something!
"2. Defense of prostitutes: Our prostitutes are great prostitutes!
No, they are the "best in the world." "
Great, now I'm wondering which country does have the best hookers in the world.
So, just from this, I assume David Ignatius is not particularly smart when it comes to foreign policy and is a dime-a-dozen left leaning "thinkers."
Matthew Sablan said...
Russia is not a failed state
Depends. Russia has a primitive resource based economy that is relatively robust because it is diversified. But, its pretensions to first rank nation status are in tatters. There has been a huge brain drain out of the country. It has no chance of matching China's advancement over the next decade or of ever challenging economically advanced states such as the US and Germany.
This didn't have to happen. Putin takes much of the blame. Talk to Russian ex-pats, they are everywhere.
Personally I think Althouse is just toying with her readers, watching them turn themselves into knots defending President Pussy-Grabber.
Ha Freeman!
ARM: Are you using failed state using a correct definition (that is, a state that has fallen or will fall, as in, be politically dissolved or suffer from a coup, or that the government is effectively not in control) -- or do you just mean a state that isn't as powerful as it could be?
Because, if you mean the second, sure. Most people agree. Totalitarian states suffer that frequently. No surprise.
But, uh, if you keep using "failed state," at least learn what it means.
Putin is mirroring Trump's communication style. Scott Adams says that is the beginning of persuading the target. Hmm? Will Master Persuader Trump win or will Master Persuader Putin win. Or will it be a tie game... until Trump unleashes Kellyann on him.
Chuck said... [hush][hide comment]
Bragging, of course. About the fact that the Trumpiest of Trumpkins seem to hate the GOP, or whatever it is that they think the GOP is, more that a brutal former KGP dictator. In that, they are a bit like the Democrats who hate the GOP more than a Castro or an Ortega or a Chavez or a Mugabe.
What's still more funny is hearing all of Trump's cabinet nominees agree with the so-called eGOP. On Russia, on the TPP, on immigration, on waterboarding, etc.
And you believe Trump was not aware of this when he picked them? Sad! See how he does, Chuck? Even you unknowingly appreciate what he has done. Subconsciously he has risen ever so slightly in your opinion. As poorly educated people had expected, Trump hires the best people to do the job. Also expected, if they do not get results, they will be replaced.
All is proceeding as I have foreseen, to borrow a phrase. All the right people are going crazy and being manipulated by ghosts and nightmares. Reality could never measure up to this.
Russia is one of the fifteen countries on the planet with a trillion-dollar+ economy -- please tell us more about its failure, ARM. Lulz
"William said...
I'd hold off on saying Russian prostitutes are the best until I see the results of the urine samples. They might have been heavily doped with performance enhancing drugs."
I could never cast a Hall of Fame vote for a PED-enhanced hooker.
Decoding Putin, he seems to be saying the Hillary/CIA Industrial Complex war hawks were useless as whores. He paid the Clintons, and just about every body else paid the Clintons, but they still refused to go away.
According to the Russian news agency, Interfax(as reported in the Business Insider), Putin also said, "We are witnessing an ongoing acute political struggle in the US, whose task is to undermine the legitimacy of the president-elect."
Sounds about right to me.
I'm unwilling to accept that Russia has the best hookers in the world until I hear from Laslo.
William said...
I'd hold off on saying Russian prostitutes are the best until I see the results of the urine samples. They might have been heavily doped with performance enhancing drugs.
Would that be a test of the prostitutes, or of the Johns??
"Beer Goggles" are a Thing, after all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8_T1jLNHN0
Those words coming from Putin ring more true than anything I've heard from a Democrat or member of the left wing media this entire election.
Take the man at his word. Even the Russians know the United States main stream media are whores.
Putin is right. Russian women probably have the best beauty traits you get from mixing of Vikings and Slavs families with recent Mongol interbreeding. Some are so pretty they end up looking like Ivanka.
I would suspect that the elite of Russian whores work in the red light district in Amsterdam or some similar arrangement. I suppose Trump could have re-imported them just for this moment of glorious elimination. Perhaps he purchased the best asparagus available to complete the ritual. If you do it right, they don't even bother to clean the sheets, immediately making them the main course of a dumpster fire.
You get the sense that we will be dealing the cognitive dissonance of Trump Narrative A that he is a crazy, irresponsible, impulsive idiot combined with Trump Narrative B that he is a diabolical mastermind behind one of the greatest conspiracies in world history. It's more or less the sequel to W, which was more or less the sequel to Reagan. I'm not sure why we are supposed to be concerned with a hybrid Lex Luthor/Adolf Hitler in the Oval Office when the past several seemed to have worked out decently.
Blogger Freeman Hunt said...
"Even prostitutes are poor in Russia. Sad! American prostitutes at all income levels. Bad work but more money in US!"
True that! Probably better working conditions too.
Isn't this a trade issue? We import a lot of Russian hookers, strippers and other sex workers. Russia imports very few of ours.
Perhaps Trump should put a tarriff on Russian hookers?
John Henry
"Static Ping said...
I would suspect that the elite of Russian whores work in the red light district in Amsterdam or some similar arrangement."
There are no high-end escorts working in any red light district.
Chuck: ...to the more deadly- serious topic of Russian war crimes and genocide in Syria. John McCain and Marco Rubio are talking about it. And before the Trumpkins write them off as part of a now-irrelevant "eGOP," they had better remember just how badly they need every single Republican vote in the Senate.
Meaning what, Chuck? You seem to be saying that its necessary to go along with the foreign policy idiocy and insanity of the insane and idiotic (respectively) McCain and Rubio, because otherwise if they don't get their insane idiotic way here, they'll have no choice but to join the Dems in preventing the Republicans from doing any of the other stuff they've been claiming they want to do since forever.
Yeah, that's how I want a foreign policy that guards the genuine national interests of my country to be made! (Though I guess the way you framed the Syria issue here indicates that you consider these two asshat tools to be foreign policy sages.)
But putting that aside, I'll marvel once again at the bizarrely distorted, downright autistic lens through which you view the world. "Por My Party todo, fuera de My Party nada." Hey, fuck everybody else on earth including ordinary Americans, the important thing is, are Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell still large and in charge in DC? Priorities, people, priorities.
Matthew Sablan said...
But, uh, if you keep using "failed state," at least learn what it means.
Pretentious twerp. Russia was once, relatively, a great state, a genuine challenge to the US and Europe and vastly more advanced than China. Obviously it has failed, dramatically, to keep its status as a first rank nation. Putin takes much of the responsibility. Very few other major states have experienced such a dramatic relative decline over such a short time period. The Russian state will fail completely if it continues on its current path. China will start to pick off the eastern provinces as they depopulate with ethnic Russians and continue to receive Chinese immigrants.
