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sheeeit

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Everything posted by sheeeit

  1. It is not that simple. The cost difference right now is not nearly as high as you might think. Countries like Poland and the Netherlands already have signed deals with US nat gas companies to ship lng. The costs are coming down and Germany (the biggest user of Russian nat gas) is moving forward with very large investments in nat gas infrastructure to facilitate shipped gas. Also, there is a tremendous amount of investment being made right now to lower the costs associated with shipping lng. And the point is that anything the US is doing in this regard is going to hurt russia financially in a big way. In the short term, Russia will have to, and has, reduced their price for nat gas which obviously hurts their profits. In the long term, if the EU and the surrounding countries decide to use more shipped gas from the US and the middle east then Russia gets hurt even more. And there is a decision to be made. Trump is so bad at speaking clearly that most people missed the point of what he is doing. The EU and the surrounding areas are practically begging the US to stay strong in NATO. Lets be honest, NATO in the EU is protection from Russia. Yet, Germany is buying some 50% of its gas from Russia. So germany wants protection from Russia by the US and wants unfettered access to the US markets but still wants to buy the bulk of their energy from russia. The US should absolutely push them to buy more from us. And the bigger point as it relates to this thread on Trump/russia collusion is that ANY action by the US that has the potential to hurt Russia's profits from selling nat gas to the EU is going to be considered incredibly hostile by Putin. As mentioned above, going after Russia's energy exports is about the worst thing that you could do to russia from a financial standpoint. It is hard for me to believe that a Putin puppet would do it.
  2. I am not even sure where to put this stuff anymore. Been wanting to post this after the recent trade stuff with the EU. One of you conspiracy/russia guys is going to have to explain to me how Putin has Trump as his bitch while Trump is pressuring Europe to import more LNG from the US and is using access to all things US (our markets, our military, our expertise etc) to do it. There is no single bigger harm to Russia/Putin than a decline in their natural gas sales. It is the life blood of their entire economy and Putin's power. Any action by the US to curb its influence is a massive threat to them. Something like 65% of russian exports are oil and gas. Oil is already such a global commodity that russia profits no more or no less than anyone else but, natural gas is very different. Russia's pipeline system gives them an almost monopoly on selling natural gas in the region. Their profits from natural gas are actually higher than that from oil.
  3. Swam may get an F for some of his economic posts but the rest of you barely get Ds. You are basically just as guilty as swam for cherry picking data and then using the cherry picked data out of context. Using the BOP as an example of our current economic health is very deceiving and I actually expected some of you to know better. It is true that trade deficits are not always bad and not always a sign of economic sickness. As the CATO article pointed out, when an economy is growing and expanding, it often gets into trade deficits so that it can get the goods/materials/resources it needs to keep pace with its expansion. BUT, that is only good in the short term. The win comes when an economy expands enough and grows enough to eventually switch the balance of trade with other economies. Long term trade deficits are a death knell to any economy. Think of it like a small company that takes on a bunch of debt in order to add new machinery or expand a new product line or similar. In the short term, that company will be adding debt at a much higher rate than it is adding income. It will have a "trade imbalance" as it buys new expensive machinery or takes on new people to a point where the new stuff is more expensive than what it is currently producing. But that is ok as long as the company can then use the new machinery and new product line to eventually bring in more money than it cost to add the new stuff. Using the BOP graph is completely bogus. It is certainly correct that a surplus balance of payments is a good thing as long as the foreign investment is actually an investment. If the bulk of the balance was actually foreign govts and entities buying US real estate or US companies or US services then it would truly be a great thing. But it is not that. If we remove things like purchases of US treasuries from foreign govts from our BOP we would be way underwater. We are currently selling treasuries NOT to stimulate growth or make investment in our country. We are selling them to service our debt first and foremost and then to supplement our ability to make payroll. We are not adding new machinery to position ourselves to be the big dog in the future. We are simply taking on debt to stay alive. On tariffs, it is universally agreed that tariffs for the sake of tariffs is a bad idea and, ultimately counter productive. This is especially true if the tariffs are long term in nature. What trump is doing is using the threat of tariffs to get a more level playing field in our trade with other countries. This may or may not be a good strategy, it is way too early to tell. But it is not too early to tell that the course we have been on previously is not working at all. There is certainly a chance that trump's strategy will work. He may be able to leverage tariffs and access to the US markets to get fairer trade deals. I do not believe any country would ever agree to straight up free trade with no tariffs or subsidies. I think they know that the american machine and work ethic and ingenuity etc will win a fair fight more times than not. So we will never get to that point but we might get a lot closer which will certainly help america.
