A Town Called Malus wrote: To be honest, the people I'm more annoyed at isn't the true Trump believers or even those who voted Republican in 2016.
No, I'm more annoyed at all those people who supported the actions of the Republican party but then didn't vote for Trump and seem to think that absolves them of blame for Trump. Trump is the inevitable endgame of the politics that they supported. He is the inevitable outcome of a party pushing facts aside.
You couldn't have got to Trump without the anti-reality stances of the Republican party on issues such as climate change, economics, etc. pushing the party into the position where it cannot use facts or legitimate research anymore as nobody worth their salt in an academic field can support their arguments as the evidence shows they don't work.
The Republican party adopting positions in stark contrast to the evidence, and their membership and voters willingly going along with it rather than calling them out on it are the cause of Trump. That primed people to be willing to eat up Trumps bs as it was only a step from the bs the Republican party had been pushing for years.
We got a populist demagogue because our 2 party duopoly has pushed our politics away from the majority of the populace so they pushed back. We have 2 parties that do the math and campaign for their base knowing that the majority of the people that aren't a part of that base have been convinced that there are only 2 options to vote for so they can either pick the lesser of two evils or stay home. Trump had enough populist appeal and enough Republicans were convinced Trump was the lesser of two evils that it swung enough states to give him the electoral victory. If the Democratic party paid more attention to the middle class instead of writing them off as either unnecessary to their coalition or a guaranteed vote because they have no where else to go and pushed a candidate that didn't come across as a calculating uncharismatic rules flaunting elitist we wouldn't have Trump as president. The people who voted for Trump came from the same places and backgrounds as the voters who had kept the Democrats in the majority in Congress for decades until the mid 90s.
While Bush43 and Obama were flawed presidents at least they had the ability to connect with or at least understand the problems middle class America was facing.
I wanted to comment on this back when Sebster posted this Obama quote:
You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.
And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.
At least Obama understood and empathized with this glaring problem. When coal mines in West Virginia shut down and it devastates entire towns that's a problem and it's a recurring problem across Appalachia and the Rust Belt but it's one that is often ignored because there's tens of millions of Americans that don't live in Appalachia or the Rust Belt. What happens to those communities? Of course people in them will become bitter, desperate, and angry and they'll turn towards the support networks they know: their families, their church congregations, their neighborhoods, the guns that still empower them to protect and provide for their families to some extent. How do our politicians deal with this problem? Hillary appeared to write them off, she didn't need West Virginia, campaigning on ending the coal industry helped with her base and the Greens, and really who were West Virginian Democrats going to vote for a Democrat or a slick talking self promoting real estate mogul from New York City? Besides Hillary threw them a bone, she offered "job retraining." What is job retraining? Who qualifies for it? Just the coal miners? What about all the businesses that depend on the coal miners patronage to exist do they get assistance or are they just screwed? Even if coal miners are successfully retrained they're still going to have to compete against candidates half their age who are just as qualified or more so for jobs that will require the coal miners to relocated to different states. How do the retrained coal miners pay for the relocation, can they take their extended family with them? How much time and help do they get with their training? How many of us could suddenly become fully qualified miners in a few months? All of these questions and concerns get swept aside because we're progressing past coal so coal miners are inevitably casualties of that progress and we're throwing them a bone with the job retraining so that eases our conscience and hey it's really just a problem for THEM and they're not US. So unionized middle class coal mining democrats end up voting for this guy:
Because even fake empathy is more appealing than the cold political calculus of Hillary Clinton.
Look at the self driving car thread and all the arguments over minutiae in it. The big question that isn't coming up, because there's no easy answer, is that automated cars/trucks are going to trigger massive job loss for big gains with profits and minor gains in productivity. Automated trucks are going to have the same fuel economy as manually driven trucks, will have to stop at the same weigh stations as manually driven trucks, will have to obey the same speed limits, and the increased hours of operation will be slightly offset by the increase in down for maintenance as mileage piles up faster. The amount of money saved by eliminating human drivers will be vastly larger than the increase in delivery speeds. Short of some kind of punitive automation tax that makes automated trucks as expensive or more expensive than manually driven trucks for companies in order to discourage their use are there other solutions?
The 2 party duopoly gets to set the narrative for political discourse in the country with the help of a fully complicit media so we're left with terrible candidates that ignore glaring problems in favor of partisan conflict that keeps people voting for whichever side they convince themselves is less evil than the other. Garbage in and garbage out because the system itself is the problem.
One thing Obama got right, at least on paper; was the 50 state strategy. The execution was not always great, but the concept was sound.
For the record, I brought up the loss of jobs to automation in that thread, but it was pretty much passed over. To me that is the much bigger and more interesting political question, becasue to me it is clear that our politics/society/culture is not ready to handle it yet.
Easy E wrote: One thing Obama got right, at least on paper; was the 50 state strategy. The execution was not always great, but the concept was sound.
For the record, I brought up the loss of jobs to automation in that thread, but it was pretty much passed over. To me that is the much bigger and more interesting political question, becasue to me it is clear that our politics/society/culture is not ready to handle it yet.
To reply to this, and keep it relevant to this thread, I think it's largely because you have an entire party who (mistakenly) views anyone on "handouts" as being inherently lazy, and "bootstraps" theories abound. At the policy level, that simply does not work as a new technology gains momentum and sweeps out hundreds of thousands of jobs.
I'd read somewhere that in the McDonald's locations that have successfully brought in automated ordering systems, they found that the level of employment stayed the same. This is because they "freed up" more people to work the stoves/fryers, etc. that used to man the till. Now, they'll have the manager managing, and helping with ordering as needed, with everyone who used to be at the counter now in the back, which speeds up turnaround on orders (as in, lowers the time from order/payment to delivery of food)
I don't really see the same necessarily happening in all industries as people are made "obsolete" as not all obsolescence is equal. Without regulation, we'll undoubtedly see some people forced to the welfare lines while they figure out what the feth they are gonna do next, and in our current setting, many will feel at odds with their own political beliefs.
The automation question is a good one, but I think the bigger issue is Complexity. I have a lot of thoughts on that subject but need to work on a more coherent expression to really flesh that out, and there is a lot of Deep Future stuff in that realm.
Ultimately however, issues with automation forcing people out of work is not a new issue, it has affected major political events since at least the French Revolution and has been a theme of many Marxist strains of thought going back to the 1848 revolutions.
The big current issue with automation is that *all* the productivity gains are captured by Capital. Despite producing more work, and at a higher quality level, than ever before, Labor's share of the profit has not moved and in most cases has decreased, while management and the board now sit loftier than ever, with average CEO compensation now almost 40,000% (400x) more than the average employee, with much of that coming from lower-taxed Capital Gains, meant to spur investment, as opposed to wages. Addressing that issue however is instantly slammed as "evil socialism", even by those this reality hurts most.
Kilkrazy wrote: It does seem as though modern day USA is doomed to have a gun massacre every few months, so the issue will rarely be out of the news.
The political aspect of the Sante Fe mass shooting is that it will inject more fire into the bellies of the student protests against guns. I think demographically the situation is moving away from the hardline NRA position.