"Only 7.4 million Russians populate the entire Russian Far East, versus more than 70 million in northeast China. The Russian Far East is comparatively empty, with only 1.3 people per kilometer. China’s Manchurian population has increased 13 percent in a little more than a decade."
"Most of the border region — an area roughly the size of Iran — used to be Chinese. Russia took the territory in 1858 and 1860 with the Treaties of Aigun and Peking, respectively. Of all of the unequal treaties forced upon the Qing dynasty by outside powers in the 19th century, these are the only two China has not (yet) managed to overcome."
Putin would never lie to us. He has proven himself to be a trustworthy, fair, just, decent leader and statesman! Better than Merkel any day, yes sir, you betcha.
"Obviously it has failed, dramatically, to keep its status as a first rank nation."
-- Words mean things.
Oh yes, MRGA!
Actually, if you wanted to perfect the fountain of hookers, you bring them in from around the world so the entire globe can show their disregard in a veritable yellow river of disrespect. Hookers for all the UN Security Council members to start, plus Kenya and Indonesia for obvious reasons. Then we bring in representatives of the countries that have been slighted: Israel (obviously), Syria, Libya, Egypt, Japan, South Korea, Canada, Honduras (remember that fiasco?). Also, we bring in several Mexicans in case the American whore decides this is a job she won't do, but they'll have to be smuggled over the border illegally. And to top it off we bring in an Australian, mainly because she can drink a case of beer in about 5 minutes and therefore will keep the flow going for a good 30 minutes.
It's so much winning that I cannot stand it. Probably because I have passed out from the fumes.
ARM still can't explain away Russia's trillion-dollar economy. Sad!
Clinton got impeached for far less.
Chuck said...
the talk about Putin rightly moves away from fake news, cartoonish spy plots and prostitutes, to the more deadly- serious topic of Russian war crimes and genocide in Syria
All this saber rattling by Hillary supporters and the victims of Trump's wake is insane. Little Marco really thinks the new Secretary of State should call Putin a war criminal, even though the US Gov't hasn't used that term. Senator McCain (and Van Jones) want to call cyber attacks 'real war' or 'real acts of war'.
Perhaps arming a small rebellion consisting of mercenaries in a heavily populated area was one of the worst decisions Obama and Hillary made together. They thought Assad would fall like Gaddafi and Mubarak.
I still wonder what promises were made to the EU to try and deliver Assad's fall. Wonder what all the Saudi and Qatari money that flowed into the Clinton foundation was for. Seems to have dried up since she lost.
Oh yes, and those Trump approval ratings are fake, he's out most beloved President evah!
I read that as "presstitutes" and clearly Putin is wrong. We have the world's best!
At some point -- now reached, I submit -- the talk about Putin rightly moves away from fake news, cartoonish spy plots and prostitutes, to the more deadly- serious topic of Russian war crimes and genocide in Syria. John McCain and Marco Rubio are talking about it. And before the Trumpkins write them off as part of a now-irrelevant "eGOP," they had better remember just how badly they need every single Republican vote in the Senate.
What, EXACTLY, do they want us to do?
Go to war over SYRIA? What interests of ours are on the line there? Are they aware that plenty of rulers in the world are thoroughly loathsome folks? Russia worries me far less than China.
Let's see if it's saber rattling. The Senate Intelligence Hearings haven't even begun yet. A lot can happen from now until then. Also there are investigative journalists and organizations all over the world who are now on this Putin/ Trump collusion story. Foreign powers do not trust Trump, plenty of news reports about this, go look.
Wilbur said... There are no high-end escorts working in any red light district.
By their country's standards, probably. From what I grasp from Putin is the Russian high-end would consider being accepted to the Amsterdam red light district a promotion. A prostitution paradise, a hooking heaven, a skank Shangri-La, if you will. Good pay, relatively clean johns, most likely you will never run into anyone embarrassing from the motherland while on duty, and most likely you will never see the johns again since they're all tourists. True, you may have to do the nasty in the shadow of a 17th century church with drunk potheads urinating on the sidewalk while servicing a guy who wants you to spank him while calling him Chelsea, but at least this one is not wearing the horse head.
Pimpin', as always, ain't easy.
Great, now I'm wondering which country does have the best hookers in the world.
@Brando, you still have three days to put in a grant request. Counting Taiwan there are 196 countries, and you probably want to sample the ... ah ... merchandise in several different cities in the larger countries. Of course you'll need to stay at the best hotels because (I assume!) the best hookers won't have any interest in going to cheap hotels. And you'll need to stay multiple days to get a good baseline in each location. Crank up your spreadsheet and figure out how much to ask for, get the grant before Trump takes over and has it canceled on the grounds that the best hookers are in New York City, and report back to us in a couple years.
If there's anything left of you.
with gay marriage legal I am not sure why prostitution didn't gather up the coattails and become the next best thing.
The savior mentality means that you want to help others but are not open to guidance from those you want to help. From @sexworkerou
"@Brando, you still have three days to put in a grant request. Counting Taiwan there are 196 countries, and you probably want to sample the ... ah ... merchandise in several different cities in the larger countries. Of course you'll need to stay at the best hotels because (I assume!) the best hookers won't have any interest in going to cheap hotels. And you'll need to stay multiple days to get a good baseline in each location. Crank up your spreadsheet and figure out how much to ask for, get the grant before Trump takes over and has it canceled on the grounds that the best hookers are in New York City, and report back to us in a couple years."
Gotta rule out the countries that fall below the Prime Sketchiness Index, where the Pleasure Benefits Figure is outweighed by the Scummy Infections Probability (PSI = PBF < SIP) then correct for Hotel Room Quality (HRQ) and Odds of Getting Arrested Embarrassingly (OGAE). I think we can complete this study in about two years, tops.
"I suggest you folks should start thinking about what will happen if there were to be incontrovertible evidence that Trump colluded with Putin to affect our election and diminish our Democracy or Reublic, whatever term you prefer."
-- We would have had it by now, as the Obama administration leaks like a sieve (as do most administrations.) Since we don't have it, I feel fairly confident Trump will be no more pro-Russian than Obama, who gave Russia the flexibility he promised them in a meeting he thought was secret.
"What interests of ours are on the line there? Are they aware that plenty of rulers in the world are thoroughly loathsome folks? Russia worries me far less than China."