  4. This sure sounds like a fine ideal but it is just so naively stupid it is hard to take it seriously. If there is a vote to say open up more offshore drilling in the Gulf then it would be great for a lot of texans that work for oil/gas companies and great for the state to get more tax dollars. However, there are a group of conservationists that are worried that expanding drilling will hurt the ecosystem. How should the senator vote on this? How can he represent ALL Texans? You can never possibly represent ALL of anything. Make your platform known, make your ideology known and then follow those if you get elected. Vote for whoever matches closest to you and then hope.
  5. OK. Just be clear. If you watched wrestlers talking about it on TV and believe them (nothing wrong with that) then just say that. But you can not say you accept that there is a chance Jordan knew nothing but then assert there is no chance he is not in a morally bad position.
  6. Gotcha. So when you speculated that there might be reasons that Jordan would not welcome an investigation when you obviously knew that he had already welcomed the investigation and volunteered to assist in any way he could (I mean you had to know that since you are "well aware of what's gone on with this story") you were just being a disingenuous asshole? That does sound entertaining.
  7. Well since you clearly have not researched anything I am not surprised by this post. If you had done 2 minutes of research you would have learned that Jordan was receiving constant emails from a former wrestler claiming that Jordan knew of the "abuse" and Jordan turned those emails over to the capital police. Great strategy to cover up something by alerting the police about it. Also, his office put out a statement weeks ago saying that Jordan has not been questioned or requested at all by the investigators and would be happy to cooperate and assist in any he can. But your take is probably better.
  8. Agreed. And if we take it further, do any of us actually want to elect a person that has zero skeletons? I actually like the fact that Obama smoked a little and maybe tried coke. I can not imagine the crazy that would exist in my mind if I never did things I wasn't always proud of.
  9. I can agree he should have released a better statement but releasing your statement would have ruined him by people just like you. By saying "wish I had done more" admits that he knew there was an issue worth doing something about. He probably just should have said " while i personally was never made aware of abuse by the Dr. it appears that there were issues and i welcome an investigation into the matter and I will cooperate in any way I can". However, I think only an extremely naive person would think that would actually end it. As soon as there was a whiff of sexual abuse and Jordan's name then it was out of control.
  10. This is my basic problem with this post and, to me, represents what I have been talking about. You fully admit that "Jordan may very well have had zero knowledge.". I agree with this and I also agree that he might have known about it. But you then post that "Morally he's in a bad position and there's no disputing that.". How can you say there is no disputing that he is in a morally bad position and also say he may not have known? The way this story has been told and then exaggerated by twitter and posts and everything else, the vast majority of people are convinced that Jordan knew of sexual abuse and did not report it. I am not even sure what was purported to have happened is actually sexual abuse. Exactly ZERO wrestlers have said they said something about the issue directly to Jordan. All they have said is that Jordan, to the best of their memories from 27 years ago, was in a group of people that were discussing it. My pure opinion is that it is hard to believe that Jordan was not aware that there was a creepy Dr. hanging around and that members of the team talked about it in a joking manner. But if no one came forward to make a complaint against the Dr. I am not sure what people are expecting Jordan to have done. Especially as an assistant wrestling coach.
  11. I have debated commenting on this thread because of the predictable nature of the responses. It represents everything that is bad with todays journalism/twitter/political world. No one cares for the actual facts and by the time the twitter world and non reputable journalists and message board dolts are done the actual truth is long gone. Obviously, any type of sexual abuse is bad and the perps deserve punishment. As best I can tell, there are 2 former wrestlers that say that they voiced their concerns with a group that included Jordan and the Head Coach. No one has said that anyone went one on one with Jordan about the abuse and that Jordan did nothing. Both of the wrestlers that have come out in public have specifically said that they never had any direct conversations with Jordan. In fact, the Head Coach did contact the Dr. involved according to his testimony. And, from that time, there were not any other complaints from the wrestlers. So 2 wrestlers come forward and the Head Coach takes action and then no other complaints were made by wrestlers. What exactly should Jordan have done? He was the assistant coach and his head coach addressed the issue. From the Perkins Coie report, they estimate that there were potentially 1500 athletes across 14 different sports that were affected. But the biggest and certainly most public blame is going towards the assistant wrestling coach. It is also worth noting that just as many wrestlers say Jordan probably did not know of the abuse as there are those that say he did know. Also, the head coach and all of the other assistant coaches have declared that Jordan was not aware of abuse. Certainly an investigation into the whole escapade is warranted. And certainly Jordan needs to be part of that investigation. If there is actual proof that he knew of the abuse and did nothing about it, then he deserves to be punished and should resign.