Indeed, and I think the NRA itself is acting as the catalyst for that, theyre doubling down on *really* stupid sound bytes filled with classic partisan dogwhistles in ads and features that are Goebbellian in nature that turn off most people under 60, and largely failed to deliver anything on a Federal level to the gun rights expansion people even when a perfect vehicle presented itself (such as the WH petition on repealing the NFA getting six digits worth of signatures before Trump shut the page down), and just broadly pushing a very partisan political message instead of attempting to expand and incorporate younger groups and different ethnic and social demographics.
Basically theyre acting like an attack wing of the Republican party and not a civil rights and education organization.
I've mentioned this before, but as somebody who enjoys military history/wargaming as a hobby, I occasionally watch youtube gun channels to see old muskets getting blasted.
Now, a lot of those gun channels are political for obvious reasons and I tend not to watch that stuff myself.
But I'm actually surprised how many of them loathe and despise the NRA. They absolutely hate the NRA and most of them prefer the Gun Owners of America and their no compromise stance.
They see the NRA as working hand in hand with gun control groups.
Kilkrazy wrote: It does seem as though modern day USA is doomed to have a gun massacre every few months, so the issue will rarely be out of the news.
The political aspect of the Sante Fe mass shooting is that it will inject more fire into the bellies of the student protests against guns. I think demographically the situation is moving away from the hardline NRA position.
Indeed, and I think the NRA itself is acting as the catalyst for that, theyre doubling down on *really* stupid sound bytes filled with classic partisan dogwhistles in ads and features that are Goebbellian in nature that turn off most people under 60, and largely failed to deliver anything on a Federal level to the gun rights expansion people even when a perfect vehicle presented itself (such as the WH petition on repealing the NFA getting six digits worth of signatures before Trump shut the page down), and just broadly pushing a very partisan political message instead of attempting to expand and incorporate younger groups and different ethnic and social demographics.
Basically theyre acting like an attack wing of the Republican party and not a civil rights and education organization.
I've mentioned this before, but as somebody who enjoys military history/wargaming as a hobby, I occasionally watch youtube gun channels to see old muskets getting blasted.
Now, a lot of those gun channels are political for obvious reasons and I tend not to watch that stuff myself.
But I'm actually surprised how many of them loathe and despise the NRA. They absolutely hate the NRA and most of them prefer the Gun Owners of America and their no compromise stance.
They see the NRA as working hand in hand with gun control groups.
...I need to see this. Last I checked, the NRA loves saying "from our cold, dead, hands" a little to often to be working with gun control groups. And that is part of the problem. They stopped being about education and safety, and so in their primitive chest-thumping about no compromise, they leave themselves open for more damage. Gun rights groups need to be able to sit down and come up with realistic compromises in order to sit down and discuss issues with the other side, or else we risk losing more of our rights than we should. The NRA has become a sinking ship, and risk dragging us responsible gun owners down with them. The thought of anyone being further right than they are is kinda scary.
Kilkrazy wrote: It does seem as though modern day USA is doomed to have a gun massacre every few months, so the issue will rarely be out of the news.
The political aspect of the Sante Fe mass shooting is that it will inject more fire into the bellies of the student protests against guns. I think demographically the situation is moving away from the hardline NRA position.
Indeed, and I think the NRA itself is acting as the catalyst for that, theyre doubling down on *really* stupid sound bytes filled with classic partisan dogwhistles in ads and features that are Goebbellian in nature that turn off most people under 60, and largely failed to deliver anything on a Federal level to the gun rights expansion people even when a perfect vehicle presented itself (such as the WH petition on repealing the NFA getting six digits worth of signatures before Trump shut the page down), and just broadly pushing a very partisan political message instead of attempting to expand and incorporate younger groups and different ethnic and social demographics.
Basically theyre acting like an attack wing of the Republican party and not a civil rights and education organization.
I've mentioned this before, but as somebody who enjoys military history/wargaming as a hobby, I occasionally watch youtube gun channels to see old muskets getting blasted.
Now, a lot of those gun channels are political for obvious reasons and I tend not to watch that stuff myself.
But I'm actually surprised how many of them loathe and despise the NRA. They absolutely hate the NRA and most of them prefer the Gun Owners of America and their no compromise stance.
They see the NRA as working hand in hand with gun control groups.
Essentially, as theyve become a culture war wing of the GOP, theyve given up on advancing firearms freedom as a civil right in the eyes of some, their support of the "no fly no buy" concept, bans on bump stocks, not taking up the call to repeal the NFA, etc.
There is a perception that they just want to use gun issues as a fundeaising mechanism, rather than being active advocates. In some respects, that's not an unfounded claim, but at the same time, while something like the GOA is more earnest, its also just as fiercly partisan and comes off to the average person as far too extreme to be taken seriously, and they lack the reach and depth of the NRA.
EDIT: Farm bill dead, along with SNAP working requirements. Discharge on immigration increasingly likely.
Easy E wrote: One thing Obama got right, at least on paper; was the 50 state strategy. The execution was not always great, but the concept was sound.
For the record, I brought up the loss of jobs to automation in that thread, but it was pretty much passed over. To me that is the much bigger and more interesting political question, becasue to me it is clear that our politics/society/culture is not ready to handle it yet.
Yes... Obama and his campaigned are rock stars in campaigning. Not so much in ensuring the "obama coalition", but the fundamental campaign strategies across the 50 states.
He and his campaign leadership really don't get enough credit for it and every campaign out to look at the successes of that strategy and apply to their own.
China has purchased record amounts of soybeans from Russia in recent months amid trade tensions with the U.S., Bloomberg reported.
The world's biggest soybean importer, China has nearly tripled its imports from Russia, according to Bloomberg. Russian trade data show the country sold 850,000 metric tons of soybeans to China between July 2017 and mid-May this year.
The record sales represent more than twice the 340,000 tons sold during the previous growing period.
The move comes amid China's halt on purchases from the U.S., the world's largest producer of soybeans.
China has cancelled multiple U.S. shipments in recent weeks ahead of tariffs, including a 62,690-ton purchase on April 19, Bloomberg reported earlier this month.
China included soybeans on a list of tariffs on U.S. products last month totaling $50 billion, a direct response to the Trump administration's announcement of $150 billion of tariffs against Chinese imports.
China is the second-largest market for U.S. agricultural exports.
While Russia's soybean production makes up less than 1 percent of the amount China imports, the size of soybean plantings in eastern Russia could reportedly expand up to 20 percent in the next two to three years.
This and the collapse of the Farm Bill does not bode well for rural voters, as farmers are the most politically active group (outside of Evangelicals) in rural areas.
While some people talk about the size of their buttons, one of them has some propaganda power about being able to tell the US where they can and cannot fly their planes.
While some people talk about the size of their buttons, one of them has some propaganda power about being able to tell the US where they can and cannot fly their planes.
It's not an accusation... it's a goddamn fact that the Obama administration used its counterintelligence powers to investigate the opposition party’s presidential campaign.
When then opposition party's presidential campaign is showing evidence of colluding with a foreign power to influence the outcome of the election, it's the JOB of said counterintelligence to investigate.
Just imagine how you would be feeling right now if Hilary had won, and we were hearing that her campaign organization had been in collusion with North Korea...
Kansas Governor Jeff Colyer today signed a bill today legalizing discrimination against gay couples who want to adopt children. Oklahoma’s governor Mary Fallin signed a similar bill into law last week.