This comment is seriously stupid. What interests are there on the line? How about having a President that is Putin's poodle and the rest of the world will not share intelligence because he's not to be trusted? Yes there are loathsome leaders in the world, but we don't need a puppet of one of them as our President. China hasn't given us ia Manchurian candidate. Russia has given us a Siberian candidate. I suggest you folks should start thinking about what will happen if there were to be incontrovertible evidence that Trump colluded with Putin to affect our election and diminish our Democracy or Republic, whatever term you prefer.
Gotta rule out the countries that fall below the Prime Sketchiness Index, where the Pleasure Benefits Figure is outweighed by the Scummy Infections Probability (PSI = PBF < SIP) then correct for Hotel Room Quality (HRQ) and Odds of Getting Arrested Embarrassingly (OGAE). I think we can complete this study in about two years, tops.
That sounds all sciencey -- grant approved!
Matthew no one was seriously investigating it except for the MI6 agent that was hired by the opposing parties. Then when that agent gave his info to the FBI, they sat on it, ignored it. Until McCain and others got the dossier, the FBI would've buried it, for whatever reason, hopefully well soon know, because Comey is now under investigation. To think there was/ is nothing to this story is incredibly shortsighted and foolish. There are many entities now investigating, we'll see what happens.
"Matthew no one was seriously investigating it except for the MI6 agent that was hired by the opposing parties."
-- If you believe American intelligence is so incompetent as to not keep a weather eye on our own candidates, then OK. But, just so you know, this is the same level of conspiratorial whispering that got Pizza Gate started, only this came from some guy hired to create dirt on Trump as opposed to someone phishing Podesta's emails.
No Matthew, not incompetent. Did Comey suppress the investigation for political purposes? Perhaps he almost got away with it. Thanks to McCain and others, he will be under investigation as to what his motives were. As I said, we'll see.
"That sounds all sciencey -- grant approved!"
Sweet, I didn't even have to hire a scientician for it!
Pizzagate started on stupid public forums, by stupid people, believed by stupid people. This was an investigation from a well respected MI6 agent. Not at all comparable.
"Did Comey suppress the investigation for political purposes?"
-- What investigation? The investigation that included facts that stated Trump had been to a place he's never been to and that claimed one of his advisors was in a country when he was not? The investigation with only two verifiable facts that have both been proven wrong?
And a "well-respected MI6" agent who got two major facts wrong AND was paid to find out damning things against Trump. It's just as suspect as Pizza Gate, and just like Pizza Gate, the world is a stupid place and it may turn out to be true, but all odds point to not true.
It's mindboggling how far up Trump's ass most of you are, that you would ignore or pass off the mounting evidence that Trump colluded with Putin. Conservatives wrapped themselves up in the flag during the Bush years. Now they're praising and trusting Putin and his useful idiot Trump. I must ask what is wrong with you? Have you lost your collective minds?
Blogger Teresa1960 said...
It's mindboggling how far up Trump's ass most of you are, that you would ignore or pass off the mounting evidence that Trump colluded with Putin. Conservatives wrapped themselves up in the flag during the Bush years. Now they're praising and trusting Putin and his useful idiot Trump. I must ask what is wrong with you? Have you lost your collective minds?
What is, or has, Trump done? What is it he is planning on doing that's supposed to anger me and make Putin happy?
What mounting evidence? I don't like Putin or Trump: But your mounting evidence is a report everyone kind of embarrassingly passed around that has factual inaccuracies in it cobbled together by someone paid to bring down a candidate. Like, seriously. What evidence?
Rationalization is a very strong defense mechanism. It makes people who are usefully intelligent, stupid.
[Ok, I'm Trump agnostic. He may turn out good; but saying I'm a Trump supporter/lover is definitely over stating things.]
Alright. Lay out your facts. What evidence has mounted?
Unknown $2.00 DNC hooker-bot #2,874 (aka Teresa1960):
This comment is seriously stupid. What interests are there on the line? How about having a President that is Putin's poodle.
Not being an easily propagandized idiot, I do not have my sleep troubled by this "Putin's Poodle President" fourth-rate propaganda effort. (Geez, guys, are you skint or something after blowing your wads on Hillary? Can't raise cash anymore from badly burned donors? This is the best you can afford?)
I am, however, greatly enjoying the sight of progtards climbing over each other to offer poodle service to the neocons.
You ask what Trump has done Eric? Colluding with a foreign government to affect our democratic process isn't enough? Endangering our country because of his wayyyyy too close relationship with Putin, a dictator who poisons his political enemies with polonium and murders journalists, isn't enough? Are you truly so stupid? Are you incapable of reason?
Eh, as I said, your heads are so far up Trumps ass you have smothered your brains. As Trump says, "sad".
Blogger Teresa1960 said...
Clinton got impeached for far less.
Are you saying Mike Pence might be our next president?
Please.
@the green ugly frog woman,
Well, I'm not amused at seeing fellow Americans who no longer hold allegiance to their country.
"Did Trump craft this statement? It sounds so much like something that he would say. "
Yes indeed. Deliberately.
Because is joke comrade.
Is good joke.
Putin has a sense of humor. A Russian sense of humor. He is mocking both Trump and Trump's critics.
People who know how to listen to Trump understand Putin.
What that says about them I don't know, but it is what it is.
"Colluding with a foreign government to affect our democratic process isn't enough? "
-- Prove it. He's done no more than Clinton helping to ensure Russia's energy markets/selling uranium to them, or Obama promising Russia more flexibility. If whisper campaigns are enough to prove collusion -- Clinton and Obama are literally worse.
[Hint: Whisper campaigns are NOT enough to prove it.]
Blogger Teresa1960 said...
You ask what Trump has done Eric? Colluding with a foreign government to affect our democratic process isn't enough? Endangering our country because of his wayyyyy too close relationship with Putin, a dictator who poisons his political enemies with polonium and murders journalists, isn't enough? Are you truly so stupid? Are you incapable of reason?
Eh, as I said, your heads are so far up Trumps ass you have smothered your brains. As Trump says, "sad".
That's it? He collided with Russia to win our election?
How did he do that? I realize this is the same question, but I'm very curious.
What did Trump do to collude with Russia to get elected?
Offer them money? Bribes? Promise to deplete our nuclear arsenal? Give them good trade deals?
What is going to happen vis a vis Russia that I should be concerned about? Is Trump going to turn over our nation to the leadership of Putin? If so, what does that mean? Taxes go up? Slavery? Communism?
Please. Be specific. I need to know how to prepare for he worst.
Eric, yes possibly, unless he was party to the crime. We'll see what the investigations reveal.
I'd like to see the evidence.
Matthew, when the investigations are completed, no one will be whispering.
Me too Alex, be patient.
I've never seen this Teresa1960 until now. The lefties against Russia are coming out of the woodwork because Trump won the election.
"Matthew, when the investigations are completed, no one will be whispering."