  12. My brother cohosted a reception for Beto recently in Dallas and I got to chat with him a little bit. Impressive guy. Will get my vote for certain.
  13. As usual, this is not even remotely what I postured. First, even though you guys keep ignoring it, it is, in fact, within Flynn's legal rights to rescind his guilty plea. He is not bound by his plea until sentencing. He can rescind it and ask for a jury trial. The likelihood of him actually winning a jury trial at this point (after he has plead guilty) is extremely low. The govt could also add new charges. About all Flynn could argue is that the govt withheld evidence from his lawyers and that he would not have plead guil;ty if he knew of that evidence. I seriously doubt the govt actually withheld evidence but it is obviously very unusual for a judge to order the govt to turn over evidence to a defendant's attorneys AFTER the defendant had already plead guilty. All that I am suggesting is that it could give Flynn some perceived leverage. Any one of you can read the plea agreement that Flynn signed. There are general sentencing guideline recommendations in the plea agreement. Flynn could easily be trying to use new information to get a more favorable recommendation on his sentencing. That is neither unusual or uncommon. It is also not at all unusual for Flynn to want to see what happens to Trump in the mueller probe. IF Trump is vindicated by the Mueller report then Trump will have way more political capital to pardon Flynn. If the Mueller report is damning to Trump then he obviously has a lot less political capital and touching Flynn might be too much. Trump may have no intention of pardoning him in any event. None of us knows. It is just a factor to consider.
  14. Maybe you can enlighten me on what I posted that would be in contrast with criminal law.
  15. My guess on Flynn is that the sentencing keeps getting delayed because Flynn is wavering on his guilty plea and he may be trying to leverage his perceived advantage in the case as a result of the supposed Comey/McCabe/FBI investigators supposedly claiming that they did not think Flynn lied. If, and it is a big if, those agents did say that then Flynn may think he has leverage to get a greatly reduced sentence. Also likely hinges on what Flynn has to provide on trump collusion and whether or not Mueller finds any collusion. If Mueller does not find any collusion, as I predict, then I think it is likely that Flynn gets pardoned or gets a drastically reduced sentence. If Mueller finds collusion then Flynn will likely be dealt with more harshly.
  16. I can only speak to what Catholics currently believe. I am Catholic. I think that many of the more ardent evangelicals are the biggest hypocrites I know. And many are great people with great messages. But, as to your question, the Catholic church, today, is welcoming of gays and the Pope is on record as saying God made them (gays) that way and he loves them that way and so does the Pope. On marriage, people just want to play gotcha and twist words and meanings. The Pope is on record as being supportive of any union between loving people. The Catholic church does not oppose these unions at all. People like to make a big deal by saying something to the effect that the Catholic church does not "recognize" gay marriage but that is disingenuous. It is no different than Jewish marriages or Muslim marriages or Baptist marriages as far as the Catholic church is concerned. The catholic church does not recognize those marriages either as Catholic marriages but it certainly respects the marriages and unions. The Catholic church can only "recognize" a marriage between 2 practicing Catholics of opposite sex.
  17. When I first read BT's post about 14/88 I was chuckling because I thought he was being funny. Then I realized that he was actually serious and I really laughed.