The Wichita Eagle reports:
The bill, approved by the Legislature in early May, allows agencies to refuse placement of children “for foster care or adoption when the proposed placement of such child would violate such agency’s sincerely held religious beliefs.”
Colyer signed the bill Friday at Youth Horizons Kinloch Price Boys Ranch, a Christian nonprofit that offers residential care for boys with severe individual and family challenges.
Kansas Governor Jeff Colyer today signed a bill today legalizing discrimination against gay couples who want to adopt children. Oklahoma’s governor Mary Fallin signed a similar bill into law last week.
The Wichita Eagle reports:
The bill, approved by the Legislature in early May, allows agencies to refuse placement of children “for foster care or adoption when the proposed placement of such child would violate such agency’s sincerely held religious beliefs.”
Colyer signed the bill Friday at Youth Horizons Kinloch Price Boys Ranch, a Christian nonprofit that offers residential care for boys with severe individual and family challenges.
Faith based organizations are going to make faith based decisions. I would expect that an adoption agency that is faith based whether it’s Christian or Muslim or Jewish or whatever would prioritize putting kids in families that align with their religious beliefs. If that’s not something the state wants to happen then they shouldn’t have private or faith based adoption agencies in the first place. Of course this is Kansas, the state with notoriously lax puppy mills laws so them not regulating baby mills well either isn’t shocking at all.
Wow. That is a lot of leaps made by the Trump administration.
We have gone from;
"FBI had an informant inside the Trump campaign" (Trump tweet)
to
"FBI PUT an informant inside the Trump campaign" (Giuliani interview on FOX News)
to
"There was an FBI representative implanted inside the Trump campaign - for political purposes". (Trump tweet)
Doesn't anybody notice how the language shifts?
And all this from an op-ed by former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy being quoted as saying; "There is probably no doubt that they had at least one confidential informant in the campaign".
It has to be pointed out that quote doesn't actually appear in the article linked as a source of the quote - anywhere.
The McCarthy article references that co-founder of Fusion GPS Glenn Simpson testified before Congress, that Christopher Steele (of the Steele Dossier fame) told him (Simpson) that FBI had received intelligence from a human source inside the Trump campaign.
Am I missing something here? Does President Trump and Rudolph Giuliani simply make gak up?
The McCarthy article references that co-founder of Fusion GPS Glenn Simpson testified before Congress, that Christopher Steele (of the Steele Dossier fame) told him (Simpson) that FBI had received intelligence from a human source inside the Trump campaign.
Am I missing something here? Does President Trump and Rudolph Giuliani simply make gak up?
Well, you know how it is, the Dossier is golden when it suits them, and a pack of dirty lies invented by Hillery when it says nasty things about them.
Steelmage99 wrote: Am I missing something here? Does President Trump and Rudolph Giuliani simply make gak up?
Why shouldn't they? The libs don't like it, but stigginit, and the base just repeats it elsewhere as if it was a fact without any examination. Look at the last 2 pages! There is literally no downside to the Trump Train lying freely. We established pages back that this was an op-ed making guesses, it was conceded that it was a "good faith" op-ed (whatever the feth that is), and now it's somehow graduated to being repeated as fact despite no new information by dint of it being repeated by inveterate liars.
Why not just make up lazy, easily debunked lies? Why feed them steak when they'll happily eat gak?
Steelmage99 wrote: Wow. That is a lot of leaps made by the Trump administration.
We have gone from;
"FBI had an informant inside the Trump campaign" (Trump tweet)
to
"FBI PUT an informant inside the Trump campaign" (Giuliani interview on FOX News)
to
"There was an FBI representative implanted inside the Trump campaign - for political purposes". (Trump tweet)
Doesn't anybody notice how the language shifts?
And all this from an op-ed by former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy being quoted as saying; "There is probably no doubt that they had at least one confidential informant in the campaign".
It has to be pointed out that quote doesn't actually appear in the article linked as a source of the quote - anywhere.
The McCarthy article references that co-founder of Fusion GPS Glenn Simpson testified before Congress, that Christopher Steele (of the Steele Dossier fame) told him (Simpson) that FBI had received intelligence from a human source inside the Trump campaign.
Am I missing something here? Does President Trump and Rudolph Giuliani simply make gak up?
We passed that stage a long time ago.
I don't think people take notice of the shifting statements because we've all known for a long time that almost everything that comes out of Trump's lips is a self-serving lie.
If you're a supporter and don't care, you just accept and parrot the latest party line, like the population of Oceania in 1984 with their "doublethink".
If you're an opponent you already are more appalled than human psychology can measure.
It certainly marks the start of divergence of western policy and direction. If the US is determined to move off and do its own thing, the EU must step up to replace that presence. I imagine that will include a hastening of an EU defence force as it's almost certain that's where Trump will move to next.
Withdrawing from NATO and re-examining US military commitments worldwide.
Obviously that means a period of instability as "pax-americana" is readjusted, but I'm sure that the EU, China and Russia will expand to fill the void.
The world has finally come to realise that the US cannot be relied upon, and maybe it's influence, and power will now start to take a hit. I can't imagine it will end well for the average Joe both in the US and in other parts of the world, but what can you do when the political system of a super power allows an infantile moron, supported by a right wing cartel, to call the shots.
It certainly marks the start of divergence of western policy and direction. If the US is determined to move off and do its own thing, the EU must step up to replace that presence. I imagine that will include a hastening of an EU defence force as it's almost certain that's where Trump will move to next.
Withdrawing from NATO and re-examining US military commitments worldwide.
Obviously that means a period of instability as "pax-americana" is readjusted, but I'm sure that the EU, China and Russia will expand to fill the void.
The world has finally come to realise that the US cannot be relied upon, and maybe it's influence, and power will now start to take a hit. I can't imagine it will end well for the average Joe both in the US and in other parts of the world, but what can you do when the political system of a super power allows an infantile moron, supported by a right wing cartel, to call the shots.
Agreed, it's a big deal but not because of the economics themselves. Also I'd say it's far from rendering the USs pull from the deal as economically moot.
It certainly marks the start of divergence of western policy and direction. If the US is determined to move off and do its own thing, the EU must step up to replace that presence. I imagine that will include a hastening of an EU defence force as it's almost certain that's where Trump will move to next.
Withdrawing from NATO and re-examining US military commitments worldwide.
Obviously that means a period of instability as "pax-americana" is readjusted, but I'm sure that the EU, China and Russia will expand to fill the void.
The world has finally come to realise that the US cannot be relied upon, and maybe it's influence, and power will now start to take a hit. I can't imagine it will end well for the average Joe both in the US and in other parts of the world, but what can you do when the political system of a super power allows an infantile moron, supported by a right wing cartel, to call the shots.
Yup, pretty much.
NinthMusketeer wrote:Agreed, it's a big deal but not because of the economics themselves. Also I'd say it's far from rendering the USs pull from the deal as economically moot.
The US withdrawal won't be painless, but the big thing with the original sanctions was that they worked because they cripplingly isolated Iran, especially from foreign capital. It will suck for Iran for the sanctions to be reimposed, but Iran will be able to interact enough with the world to basically still do what they want to.
So the man who hates the USA, led two uprisings against American forces, and who is essentially Iran's man, is now the king maker in Iraqi politics...
1 trillion dollars spent, thousands of US servicemen and women dead, and all for this...