-- So, wait. Has the evidence mounted -- or am I waiting for the evidence to mount?
We have the best prostitutes in the world. Really, really fabulous prostitutes. Top shelf. You'll be screwing so much, you'll be tired of screwing.
Russia is, I think, acknowledged to have been improving economically under Putin.
It fell very low after the communists fell and took a long time to even begin to recover. Things certainly are looking better in terms of personal income, death rates and especially birth rates.
That is, assuming one can trust their social and economic statistics. This is not a given.
Not that anyone could ever take Soviet/Russian statistics at face value.
Historically Russia was much more economically significant in relative terms in 1914 than it ever has been again. History played a dirty trick on old Russia. The Russia of 1945-92 was largely irrelevant in world trade, being significant only as a military and especially an ideological threat.
This doesn't raise red flags to any of you Trumpists, does it?
https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-01-17/in-davos-trump-aide-talks-deals-with-sanctioned-kremlin-fund
"Anthony Scaramucci, aide to President-elect Donald Trump and founder of SkyBridge Capital, discussed possible joint investments in a meeting in Davos with the head of a Russian sovereign wealth fund that the U.S. sanctioned in 2015, the fund’s press service said.
The meeting with Kirill Dmitriev, head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, a $10 billion state-run investment vehicle, is the first public contact between the incoming administration and Kremlin-backed business. Trump has suggested he could ease the sanctions on Russia if the Kremlin cooperates on his policy priorities. Scaramucci confirmed the Davos meeting.
In an interview with the Russian state news agency TASS Tuesday, he also criticized the sanctions as ineffective. Trump’s view about Russia is that “there’s probably shared values or shared interests, that we can align ourselves with each other and this could be mutually beneficial,” he said."
Blogger Teresa1960 said...
Eric, yes possibly, unless he was party to the crime. We'll see what the investigations reveal.
I'm confused. Are our heads so far up our asses we can't see the truth?
Or, we should wait to see what the investigation reveals?
Blogger Matthew Sablan said...
"Matthew, when the investigations are completed, no one will be whispering."
-- So, wait. Has the evidence mounted -- or am I waiting for the evidence to mount?
Yeah, sorta making my head spin. I mean, which is it?
If I wasn't supposed to be concerned by the Clinton dealings with foreign countries or the selling of Uranium to Russia, then no. No it doesn't. It also does not seem much different than how Obama and his allies tried to leverage trade with Cuba to reduce sanctions. If something more than talking happens, let me know.
It is worth being aware of, but it is hardly colluding to end American democracy.
I think someone is getting paid to comment here.
Anglelyne:
To be clear, I consider John McCain to be a very serious voice on foreign policy and the U.S. military. I consider Marco Rubio to be a visionary U.S. Senator and a significant part of the future of the Republican Party.
And, I consider Donald Trump to be a vulgar ignoramus.
Trump, of course, got elected president. He'll have a cabinet, none of whom seem to share Trump's most insane views and promises of the campaign season.
But yes, I do expect -- and I want to put this in terms that Trump fans can understand and appreciate -- that when Donald Trump needs a 50th/51st/52nd vote in the Senate, he will be on his knees, sucking the dicks of McCain, Rubio and Cruz.
They may not even be Trump's biggest problem(s). There's Liindsey Graham; Susan Collins. Get the idea? You have to get to 50 in the Senate.
Alex, I don't care about Russia, they can run their country as they see fit, however they shouldn't be able to run OUR government and its illegitimate president. If all you Trumpists are so enamored with Putin, I hear Russia has lots of empty land just waiting for settlers.
McCain and his fellow Republicans who are demanding investigations to get to the truth are the true heros, not your demigod Trump.
Who is paying me? McCain? LOL!
So is the pensioner from Vauxhall Cross going to testify publicly before the Senate Intelligence Committee about his "sources" in Russia? MI-6 is about as reliable as a gas station condom. The CIA stopped working with them after the Cambridge 5.
It would be very entertaining to have him testify about his "sources." Probably the ex-girlfriends of the Cambridge Five.
We also need to investigate Obama's Russian connections. That "flexibility" remark was pretty telling. And, of course, Putin has gotten his way while Obama was president. All those Marxist professors Obama loved in college brainwashed him to love Mother Russia.
If the Russians influenced the election to the extent that it makes Trump illegitimate, how about all the down-ticket contests ? Can we then assume that the House of Representatives is illegitimate as well ?
And we need to investigate Bernie Sanders as well. Who honeymoons in the fucking Soviet Union? And, of course, wanting to ban fracking in the U.S. is what Putin wants. Comrade Bernie, you have been naughty boy.
I hate to say it, but Putin sounds almost Trumpian.
After Putin invaded Russia, why did Obama withdraw missile defense from Poland and the Czech Republic? Why didn't Obama do anything about the Russian hacking into the State Department and the White House? What is he hiding? He's been very accommodating to Vladimir.
Theresa is chasing ghosts. At this point I'd see PizzaGate as more credible. Do I believe it? Nope, but there is some incontrovertible evidence that the owners and employees of that Comet PingPong place have seriously weird tastes, bordering in some cases on the extreme, which can be seen just by perusing their Instagram and Facebook and gazing at the demented art, concert posters, and sculptures they own. There are some creepy comments they've left and responded to as well. At the same time, words that supposedly carry coded meanings in the pervert community do in fact show up in some odd context in the Podesta emails, none of which have been disputed as false. And Podesta is a pretty creepy looking guy with some weird tastes in art and some odd personality traits. I'm sure a PizzaGate "True Believer" could fill in even more facts, but this is just what I have on the surface.
Oh and that weird police sketch from Spain that seems to show Podesta (and his brother - it's weird, google it) was involved in the disappearance of Madeline McCann.
Again some far out shit, but more readily plausible than this story about Trump and Putin, which was dreamed up by a foreigner and shopped around to multiple news agencies and PACs and never once deemed credible. This shit was circulated for weeks and months and nobody in their wildest bouts of Trump-hate thought to take it seriously, because it's just garbage. The only real facts in the report are both false, the rest cannot be proven short of releasing the alleged video tape. And nobody can yet point to anything Trump has done or signaled he'd do that would be of major benefit to Putin right now, aside from not starting WWIII due to John "Hillary's Right-Hand Man" Podesta getting phished like a total chump.
We're gonna continue to pump oil and export LNG, we're probably going to ramp up our nuke energy program too. I could see Trump also making some green energy mistakes along the lines of Obama, but I suspect Trump might actually do it right instead. And I see Trump working for American jobs and better trade deals for this country. Oh, and he wants to make NATO live up to their defense contribution commitments, which we should all embrace. If Russia does decide to go Full Bear and achieves anything close to strategic surprise, they'll march right through most of Germany before we can stop them - if we're lucky and ably led, that is. With Obama's Army, I'm not so sure right now.