  18. This is sooo typical of this place and all of you guys. The only reason there is even any kind of "smell test" is because, as usual, the media print a small part of the actual story and you guys just lap it up like dogs. Do you ever get tired of relying on half truths in the media to form opinions? Hugo asked what he posted that wasn't non-factual. Actually, almost everything that makes this look suspicious is un-factual. The only facts are 1) At one time Kennedy's son worked at De, and 2) Trump made development/construction loans with De during part of the time that Kennedy's son was there. That is it. Everything else being discussed is half truths and outright lies that are very easy to investigate. The biggest claim that is non-factual is this supposed claim that Kennedy's son was Trumps personal banker or something like that. It is a complete and total falsehood. Kennedy never made any construction/development loans and he never had any role in that side of the business. Kennedy was a trader. He traded in mortgage backed securities. Traders do not make loans. It is a completely different division of the bank. Kennedy had exactly zero input in any of the De loans to trump co. Zero. Trump started his relationship with De before Kennedy even worked there. Trump did have a relationship with a De banker and that was the guy that basically started the commercial real estate lending office in NY for De. Lots and lots of articles about it. The guy knew he was taking a risk on Trump but did it anyway. Your Citizens United point is incredibly stupid. Citizens United was decided in January of 2010. Kennedys son was long gone from De at that point and was running a small real estate investment firm that, according to the only records I could find, made exactly zero political contributions. Your point is absurd. Yes De was fined for money laundering related issues. From what I can tell they deserved to be. But the division in question was based in Moscow. Just like every single other big I Bank had offices there. De is a massive institution. This happened in 2017. Of course, Kennedy never worked on anything russian related or had any connection whatsoever to the russian division when he worked there and he had been gone from the company for 8 years when the fines were handed down.. It appears that Kennedy has a friendly relationship with the trump kids. That is neither unusual or surprising considering their backgrounds and work.
  19. I actually thought you were better than the usual suspects here. My delusion? I pretty clearly said that we have no idea who would have won the popular vote. I have no idea if trump would have won that or not. The point that apparently went over your head was that to try and use the popular vote result to draw any type of conclusion is aggy since the game that was played was to get the most electoral votes. You seem to be backtracking a bit now. Sheeeit never even suggested that trump was doing "america's will". Sheeit was calling you out for suggesting that trump being potus was against the will of the people based on the fact that he got fewer votes. I mean this was your post right? "They did in 2016, and the candidate with 3 million fewer votes than his opponent became president. These are some of the consequences of a system that doesn't reflect the will of the people and a president who tells the majority who voted against him to fuck off on a daily basis." You are clearly saying that our electoral system does not reflect the will of the people because trump got less votes. There was a contest to see who gets the most electoral votes. There was not a contest to see who could get the most total votes. You can not make assumptions about results from a contest using data that was not the intent of the contest.
  20. Mojo- Your arguments about the popular vote and electoral college are sort of the epitome of Aggie. It is like Aggie arguing after the football game that they had more offensive yards and therefore they were the better team and should be considered the winner. You have absolutely no way of knowing who would have won the popular vote if that was the way the election was set up. The candidates would have campaigned differently. They would have rallied in different states. They would have spent their advertising money in different ways. How many Hillary supporters in Texas did not vote because they knew that Hillary would not win Texas? How many Trump supporters in California did the same thing? If you want to argue the popular vote should be the way we choose going forward, then that is a decent argument. But to suggest the will of the people was different than the outcome is just very flawed. The contest was not to get the most popular votes it was to get the most electoral votes and that was the goal of the candidates and that is what determined their campaign strategies.
  21. http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2018/06/28/political-murders-push-120-in-mexican-elections/ Amazing. Hard to even grasp this. If we had 1 or 2 pols killed there would be rioting in the streets and the police/military/ would be in full force. 130 in a year. Mexico does not know what to do.
  22. We shall see. My take is that the people of NK are tired of starving. Un realized that and knew he had to do something. You guys seem to be suggesting that just because he had a summit with trump that his power is stronger. I do not see that at all. His power was supreme before the summit. I think that it is impossible that the people of NK did not hear the talk that the world would feed them if Un gave up his nukes. If 6 months from now, Un has done nothing and the people are now dying instead of just starving, then I think his power is much more tenuous. I think only a naive fool would think that China or Russia or anyone would risk access to the financial behemoth that is the US to trade with NK.
  23. I have not been to a kfc in years, may have to make a trip. Also, I can not imagine the shitstorm that would rain down on the first politician that espouses legalizing meth and heroin. That is the biggest reason why it wont happen. Maybe an idiot like trump would do it because he just doesnt care about the fall out.
  24. I dont disagree. It has to be to the point that the mexican citizens really want change and the elected folks realize they cant do it themselves. Might never get to that point. But, I also think there are some prudent folks in mexico that really care about the future of their country. I do not think they would be afraid to swallow their pride if they thought help from the US could seriously help the problem. It could be spun a lot of different ways. Maybe a joint military operation with a mexican figure head at the top. The mexicans can spin it that it is the us and their appetite for drugs that is causing the violence and, therefore, it is only right that the americans help pay for and die for the solution. This approach would clearly be a last option. Legalizing would hurt the cartels the most.
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