I don't know why the USA bothers with a foreign policy these dyas, becuase they've lost the skill they used to have...
If you know your Iraq history, Paul Bremer wanted him arrested back in 04-05, had an Iraqi judge give the nod to an arrest warrant, and was all set to go until...
Washington got cold feet and pulled the plug...
Sadr got the message that he could act with impunity and Washington wouldn't touch him, which of course encouraged him and his followers to raise the stakes further...
I suspect that a British Imperial Governor would have had Sadr hanging from the nearest lamp post...
So the man who hates the USA, led two uprisings against American forces, and who is essentially Iran's man, is now the king maker in Iraqi politics...
1 trillion dollars spent, thousands of US servicemen and women dead, and all for this...
I don't know why the USA bothers with a foreign policy these dyas, becuase they've lost the skill they used to have...
If you know your Iraq history, Paul Bremer wanted him arrested back in 04-05, had an Iraqi judge give the nod to an arrest warrant, and was all set to go until...
Washington got cold feet and pulled the plug...
Sadr got the message that he could act with impunity and Washington wouldn't touch him, which of course encouraged him and his followers to raise the stakes further...
I suspect that a British Imperial Governor would have had Sadr hanging from the nearest lamp post...
Skill we used to have? We never had any to begin with. The 20th century is one long comedy of American foreign policy failures. The best achievement we ever had was walking out of WWII virtually undamaged, a position we have since wasted being a global bully completely blind to the reality that such a policy practice is only viable so long as our bullying benefited Western Europe and key regional allies.
Trump basically misses all the nuance that strategy hinges on, and is slowly obliterating it. It's hard not to look around and realize that US foreign policy, as shaky as its always been, really might not survive another 2 1/2 years of the cheeto being in charge. Neo-Colonialism is only slightly less bloody than outright Imperialism, and just as much a long term failure.
So the man who hates the USA, led two uprisings against American forces, and who is essentially Iran's man, is now the king maker in Iraqi politics...
1 trillion dollars spent, thousands of US servicemen and women dead, and all for this...
I don't know why the USA bothers with a foreign policy these dyas, becuase they've lost the skill they used to have...
If you know your Iraq history, Paul Bremer wanted him arrested back in 04-05, had an Iraqi judge give the nod to an arrest warrant, and was all set to go until...
Washington got cold feet and pulled the plug...
Sadr got the message that he could act with impunity and Washington wouldn't touch him, which of course encouraged him and his followers to raise the stakes further...
I suspect that a British Imperial Governor would have had Sadr hanging from the nearest lamp post...
Skill we used to have? We never had any to begin with. The 20th century is one long comedy of American foreign policy failures. The best achievement we ever had was walking out of WWII virtually undamaged, a position we have since wasted being a global bully completely blind to the reality that such a policy practice is only viable so long as our bullying benefited Western Europe and key regional allies.
Trump basically misses all the nuance that strategy hinges on, and is slowly obliterating it. It's hard not to look around and realize that US foreign policy, as shaky as its always been, really might not survive another 2 1/2 years of the cheeto being in charge. Neo-Colonialism is only slightly less bloody than outright Imperialism, and just as much a long term failure.
I agree that the US has done a lot of bad things but I find this a cynical take.
Obviously that means a period of instability as "pax-americana" is readjusted, but I'm sure that the EU, China and Russia will expand to fill the void.
I'm absolutely sure that Russia will expand as much as it thinks that it can get away with.
I think that it's sad that Roosevelt's approach to US foreign policy, "Speak softly and carry a big stick" has been replaced by Trump's "Talk bollocks and flaunt your tiny penis".
Obviously that means a period of instability as "pax-americana" is readjusted, but I'm sure that the EU, China and Russia will expand to fill the void.
I'm absolutely sure that Russia will expand as much as it thinks that it can get away with.
One of the reasons for not abandoning the Iran deal is that it risks pushing Iran closer to China and Russia.
Obviously that means a period of instability as "pax-americana" is readjusted, but I'm sure that the EU, China and Russia will expand to fill the void.
I'm absolutely sure that Russia will expand as much as it thinks that it can get away with.
One of the reasons for not abandoning the Iran deal is that it risks pushing Iran closer to China and Russia.
It also helps stabilize the region by not forcing Iran into an opposition stance toward Western interests. You get more bees with honey as they say, and sure Iran and Saudi Arabia will never be best friends, but Saudi Arabia and Iran are less likely to be at one another throats when they're both benefiting from trade agreements from the same people.
And it was stopping Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
Bailing on the deal hands a propaganda victory to Iran's hardliners, who were gradually losing their grip on power.
It also imposes a brake on the Iranian economy which will enable the government to blame the USA for their economic problems and deflect attention from their own dodgy external operations which have cost a lot of money and generated opposition from the general population.
There is one great positive of trashing the deal, though. It's part of Obama's legacy, so Trump can gratify his ego and hatred of Obama.
So the man who hates the USA, led two uprisings against American forces, and who is essentially Iran's man, is now the king maker in Iraqi politics...
1 trillion dollars spent, thousands of US servicemen and women dead, and all for this...
I don't know why the USA bothers with a foreign policy these dyas, becuase they've lost the skill they used to have...
If you know your Iraq history, Paul Bremer wanted him arrested back in 04-05, had an Iraqi judge give the nod to an arrest warrant, and was all set to go until...
Washington got cold feet and pulled the plug...
Sadr got the message that he could act with impunity and Washington wouldn't touch him, which of course encouraged him and his followers to raise the stakes further...
I suspect that a British Imperial Governor would have had Sadr hanging from the nearest lamp post...
Skill we used to have? We never had any to begin with. The 20th century is one long comedy of American foreign policy failures. The best achievement we ever had was walking out of WWII virtually undamaged, a position we have since wasted being a global bully completely blind to the reality that such a policy practice is only viable so long as our bullying benefited Western Europe and key regional allies.
Trump basically misses all the nuance that strategy hinges on, and is slowly obliterating it. It's hard not to look around and realize that US foreign policy, as shaky as its always been, really might not survive another 2 1/2 years of the cheeto being in charge. Neo-Colonialism is only slightly less bloody than outright Imperialism, and just as much a long term failure.
The upside, if you can call it that, is that outright imperialism is something the US isn't capable of maintaining and thus its collapse will come that much faster.
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump I hereby demand, and will do so officially tomorrow, that the Department of Justice look into whether or not the FBI/DOJ infiltrated or surveilled the Trump Campaign for Political Purposes - and if any such demands or requests were made by people within the Obama Administration!
12:37 PM - May 20, 2018
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump If the FBI or DOJ was infiltrating a campaign for the benefit of another campaign, that is a really big deal. Only the release or review of documents that the House Intelligence Committee (also, Senate Judiciary) is asking for can give the conclusive answers. Drain the Swamp!
Watch for "Obstruction of Justice!!!" stories dialed to 11...
Seems REALLY strange to just announce on twitter... just submit an order via usual channels.
If you are interested in the truth, you submit questions via the regular channels. Or, since you are the head of the executive department you go to your appointed people and have them follow up on those things.
If you are interested in getting people to disregard any findings before they are even released, then you blast about these kind of things on Twitter and do the “I’m just asking questions” thing.
d-usa wrote: If you are interested in the truth, you submit questions via the regular channels. Or, since you are the head of the executive department you go to your appointed people and have them follow up on those things.