Putin is a autocrat, plunderer of Russian riches, and an assassin. No one has yet shown proof publicly that Trump has actually murdered anyone. His spoiled sons kill wildlife including endangered species for sport; that is repugnant.
Putin's dull Prostitute Soliloquy leaves me hanging and dangling. Nothing worth repeating comes out of Putin's pouty, potty, punky, pukey & murderous mouth. Trump similarly says nothing of redeeming value.
Putin will use the KGB's compromising material to control puppet Trump. But, I find nothing damaging about his hiring prostitutes to pee on him. If it's true, more pissing power to him. I will not watch the tape as it does noting to titillate me.
It is Trump's pissing on the country that worries me. How does one prepare for the deluge?
I consider Marco Rubio to be a visionary U.S. Senator and a significant part of the future of the Republican Party.
Comedy gold, Chuck -- gold!
That is, Russia was economically better off right until the collapse in petroleum prices, which has done a number on real median incomes. Russia/Putin has good reasons (or good in their context) to pressure the US/the Euros for some sort of bailout, or at least to distract their populace with foreign troubles. As long as these aren't too expensive.
I notice that Russian forces are drawing down in Syria. Too expensive I think, even for the rather limited forces deployed there. The Russian intervention in the Donbas was rather limited, that was a loud war, but neither side put a lot of real effort into it. We are talking of less than 50,000 men on either side at any one time. That is smaller than a single one of Zhukov's 26 Armies on the Eastern front in 1945.
I doubt very much that you will see Russian armored divisions overrunning the Ukraine, or even Latvia or Estonia.
ARM: "Pretentious twerp. Russia was once, relatively, a great state, a genuine challenge to the US and Europe and vastly more advanced than China."
No, that would have been the USSR. Before it's breakup the Soviet Union had a GNP that was half the size of the US GNP, Russia's today is about 1/8 the size of the US, or about the same as Italy. Still, Russia has the 8th largest GNP in the world, and it's significant natural resources give it economic leverage well beyond its relative GNP, but it's just not the USSR. Do you suspect that stripping a dozen or so countries out of the USSR, dismantling the Warsaw Pact and changing the entire economic model from a communist structure to a pseudo-capitalist one might have had a teeny, tiny impact on post 1991 Russia? Spoiler - it did - but Russia's GNP still steadily increased 26 fold since 1998, although taking a slight hit in 2016 because of the drop in oil prices. So, it would seem that Russia has never been more economically or strategically powerful than it has been over the past two years and to imply that it is a failed state teetering on collapse is incredulous.
Any who, I'm not sure who might be the pretentious twerp on this tread, but I'm pretty sure it's not Matthew Sablan.
Carry on.
Would it be inappropriate to hire a few Russian prostitutes and watch the Inauguration on Friday?
Anti-fracking = Pro Putin. Trump is going to be able to wield the sword of Putin over progressives. They have stepped into it. If you are against fracking, you are a Putin puppet. The CIA report said so.
Blogger Gusty Winds said...
Would it be inappropriate to hire a few Russian prostitutes and watch the Inauguration on Friday?
That would seem to be a better use of time as apposed to listening to more thoughts of the NeverTrumpers.
Opinion may vary
First, if someone is actually getting paid to make comments here, let me know where to sign up. Time to cash in!
Second, by all means we should investigate whatever Putin and Co. did regarding our election. Doesn't seem to be any evidence yet that Trump colluded over it, and from what I can tell nothing Putin did actually made a difference in the election (did WikiLeaks reveal anything that changed your mind about Clinton? Show of hands!) but Russia is not our ally and at any rate the idea of another country screwing with our elections in any way should have us circling the wagons. If anything, an investigation may even clear some people of reasonable suspicion (we'll always have unreasonable suspicion).
But for crying out loud, if we don't at least agree that we don't want foreign interference then we're no longer a real country. Putin didn't do THAT to us, we did that to ourselves.
Just like those Twilight Zone aliens screwing with Sherriff Lobo!
Putin is a autocrat, plunderer of Russian riches, and an assassin.
He has much in common with the Clintons!
jaydub said...
Russia's GNP still steadily increased 26 fold since 1998
You might want to check your math before casting shade on anyone else. Math is hard.
"Putin is a autocrat, plunderer of Russian riches, and an assassin."
Very much like everyone who has run Russia since Rurik the Varangian.
We already have plenty of evidence that Hillary put our foreign policy out to the highest bidder. Some people are trying to act as if there was a respectable alternative to Trump. There was not.
But it's Putin's fault that we know that. I forgot.
This comment is seriously stupid.
I'll defer to your obvious expertise.
What interests are there on the line? How about having a President that is Putin's poodle and the rest of the world will not share intelligence because he's not to be trusted?
Well, Clinton lost. All she did was sell him a huge chunk of our uranium.
Hey, speaking of Clinton, any idea why the CGI is closing shop? Has international misery been cured? I mean, unless it was just a money laundering operation, it closing down makes no sense whatsoever.
Yes there are loathsome leaders in the world, but we don't need a puppet of one of them as our President.
We don't. Hillary lost in spite of Ukranian meddling on her behalf.
China hasn't given us ia Manchurian candidate.
That's nice. I'll leave my fears for something more substantive than movies.
I suggest you folks should start thinking about what will happen if there were to be incontrovertible evidence that Trump colluded with Putin to affect our election and diminish our Democracy or Republic, whatever term you prefer.
If any existed, it'd have been revealed by now. The fake dossier is the best they have and that was a joke.
"You might want to check your math before casting shade on anyone else. Math is hard."
Not 26X, but 3X is pretty darn good though. Outstanding even. Not a lot of national leaders can boast of that in 17-18 years.
Clinton Global Initiative shutting down. For some reason, nobody wants to give money anymore... Sad!
"Before it's breakup the Soviet Union had a GNP that was half the size of the US GNP"
That was a bit of "fake news" of its day.
The CIA was not very good at figuring out this sort of thing, it turned out. The USSR was never anywhere near, or any substantial fraction, of the US GDP.
Endangering our country because of his wayyyyy too close relationship with Putin, a dictator who poisons his political enemies with polonium and murders journalists, isn't enough?
One of the candidates sold him an awful lot of uranium.
The candidate was not Trump.
-- So, wait. Has the evidence mounted -- or am I waiting for the evidence to mount?
We forget, a Republican is in office. We now require an investigation to fish for info. Unlike when a Dem is in office, when a smoking gun of guilt is required to even begin investigating.