If you are interested in getting people to disregard any findings before they are even released, then you blast about these kind of things on Twitter and do the “I’m just asking questions” thing.
Just more alternative facts.
Yeah... he's trying to set the narrative, ala like leaking juicy bits to favorable media. He's just blasting this via his favorite medium.
Based on further news report, he *is* (or rather the WH legal counsel) drafting an order via normal channels.
Next thing you know he'll be blaming his treason on Ritalin or violent culture
Just two days after a young man opened fire on his classmates and teachers at a high school in Santa Fe, Texas, the National Rifle Association’s incoming president, Oliver North, blamed Ritalin and a “culture of violence.”
On “Fox News Sunday,” the controversial Iran-Contra figure told host Chris Wallace that the solution for the increasing number of school shootings ― there have been 22 so far in 2018, by one count ― is not gun control.
“We’re trying like the dickens to treat the symptoms without treating the disease,” he said.
“And the disease in this case isn’t the Second Amendment. The disease is youngsters who are steeped in a culture of violence,” he said. “They’ve been drugged in many cases. Nearly all of these perpetrators are male. ... Many of these young boys have been on Ritalin since they were in kindergarten.”
Ustrello wrote: Next thing you know he'll be blaming his treason on Ritalin or violent culture
Just two days after a young man opened fire on his classmates and teachers at a high school in Santa Fe, Texas, the National Rifle Association’s incoming president, Oliver North, blamed Ritalin and a “culture of violence.”
On “Fox News Sunday,” the controversial Iran-Contra figure told host Chris Wallace that the solution for the increasing number of school shootings ― there have been 22 so far in 2018, by one count ― is not gun control.
“We’re trying like the dickens to treat the symptoms without treating the disease,” he said.
“And the disease in this case isn’t the Second Amendment. The disease is youngsters who are steeped in a culture of violence,” he said. “They’ve been drugged in many cases. Nearly all of these perpetrators are male. ... Many of these young boys have been on Ritalin since they were in kindergarten.”
You know, it's bizarre that the one thing the media is actually responsible for, I mean, seriously, it's written in neon letters ninety feet tall on this one, it's not getting blamed for, or even bothering to reflect on it's role in this.
BaronIveagh wrote: You know, it's bizarre that the one thing the media is actually responsible for, I mean, seriously, it's written in neon letters ninety feet tall on this one, it's not getting blamed for, or even bothering to reflect on it's role in this.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: There are millions of Americans still alive who voted for Richard Nixon, and we'll never know why they cast a vote for Tricky Dicky.
We've no chance of finding the reasons for people voting for Trump.
The complex thing about Nixon is that while he was a criminally corrupt and a soul destroying moral disaster, on a policy level he was actually really solid. And in 1972 he ran against McGovern, who's policy set was hopelessly liberal and not even slightly viable in the US economy at that time. Not saying people voted for Nixon based on a studied analysis of the policies of the two candidates, but even after all his corruption came out, people could at the very least claim they voted for the adult in the room. Trump voters most certainly do not have that defense.
Fun story, I think from 538 but maybe not. Bush won comfortable in 2004, but the housing crash that slowly became the GFC, combined with the lingering Iraq mess, the Hastert pedophile scandal, and the Abramoff corruption scandal, caused Bush's support to absolutely collapse. He started showing polls with 15% approval. At that time, around 2006, pollsters were asking their standard background questions for their surveys, including who people voted for last election. There's no reason to lie, people won't be challenged on that vote, and before then they had no problem finding a majority or near majority who said they voted for Bush. Suddenly no poll could find get more than about a third of respondents saying they voted for Bush. 10 to 15% of the population weren't lying because they had no reason to lie, they simply didn't like admitting they made a mistake, so they chose a new personal reality where they didn't make that mistake.
Point being, forget trying to find out why voters did something. We can't even get them to honestly recount what they did.
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Easy E wrote: I will re-post this link as it was an interesting interview with some folks who tried to dig in and answer that question on a person by person basis, especially people that voted for Obama twice and then flipped to Trump.
I am not a fan of the technique they used, as it draws more from the Journalist side than the Quant side, but it did lead to some interesting discussion and a better perspective on Trump voters. The problem with just using interviews as the basis of yoru analysis is that.... welll... people are really, really good at self-delusion and rationalization. We all wear masks, and many times you simply can not take what some one says at face value without digging in much deeper with a lot of follow-up questions.
I haven't read the book, but I did read the review in The Atlantic, which wasn't all that negative, though I read it as such. Combining cherry picked surveys and self selected interviews are what you use to build justification for a position you want to sell. It's not how you set about a genuine effort to figure out what's going on.
That said, I do agree that Trump is unlikely an aberration, Trump and his brand of politics is probably going to be a new normal for the Republican party. What is unsure, I think, is exactly what parts of Trumpism worked. Trump through a lot of stuff at the wall, and we still don't know exactly which bits stuck. We've since seen a few Trump style candidates ran, not with great success (a few went down in flames). What if someone has Trump's vulgarity, but not his racism? Stronger or weaker than Trump? What if they have Trump's instinct for public displays of cruelty, but not the populist economics of his campaign? Is that a stronger of a weaker candidate than Trump?
Over a few election cycles we will see a refining of Trumpism, and by then I think it will be clear what it is that appeals about Trumpism, to the point where we'll be amazed that it wasn't always obvious.
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A Town Called Malus wrote: I'm more annoyed at all those people who supported the actions of the Republican party but then didn't vote for Trump and seem to think that absolves them of blame for Trump. Trump is the inevitable endgame of the politics that they supported. He is the inevitable outcome of a party pushing facts aside.
You couldn't have got to Trump without the anti-reality stances of the Republican party on issues such as climate change, economics, etc. pushing the party into the position where it cannot use facts or legitimate research anymore as nobody worth their salt in an academic field can support their arguments as the evidence shows they don't work.
Well said. I've used the anecdote here a few times, but to me it illustrates how Republicans produced Trump quite clearly. In the 2016 primaries Jeb Bush was running with a tax policy where he would cut taxes massively across the board, but he claimed it would pay for itself because it'd produce 5% growth. Trump one upped him, with a policy that would cut taxes even more, but it would pay for itself because it would produce 6% growth. Jeb protested, saying Trump's 6% figure was absolute nonsense. But Jeb's own 5% figure was impossible nonsense, the US has achieved 5% only at the rarest of times, during the postwar boom and periods of massive population expansion, no tax policy on earth could come near to 5% when population growth is so slow.
Republicans had accepted as a basic platform of the party that impossible tax cuts would be justified with made up growth numbers. So when Trump came along and promised an even more impossible tax cut, justified with an even more imaginary growth number, what recourse did Republicans have? Were they supposed to say that while they lie, it's bad when Trump tells even bigger lies?
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Kilkrazy wrote: It does seem as though modern day USA is doomed to have a gun massacre every few months, so the issue will rarely be out of the news.
The political aspect of the Sante Fe mass shooting is that it will inject more fire into the bellies of the student protests against guns. I think demographically the situation is moving away from the hardline NRA position.
Popular support for gun control is always strongest when Republicans control government. It is easy for Democrats in congress to sound very principled about Republicans doing nothing about the issue. Remember there was no shortage of massacres during Obama's term, during most of which Democrats controlled at least congress. But nothing got done then, either.
I think something will break on this issue, eventually. The facts are too clear, and the number of gun owners slowly declines. The NRA's ever increasing crazy doesn't help either. But I do think the current political strength of the gun control advocates is something of a false dawn, real reform is probably some time away.
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Prestor Jon wrote: I wanted to comment on this back when Sebster posted this Obama quote:
You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.
And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.
That quote was a really interesting one to raise in the context of the point you're making, but I'm not sure it's quite for the reason you claimed. Thing is, that quote was taken out of context and used as an attack on Obama as soon as he made it. For Obama it was a real lesson about federal politics - honest, complex answers to difficult questions will be picked apart by political opponents to be used in soundbites, and the credulous base will eat them up with no interest in their accuracy. Trump has said and done a lot of genuinely stupid and horrible things, but in an environment where people are misquoting every politician to pretend they said stupid/horrible stuff, Trump's actual horribleness slides through without the impact it should have.
I disagreed with Bush, McCain and Romney on probably 80 to 90% of their policy positions, but I didn't agree with the way the left pretended they were horrible people. On the flip side I agreed with most of Obama and Clinton's policy set, but that had little to do with why I was so contemptuous of the right for their ridiculous attacks on their characters.
whembly had quite a phrase, which I will now butcher in paraphrase - when everyone is accused of being Hitler, then no-one is. Its a good explanation of how an environment full of false and misleading personal attacks on politicians opens the door for an actually horrible candidate. The irony, of course, is that whembly was convinced Hillary Clinton was an evil politician, because the far right media had been telling him for 20 years Clinton was tied up in criminal conspiracies and corruption, so he couldn't tell Clinton from Trump, the guy who was actually caught up criminal conspiracies and corruption.
sebster wrote: Trump and his brand of politics is probably going to be a new normal for the Republican party.
Keep in mind the GOP only got where it is now because their declining quality as a political party kept working. The new normal will only stay as such if it works, and I suspect we will see going forward that it does not. Not just the next election but the GOP pretty much has a waiting queue of PR disasters at this point. Increasing centralization of wealth as the expense of the middle class, trend away from white majorities, increasing political power of women, dramatically increasing effect of Global Warming (and the party has re-cemented itself as the denier under Trump), the realization that other countries no longer respect the US on the world stage, and others. Things will not be getting better for the GOP for some time.
Easy E wrote: One thing Obama got right, at least on paper; was the 50 state strategy. The execution was not always great, but the concept was sound.
Sure, but Obama ran the 50 state strategy in 2008 because it was pretty obvious from early on the Democratic tailwind was so strong the presidency was pretty much settled before the campaigning began. The real game was about getting control of congress.
In 2012 when the Democratic position was much weaker Obama shifted back to a more traditional focus. He still made a show of being across the whole country, but that was largely a branding thing, the real focus moved to the swing states.
For the record, I brought up the loss of jobs to automation in that thread, but it was pretty much passed over. To me that is the much bigger and more interesting political question, becasue to me it is clear that our politics/society/culture is not ready to handle it yet.
I think there are a lot of really difficult conversations about the near and medium term future that we are not having. The impact of automation in an economy with minimal growth is one of the big ones.
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NinthMusketeer wrote: That, that is the most stupidly accurate statement of the year.
I'm torn between that, and John Mulaney's routine about Trump being a horse in a hospital, “Like I think everything’s going to be OK, but I have no idea what’s going to happen next. And none of you know either."
Ah, thankyou for the head's up. That's a good news story, or at least the removal of a very bad new story
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whembly wrote: Seems REALLY strange to just announce on twitter... just submit an order via usual channels.
Of course its announced on twitter. The whole thing is for public performance, red meat fed to the base. It's the next iteration of the Nunes memo, a wild accusation made to produce a few cycles of debate, to create a vague feeling on political controversy around the Mueller investigation, to make it easier to fire Rosenstein.
The idea that this would be done through normal channels misunderstands the entire purpose of what Trump is doing.
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NinthMusketeer wrote: Keep in mind the GOP only got where it is now because their declining quality as a political party kept working. The new normal will only stay as such if it works, and I suspect we will see going forward that it does not. Not just the next election but the GOP pretty much has a waiting queue of PR disasters at this point. Increasing centralization of wealth as the expense of the middle class, trend away from white majorities, increasing political power of women, dramatically increasing effect of Global Warming (and the party has re-cemented itself as the denier under Trump), the realization that other countries no longer respect the US on the world stage, and others. Things will not be getting better for the GOP for some time.
The GOP's position is bad, but their position in 2006 to 2008 was so much worse. Generic polling showed Dem +15. It was incredible. The GOP bounced back really quickly, by 2010 they won the house back.
What the GOP did was what also worked for them during Clinton's presidency (although back then it was a much more difficult game, because partisanship was lower). They just obstructed, and then blamed Democrats. Voters didn't believe it, but they also got bored and frustrated with Dems failing to deliver on policy. Dem vote turn out dropped off, and Reps won congress, then the presidency.
I think we will likely see something similar. Dems will return to power due to a backlash against Trump/Republican government, and after passing a couple of things - maybe medicare for all and some kind of voting rights thing - Republicans will regain enough power to obstruct anything else. Then Dems will get bored, some will start flirting with socialist purity nonsense again, and Reps will win again.
I agree with you on the many areas that will be clearly harmed by Trump policy. But the funny thing about Trump's disastrous policies is that it will make it harder for establishment Republicans who would normally engage at least on some level about policy realities, but it won't make it harder for Trump style Republicans operating on cultural grievances and made up conspiracy nonsense.
tneva82 wrote: Interesting to see will Trump go ahead and push for US to sanction countries that still deal with Iran. US-EU trade war inbound?
I think the threat of US sanctions on Europe was an empty threat. Maybe if it tested great with the base they might make some more noise about, but it barely seemed to register. Trump's big shows of bullying generally need a victim that the base has some in-built hostility towards. Anti-Europe sentiment exists, but its a bit elitist to resonate with the Trump base, I think.
Trump's attention has drifted away from Iran and I think it might not ever wander back there. Europe, Russia and China will carry on trading with Iran, and the whole thing will be buried under the next 10 scandals.
For instance, does anyone even remember Ronny Jackson by this point? He withdrew his nomination and then... nothing. Is he still White House doctor? Will we actually get a health report on Trump that isn't mixed up in some weird shenanigans? Who knows?
sebster wrote: The GOP's position is bad, but their position in 2006 to 2008 was so much worse. Generic polling showed Dem +15. It was incredible.
I'm not really convinced on that. The numbers might be similar, but there are very different reasons for those numbers. In 2006-2008 we had an unpopular republican president who was largely unpopular for policy reasons: tax cuts, a struggling economy, and an an unpopular war with no end in sight. It was certainly a favorable position for the democrats, but the republican party still had credibility left and wasn't all that far from power. In 2018 we have an unpopular president who is unpopular because he's a raging dumpster fire who doesn't even pretend to be a competent politician, backed by a party that has demonstrated that it has no plan or priorities or moral standards or really anything besides a desire to be in power. You can't even argue with Trump and the republican party over policy issues because the only thing they've managed to accomplish has been an unpopular tax cut for wealthy campaign donors. Everything else has been dumped or reversed the moment it looked like it would take any effort to pass something. The entire party has been revealed as utterly lacking in the ability to stand for something, anything at all. So where do you go in the post-Trump era? You're talking about a party that needs to completely reinvent itself and purge the failures before it can even think about competing, and that's a lot more difficult than waiting for the normal political cycle to come around again.