"Anthony Scaramucci, aide to President-elect Donald Trump and founder of SkyBridge Capital, discussed possible joint investments in a meeting in Davos with the head of a Russian sovereign wealth fund that the U.S. sanctioned in 2015, the fund’s press service said.
Not really. Did Podesta lobbying for Russian banks worry you?
"You might want to check your math before casting shade on anyone else. Math is hard."
Granted, you need to take this with a grain of salt. No statistics from there can be taken at face value.
In January 2016, the US company Bloomberg rated Russia's economy as the 12th most innovative in the world,[49] up from 14th in January 2015[50] and 18th in January 2014.[51] Russia has the world's 15th highest patent application rate, the 8th highest concentration of high-tech public companies, such as internet and aerospace and the third highest graduation rate of scientists and engineers.[49] Former finance minister Alexei Kudrin has said that Russia needs to reduce geopolitical tensions to improve its economic conditions.[52]
Doesn't sound like a 'failed state' to me. But ARM is a liberal lunatic, so what would you expect but severe bias?
"Not really. Did Podesta lobbying for Russian banks worry you?'
And it turns out that Podesta was to be Secretary of State.
I actually wouldn't put Trump above having hired a high quality escort at one time or another in Russia or elsewhere. When urine gets thrown in the mix and some BS about Obama having slept there or Michelle having slept there or Putin setting it all up or recording it . . . nah. I also would assume if Trump was guilty of soliciting an escort in Moscow, it was back during the '90's or early '00s, well before Putin had a fully established grip on power and well before the idea of needing to blackmail a celebrity businessman would have occurred to anyone in Russian intelligence (who at the time had their own internal issues including Islamic terrorism to deal with).
Remember when Podesta pretended to divest himself of Gazprom stock, but didn't and Hillary supported killing North American energy projects, which benefits that stock?
buwaya said...
Not 26X, but 3X is pretty darn good though. Outstanding even. Not a lot of national leaders can boast of that in 17-18 years.
You might want to check China's and even India's growth over that same time period. Russia is not a rich country and cannot be compared to rich countries.
I love these progs who are upset over how authoritarian Putin is.
Obama opened up Cuba, changed our immigration policy towards them, and consigned us to be their stool pigeons.
He also gave BILLIONS to Iran.
And the Left cheered.
Some nice products from Russia that are not petroleum or natural gas-
http://www.hobbylinc.com/Zvezda-Plastic-Models
Very, very nice stuff, I can vouch for them. Some of their models are truly best in class.
https://www.amazon.com/Russian-Soviet-Helios-40-2-portrait-Camera/dp/B00AXUZ322
Very interesting lens, a classic of its type (portrait lenses) and for what it is something of a bargain.
https://www.cheaperthandirt.com/category/ammunition/rifle/762x39mm.do
Russian ammunition (most from the Tula arsenal or the Barnaul plant) is imported in many calibers and tremendous quantities. This stuff is a staple of the US firearms hobby.
"You might want to check China's and even India's growth over that same time period.'
True, but both China and India were working from a much lower base, India especially. And Russia is still almost 2X China per capita.
Russia is not China. Russia is a country of middling importance that is paid more attention than Brazil because it has nukes. Putin is paid more attention this year because it serves US political controversies.
Chuck: Trump, of course, got elected president. He'll have a cabinet, none of whom seem to share Trump's most insane views and promises of the campaign season.
For somebody with an apparent obsession for the nuts and bolts of politics, you seem to be astonished by...politics.
To be clear, I consider John McCain to be a very serious voice on foreign policy and the U.S. military. I consider Marco Rubio to be a visionary U.S. Senator and a significant part of the future of the Republican Party.
You may well be right that Rubio will be "a significant part of the future of the Republican Party". The rest just confirms my previous estimation of your intellect and character.
And, I consider Donald Trump to be a vulgar ignoramus.
Yes, we know dear. You are far too emotionally invested in your distaste, and would benefit from developing some detachment.
But yes, I do expect -- and I want to put this in terms that Trump fans can understand and appreciate -- that when Donald Trump needs a 50th/51st/52nd vote in the Senate, he will be on his knees, sucking the dicks of McCain, Rubio and Cruz.
Chuck, nobody was having any difficulty understanding your point about How Things Get Done in DC. You are not enlightening anyone about the nature of the political process.
We know that The Party, and the maintenance of the status quo, is everything to you, and that it is your fervent hope that your homies (or heroes, or whatever they are to you) in the Republican branch of the national uni-party, who have been getting their dicks sucked, will continue to get their dicks sucked. On the other hand, those of us who don't share your opinion that these people are God's gift to the American people, and the wonderfulness of the status quo in DC, are hoping to see their power and influence reduced.
We may have our hopes dashed, but then again, so may you. There is nothing inevitable or eternal about any political party's or any individual's political power. But you know that, else there wouldn't be so much anger fueling your fevered Senate cloakroom wish-fulfillment scenarios.
"Remember when Podesta pretended to divest himself of Gazprom stock, but didn't and Hillary supported killing North American energy projects, which benefits that stock?"
Remember also when Russia was helping promote US and Canadian environmentalists (in cooperation with Saudi Arabia and Quatar) in opposing fracking/oil sands/pipelines? This was actually in that celebrated CIA report.
No, Russia is not your friend. But let us hear no more of Democrats opposing fracking, oil sands or pipelines.
ARM: “You might want to check your math before casting shade on anyone else. Math is hard.”
It's not hard for a chemical engineer with a masters degrees in operations research and stochastic analysis and 50 years experience. Here's “Trading Economics'” analysis. If you go to the referenced web page you can see it in a graph form, and I suspect you would do better with pictures.
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/russia/gross-national-product Gross National Product in Russia increased to 58745032.70 RUB Million in 2014 from 54103000.30 RUB Million in 2013. Gross National Product in Russia averaged 25453678.38 RUB Million from 1998 until 2014, reaching an all time high of 58745032.70 RUB Million in 2014 and a record low of 2251977.50 RUB Million in 1998.
Let me show you the math: (58745032.70 RUB Million / 2251977.50 RUB Million) x 100 = 26.09%
And I wasn't casting shade, I was just pointing out how unseemly it is for a pretentious twerp to call someone else a pretentious twerp.
@buwaya you can argue all day over the accuracy of economic statistics, particularly with a communist country, but you have to have some point of reference to do analysis. Regardless, I would think the TE numbers are about as good as you are going to get for Russia since 1991, and they show that Russia is on a steep upswing economically. I've been using TE numbers for quite a while for various analyses and I trust them.