Ustrello wrote: Next thing you know he'll be blaming his treason on Ritalin or violent culture
Just two days after a young man opened fire on his classmates and teachers at a high school in Santa Fe, Texas, the National Rifle Association’s incoming president, Oliver North, blamed Ritalin and a “culture of violence.”
On “Fox News Sunday,” the controversial Iran-Contra figure told host Chris Wallace that the solution for the increasing number of school shootings ― there have been 22 so far in 2018, by one count ― is not gun control.
“We’re trying like the dickens to treat the symptoms without treating the disease,” he said.
“And the disease in this case isn’t the Second Amendment. The disease is youngsters who are steeped in a culture of violence,” he said. “They’ve been drugged in many cases. Nearly all of these perpetrators are male. ... Many of these young boys have been on Ritalin since they were in kindergarten.”
Writing for the majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch said that the 1925 Federal Arbitration Act trumps the National Labor Relations Act and that employees who sign employment agreements to arbitrate claims must do so on an individual basis — and may not band together to enforce claims of wage and hour violations.
Effectively this means that companies can make individual, as opposed to collective, arbitration a mandatory part of employment contracts, which in turn means the burden of legal costs is so high and cannot be amalgamated and shared among many workers with the same grievances, that it is likely that any sort of arbitration will become functionally impossible due to costs (particularly relative to any awarded judgement for individuals) and Labor will have dramatically diminished ability to fight violations.
Effectively this means that companies can make individual, as opposed to collective, arbitration a mandatory part of employment contracts, which in turn means the burden of legal costs is so high and cannot be amalgamated and shared among many workers with the same grievances, that it is likely that any sort of arbitration will become functionally impossible due to costs (particularly relative to any awarded judgement for individuals) and Labor will have dramatically diminished ability to fight violations.
I wonder if we're going back to the old days of wildcat strikes and companies hiring goons to beat up/murder union organizers.
But hey it'll certainly create jobs once we legalize sweatshops right guys?
Writing for the majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch said that the 1925 Federal Arbitration Act trumps the National Labor Relations Act and that employees who sign employment agreements to arbitrate claims must do so on an individual basis — and may not band together to enforce claims of wage and hour violations.
Effectively this means that companies can make individual, as opposed to collective, arbitration a mandatory part of employment contracts, which in turn means the burden of legal costs is so high and cannot be amalgamated and shared among many workers with the same grievances, that it is likely that any sort of arbitration will become functionally impossible due to costs (particularly relative to any awarded judgement for individuals) and Labor will have dramatically diminished ability to fight violations.
So...much...winning.
The labor board doesn't have the authority to make that change... only Congress.
Ustrello wrote: Next thing you know he'll be blaming his treason on Ritalin or violent culture
Just two days after a young man opened fire on his classmates and teachers at a high school in Santa Fe, Texas, the National Rifle Association’s incoming president, Oliver North, blamed Ritalin and a “culture of violence.”
On “Fox News Sunday,” the controversial Iran-Contra figure told host Chris Wallace that the solution for the increasing number of school shootings ― there have been 22 so far in 2018, by one count ― is not gun control.
“We’re trying like the dickens to treat the symptoms without treating the disease,” he said.
“And the disease in this case isn’t the Second Amendment. The disease is youngsters who are steeped in a culture of violence,” he said. “They’ve been drugged in many cases. Nearly all of these perpetrators are male. ... Many of these young boys have been on Ritalin since they were in kindergarten.”
Effectively this means that companies can make individual, as opposed to collective, arbitration a mandatory part of employment contracts, which in turn means the burden of legal costs is so high and cannot be amalgamated and shared among many workers with the same grievances, that it is likely that any sort of arbitration will become functionally impossible due to costs (particularly relative to any awarded judgement for individuals) and Labor will have dramatically diminished ability to fight violations.
I wonder if we're going back to the old days of wildcat strikes and companies hiring goons to beat up/murder union organizers.
But hey it'll certainly create jobs once we legalize sweatshops right guys?
NinthMusketeer wrote: It just creates room for a more worker-friendly law to be put in place. Ironic, really.
Have you seen Congress? They have no interest, even under Obama.
I bet this new Supreme Court judgement will help all those feeling economic anxiety in the rust belt!
Look at how badly wealth is centralized right now, and how badly prepared people are for the next recession. That wealth WILL be decentralized, Congress has the upcoming choice of doing it themselves or the people will do it for them.
Ustrello wrote: Next thing you know he'll be blaming his treason on Ritalin or violent culture
Just two days after a young man opened fire on his classmates and teachers at a high school in Santa Fe, Texas, the National Rifle Association’s incoming president, Oliver North, blamed Ritalin and a “culture of violence.”
On “Fox News Sunday,” the controversial Iran-Contra figure told host Chris Wallace that the solution for the increasing number of school shootings ― there have been 22 so far in 2018, by one count ― is not gun control.
“We’re trying like the dickens to treat the symptoms without treating the disease,” he said.
“And the disease in this case isn’t the Second Amendment. The disease is youngsters who are steeped in a culture of violence,” he said. “They’ve been drugged in many cases. Nearly all of these perpetrators are male. ... Many of these young boys have been on Ritalin since they were in kindergarten.”
Writing for the majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch said that the 1925 Federal Arbitration Act trumps the National Labor Relations Act and that employees who sign employment agreements to arbitrate claims must do so on an individual basis — and may not band together to enforce claims of wage and hour violations.
Effectively this means that companies can make individual, as opposed to collective, arbitration a mandatory part of employment contracts, which in turn means the burden of legal costs is so high and cannot be amalgamated and shared among many workers with the same grievances, that it is likely that any sort of arbitration will become functionally impossible due to costs (particularly relative to any awarded judgement for individuals) and Labor will have dramatically diminished ability to fight violations.
I'll see your Dropkick Murphy's and raise you a Steeleye Span
Oh sure, make me pull out Chumbawamba....
The Auld Grump
*EDIT* There is a very nice rendition of Blackleg Miner by Offa Rex - which is comprised of The Decemberists with Olivia Chaney - the Decemberists taking their name from a 19th century Russian anarchist movement.
The Decemberists are the only band that I was following before they made it big - mostly, the bands I listen to never make it big. Or even medium sized.
A) if true, this is very bad. If he keeps using his iPhones, he need to swap it out more frequently.
B) let's face it, this is totes believable, and I think the "2 senior officials" (hint,hint - Kelly/Bolton) sources are purposely leaking this to embarrass Don Cheeto to get with the program.
C) no, it's not the same as Hillary Clinton. This is undoubtedly bad, but not to the level of muh bathroom email server!
I mean, you state C) like it's a fact, but I think it's pretty debatable. I won't debate it with you, because I'm not a fan of wasting my time, but it does bear being pointed out.
We should be hearing the results of United States V Carpenter very soon, which are going to have some pretty major ramifications for the 4th amendment. I am hoping (And think likely) that the Supreme Court will rule in Carpenter's favor.