Yeah, the Left pimping for Russia and Arabia with their anti fracking nonsense needs to be called out.
losing faith in our intelligence agencies and the branches of government set to investigate such things
Everybody says that like it is a bad thing. The available evidence suggests that our intelligence services don't deserve anyones' faith. They seem to be wrong on some very important issues a hell of a lot of the time.
Typo on my prior comment - should have been 2609% instead of 26.09%
Hi jaydub,
But you have to allow for inflation, exchange rates, etc.
US$ PPP is much better.
It would be better yet (more conservative) in inflation adjusted (chained say) but US$ PPP is good enough for international comparison.
Russia HAS done rather well (see above), assuming the data is correct or somewhere within spitting distance of the truth. This caveat applies to China also.
@Anglelyne
DAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYM!
ARM said:
Russia was once, relatively, a great state, a genuine challenge to the US and Europe and vastly more advanced than China. Obviously it has failed, dramatically, to keep its status as a first rank nation. Putin takes much of the responsibility. Very few other major states have experienced such a dramatic relative decline over such a short time period.
Nonsense. Russia's decline happened under Yeltsin, and under Putin it's been reversed.
According to World Bank figures, in 1992 Russia's GDP was 22% the size of Germany's and 7% the size of the USA's.
By 1999, it had fallen to 9% the size of Germany's and 2% the size of the USA's.
Putin took office in 2000. In 2015, Russia's GDP was 40% the size of Germany's, and once again 7% the size of the USA's.
The Russian state will fail completely if it continues on its current path. China will start to pick off the eastern provinces as they depopulate with ethnic Russians and continue to receive Chinese immigrants.
This is a myth. No one knows the exact number of Chinese migrants, but in Russia's 2010 census, less than 10,000 of the Far Eastern Federal District’s 6.3 million permanent residents declared their ethnicity as Chinese. So even if 95% of ethnic Chinese in the Far East were migrants, that would still be only 3% of the total population. And most Chinese migrants are temporary workers who will eventually return to China.
The economic incentives for a mass Chinese migration to the Far East don’t exist. Russia and China don’t have a large disparity in wages, so if you were a Chinese peasant living in one of the border provinces, why would you want to migrate north to frozen, foreign Russia, as opposed to south to Shanghai? And China's fertility rate is well below replacement, at 1.6 children per woman (vs. 1.8 for Russia), so it is not in the interest of the Chinese government to encourage the export of its workers.
And even if somehow the Far East were to become majority-Chinese, Russia certainly wouldn't give it to China, and China would have to be completely insane to try to take it by force.
jaydub said...
It's not hard for a chemical engineer with a masters degrees in operations research and stochastic analysis and 50 years experience.
Those numbers are not real money numbers, they are in rubles and were not adjusted for inflation. Your numbers are meaningless in terms of assessing the actual growth of the economy.
Blogger Ron Winkleheimer said...
@Anglelyne
DAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYM
Remind me not to get on her bad side.
Sexy as hell though.
jaydub said...
Typo on my prior comment - should have been 2609% instead of 26.09%
Math is hard.
Buwaya: "But you have to allow for inflation, exchange rates, etc"
When I'm looking at a country's internal finances I do the analysis in the country's currency. That way I don't have to concern myself with exchange rates for the internal analysis. Also, I didn't see it in the notes, but I'm sure the data is in constant rubles. I also like to use GNP rather than GDP because it catches all the economic activity, including from assets world wide instead of just locally produced. Between countries I use constant US$.
jaydub said: No, that would have been the USSR. Before it's breakup the Soviet Union had a GNP that was half the size of the US GNP, Russia's today is about 1/8 the size of the US, or about the same as Italy.
The World Bank puts the USSR's GDP in 1990 at 11% of the USA's, or 31% adjusted for Purchasing Power Parity. However, the USSR's military budget (Purchasing Power Parity) was about the same as the USA's, because the USSR spent 15-20% of GDP on defense, vs. about 6% for the USA.
Adjusted for Purchasing Power Parity, Russia's GDP today is the same as Germany's, and 20% of the USA's.
Clinton got impeached for far less.
Impeachment Impeachment is a fundamental constitutional power belonging to Congress. This safeguard against corruption can be initiated against federal officeholders from the lowest cabinet member, all the way up to the president and the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Trump is not yet a federal officeholder and wasn't in this mythical instance either. Try again.
We got former Olympian hookers. USA USA USA!
"but I'm sure the data is in constant rubles."
It does not say so. This is critical, else the economic performance of Zimbabwe and Venezuela would be somewhat misleading.
The advantage of US$ PPP is that its a fairly good inflation-adjustment proxy for constant rubles, yen, pounds, pesos, baht, HK$ etc.
A lesson from seminars at the Asian Development Bank yea these thirty years past.
Dust Bunny Queen,
Collusion with Russia to affect an American election by a candidate for the American Presidency is a crime. The impeachable offense isn't the sexual aspect of the dossier.
Try thinking.
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/venezuela/gdp
No GNP for Venezuela, but be it as it may.
Have a look. It seems that certain adjustments are in order.
Russia GDP -
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/russia/gdp
Russia GDP constant prices - this does not go back further than 2004 unfortunately.
But it does show effects of inflation.
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/russia/gdp-constant-prices
http://www.ibtimes.com/can-donald-trump-be-impeached-over-russia-allegations-how-possible-treason-charges-2473861
"The grounds for impeaching a president can be found in Article II of the United States Constitution, which says an official must be convicted by a majority vote in Congress over “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” Treason may be the most likely Russia-related charge to take down Trump, according to Mic."
Collusion with Russia to affect an American election by a candidate for the American Presidency is a crime.
Prove it. You, just parroting it while adjusting your tinfoil hat doesn't make it so. There has been zero actual proof that there was any collusion with Russia by a candidate. Proof. Not just people spreading rumor, innuendo and gossip.
If innuendo and gossip are acceptable as proof to you ...Inga, then just say so :-)
"Collusion with Russia to affect an American election by a candidate for the American Presidency is a crime."
Benefiting from an act by a foreign nation is not a crime as far as I know.
For instance Hilary Clinton benefiting from the expressed political preference of, say, the German Foreign Minister -
http://www.politico.eu/article/german-foreign-minister-donald-trump-is-a-hate-preacher-frank-walter-steinmeier-us-presidential-election-america-2016-foreign-policy/
Or any number of Mexican politicians.
It would also be interesting to trace the sources of Hilary Clintons campaign finances, seeing as her proxies like the late lamented CGI and her foundation had very large foreign patrons.
Collusion with Russia, or anyone else, to lobby US public policy (in a strategic matter like energy production no less) certainly is a crime, at least of foreign lobbying laws.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/19/russia-secretly-working-with-environmentalists-to-oppose-fracking
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/377201/putins-anti-fracking-campaign-robert-zubrin
Consider the The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA)
So we are brought to, for instance, the case of Mr. Al Gore and his intriguing relationship with Qatar. And for that matter pretty much every environmental organization.
buways said: That is, Russia was economically better off right until the collapse in petroleum prices, which has done a number on real median incomes.
Even after the 2014 oil/ruble crash, Russians were still 5x better off in 2015 than they were in 2000, when Putin took office (and while we don't have GDP figures for 2016 yet, the ruble was the 2nd best performing currency in the world for the year, appreciating 17% against the dollar).
I notice that Russian forces are drawing down in Syria. Too expensive I think, even for the rather limited forces deployed there.
Actually the Syria intervention hasn't been very expensive for Russia at all, just a handful of billions per year, or less than 10% of its military budget.
The Russian intervention in the Donbas was rather limited, that was a loud war, but neither side put a lot of real effort into it. We are talking of less than 50,000 men on either side at any one time. That is smaller than a single one of Zhukov's 26 Armies on the Eastern front in 1945.
Ukraine claimed Russia had 10,000 troops on its territory- or about 20% of the separatist force- but that's almost certainly a big exaggeration, the real number was likely somewhere between zero and 2000. Russia's contribution to the separatist cause in arms and personnel was basically just the absolute minimum necessary to prevent the (heavily outnumbered, and initially heavily outgunned) separatists from being defeated.
I doubt very much that you will see Russian armored divisions overrunning the Ukraine, or even Latvia or Estonia.
Blogger Alex said...
I've never seen this Teresa1960 until now.
Naaah. Sheeit has been here all along. Just keeps changing the handle.
Same shit, different day.
Next thing you know they'll tell us they were in the Air Force.
John Henry
OK, Freeman wins the Althouse blog. We can shut it down now.
Did Russia really decline or did we simply find out how wrong our CIA and other estimates of their economy had been?
Our CIA kept telling us for decades how strong their economy was. And before that, in the 20s, 30s and 40s we had all sorts of folks giving us rosy forcasts.
Then in 90, we finally got a peek behind the curtain and found that there was nothing there.
So was the decline from what we thought their economy was doing or from what it actually was doing.
I'd go with some of both but mostly the former.
John Henry
According to Putin prostitutes are filthy and disgusting and Russian prostitutes are the best. So are they the filthiest and most disgusting?
"Did Russia really decline or did we simply find out how wrong our CIA and other estimates of their economy had been?"
Some of both it seems, as you say.
There certainly was a collapse in at least nominal employment. People lost their jobs, plants closed, exports, such as they were, fell.
The CIA was even more wrong about East Germany. It's a bureaucracy, just like the department of agriculture.
No ARM, typing is hard. I'll bet being an A-hole is too.
Now, let's review your statements that led to this economic discussion, the statements you are now trying to avoid defending. You said:
1. “Russia was once, relatively, a great state, a genuine challenge to the US and Europe and vastly more advanced than China.”
2. “ Obviously it has failed, dramatically, to keep its status as a first rank nation.
3. “Very few other major states have experienced such a dramatic relative decline over such a short time period.”
4. “The Russian state will fail completely if it continues on its current path. “
You pulled those statements from the same dark, dank reference source that you normally use. Now, people have thrown the bullshit flag on you and provided factual evidence to support the flag, but instead of manning up and defending your statements, you're trying to change the subject, deflect and dodge. I suppose this is your modus operandi, but it's not working very well for you. Sad.
Anywho, carry on.
Blogger mccullough said...
The CIA was even more wrong about East Germany. It's a bureaucracy, just like the department of agriculture.
But we should believe them about the Russians hacking the DNC computers?
Have they ever gotten anything right in the past 70 years since birth?
Yet we are supposed to believe their report that the Russians hacked the DNC computer. Even though the DNC has forbident them to look at the servers, logs or anything else. Even though a 12 year old kid could have gotten into Podesta's account and from there elsewhere. His password was "password". Then, if that was not stupid enough, he fell of the simplest phishing request imaginable.
"Hey, can you tell me your password? I'm a good guy and need to know."
D'uh, OK. It's "password"."
And how come we never hear about the hacks to Crooked Hillary's computer? We know those were hacked by at least 5 countries. Was Crooked Hillary blackmailed?
It'll be interesting to see what turns up in the investigation of Huma's computer. And her security clearance.
John Henry
Now matter what name Inga uses, she always copies and pastes the same stupid shit. The "Russia did it!" lie is so stupid that even you don't believe it. Right up there with that YouTube video being the reason for the Benghazi/Egypt attacks.
"Ukraine claimed Russia had 10,000 troops on its territory- or about 20% of the separatist force- "
All accounts I have seen say that overall the Donbass rebels had technical and firepower superiority, such as air defense, the Ukrainian AF, such as it is, being unable to intervene, highly effective jamming systems, and precision guided artillery. I would count the rebels themselves as being dependent on Russian logistics, besides the semi-official Russian troops.
In any case this was a very small war considering the potential manpower on both sides.
"No ARM, typing is hard. I'll bet being an A-hole is too."
What's easier than being yourself?
In Half-Moon Street, Sigourney Weaver plays Dr, Lauren Slaughter--a PhD Economist and part-time hooker who gets caught up in some political intrigue. So I have to say the US produces some fine hookers.
Therea1960. That's almost a ton.
Sorry if this was addressed upthread, but in the interest of getting our facts straight in this conversation, as instructed by O: how does Vlad know Russian hookers are the best? We need evidence.
Blogger Ron Winkleheimer said...
@Anglelyne
DAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYM
Remind me not to get on her bad side.
Sexy as hell though.
-----------
Sure, if you like frogs.
John Henry to Alex:
"I've never seen this Teresa1960 until now."
Naaah. Sheeit has been here all along. Just keeps changing the handle.
Same shit, different day.
Next thing you know they'll tell us they were in the Air Force.
Yeah, "Teresa1960" has been around since at least last July as, variously, "John" (not to be confused with our honest John Henry), "Unknown", "Julio", and "Anonymous". Probably others, going further back, but, at any rate, really shit-tier sock-puppeting.
Mack M to eric to Blogger Ron Winkleheimer said...
"@Anglelyne
DAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYM"
'Remind me not to get on her bad side.
Sexy as hell though.'
-----------
Sure, if you like frogs.
Ah, the internet, where nobody knows you're somebody's harmless homely grandmother, and not a sexy champagne-swilling fascist frog.
(Thanks for the compliments, gentlemen.)
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