Sasori wrote: We should be hearing the results of United States V Carpenter very soon, which are going to have some pretty major ramifications for the 4th amendment. I am hoping (And think likely) that the Supreme Court will rule in Carpenter's favor.
If they dont rule in Carpenter's favor, it essentially means that carrying a cell phone effectively means no warrant is required to track your whereabouts.
I have a feeling I know where this is going to end up, and I am not enthused.
Ustrello wrote: The president using an unsecured phone is not as bad as the secretary of state having a private email server- Whembly 2018
Report didn't say it was "unsecured"... only that its good policy to swap it out (ala burner phone).
But, you do you.
I know this question has been answered just by you posting and pretty much every single person on this forum, but do you actually read the articles you post or do you just read the headlines?
Ustrello wrote: The president using an unsecured phone is not as bad as the secretary of state having a private email server- Whembly 2018
Report didn't say it was "unsecured"... only that its good policy to swap it out (ala burner phone).
But, you do you.
I know this question has been answered just by you posting and pretty much every single person on this forum, but do you actually read the articles you post or do you just read the headlines?
?? Did you? The article tries really hard to convey they're unsecured, when in reality they're furnished and manayged by the WhiteHouseIT & Communication team... buried in the story:
senior West Wing official said the call-capable phones “are seamlessly swapped out on a regular basis through routine support operations. Because of the security controls of the Twitter phone and the Twitter account, it does not necessitate regular change-out.”
...
The West Wing official refuted the idea that the presence of a camera and microphone on the president’s phone posed any risk, telling POLITICO, “Due to inherent capabilities and advancement in technologies, these devices are more secure than any Obama-era devices.”
So... did you read the whole thing?
EDIT: my issue, is that it's wrong for Trump to ignore his security team to swap out the phones, if true. Still... nothing like muh bathroom email server.
So I'm curious, do you genuinely think repeating the same phrase in this tone is going to... what convince all those darn librals how wrong they are? Stick it to them? Troll for the sake of trolling?
Like seriously it seems like when idiotic condescension became the go-to right-wing tactic it pretty much cut the last strands between that echo chamber and reality.
Ustrello wrote: The president using an unsecured phone is not as bad as the secretary of state having a private email server- Whembly 2018
Report didn't say it was "unsecured"... only that its good policy to swap it out (ala burner phone).
But, you do you.
I know this question has been answered just by you posting and pretty much every single person on this forum, but do you actually read the articles you post or do you just read the headlines?
?? Did you? The article tries really hard to convey they're unsecured, when in reality they're furnished and manayged by the WhiteHouseIT & Communication team... buried in the story:
senior West Wing official said the call-capable phones “are seamlessly swapped out on a regular basis through routine support operations. Because of the security controls of the Twitter phone and the Twitter account, it does not necessitate regular change-out.”
...
The West Wing official refuted the idea that the presence of a camera and microphone on the president’s phone posed any risk, telling POLITICO, “Due to inherent capabilities and advancement in technologies, these devices are more secure than any Obama-era devices.”
So... did you read the whole thing?
EDIT: my issue, is that it's wrong for Trump to ignore his security team to swap out the phones, if true. Still... nothing like muh bathroom email server.
...... I am amazed that we are at a point of where But her E-mails is still a thing to protect Trump.
So I'm curious, do you genuinely think repeating the same phrase in this tone is going to... what convince all those darn librals how wrong they are? Stick it to them? Troll for the sake of trolling?
Like seriously it seems like when idiotic condescension became the go-to right-wing tactic it pretty much cut the last strands between that echo chamber and reality.
It's pre-empting the arguments...
Like when liberals complain about Trump and end it with: but her emails... or even but Gorsuch.
Ustrello wrote: The president using an unsecured phone is not as bad as the secretary of state having a private email server- Whembly 2018
Report didn't say it was "unsecured"... only that its good policy to swap it out (ala burner phone).
But, you do you.
I know this question has been answered just by you posting and pretty much every single person on this forum, but do you actually read the articles you post or do you just read the headlines?
?? Did you? The article tries really hard to convey they're unsecured, when in reality they're furnished and manayged by the WhiteHouseIT & Communication team... buried in the story:
senior West Wing official said the call-capable phones “are seamlessly swapped out on a regular basis through routine support operations. Because of the security controls of the Twitter phone and the Twitter account, it does not necessitate regular change-out.”
...
The West Wing official refuted the idea that the presence of a camera and microphone on the president’s phone posed any risk, telling POLITICO, “Due to inherent capabilities and advancement in technologies, these devices are more secure than any Obama-era devices.”
So... did you read the whole thing?
EDIT: my issue, is that it's wrong for Trump to ignore his security team to swap out the phones, if true. Still... nothing like muh bathroom email server.
...... I am amazed that we are at a point of where But her E-mails is still a thing to protect Trump.
He's got to the point where if he shat on the high altar at Washington National Cathedral during a remembrance service for the US war dead, people would be able to find a way to excuse it.
He's got to the point where if he shat on the high altar at Washington National Cathedral during a remembrance service for the US war dead, people would be able to find a way to excuse it.
I mean, pooping on the altar is bad.... but it's not bathroom email server bad.
Ustrello wrote: The president using an unsecured phone is not as bad as the secretary of state having a private email server- Whembly 2018
Report didn't say it was "unsecured"... only that its good policy to swap it out (ala burner phone).
But, you do you.
I know this question has been answered just by you posting and pretty much every single person on this forum, but do you actually read the articles you post or do you just read the headlines?
?? Did you? The article tries really hard to convey they're unsecured, when in reality they're furnished and manayged by the WhiteHouseIT & Communication team... buried in the story:
senior West Wing official said the call-capable phones “are seamlessly swapped out on a regular basis through routine support operations. Because of the security controls of the Twitter phone and the Twitter account, it does not necessitate regular change-out.”
...
The West Wing official refuted the idea that the presence of a camera and microphone on the president’s phone posed any risk, telling POLITICO, “Due to inherent capabilities and advancement in technologies, these devices are more secure than any Obama-era devices.”
So... did you read the whole thing?
EDIT: my issue, is that it's wrong for Trump to ignore his security team to swap out the phones, if true. Still... nothing like muh bathroom email server.
I like how you ignore the fact that he has gone at points 5 months without switching phones, but as you said " you do you" whembly
He's got to the point where if he shat on the high altar at Washington National Cathedral during a remembrance service for the US war dead, people would be able to find a way to excuse it.
I mean, pooping on the altar is bad.... but it's not bathroom email server bad.
Or could you imagine if he had pooped in a womens' bathroom? He's thinking about the children!
Automatically Appended Next Post: Speaking of Trump, it seems he's trying to dig himself back out of his Korea hole he dug himself into after Kim said he would likely cancel the talks. Showing off his great negotiating skills Trump has gone "nuh uh, I'm cancelling first"
Ostensibly "space concerns" prevented AP, CNN and other journalists from entering, but pictures inside showed there were spots and seats open...and this is like the 3rd or 4th incident with Press being turned away recently at Pruitt/EPA events.
Ostensibly "space concerns" prevented AP, CNN and other journalists from entering, but pictures inside showed there were spots and seats open...and this is like the 3rd or 4th incident with Press being turned away recently at Pruitt/EPA events.
It's like a large military cess bladder which has been overfilled, and a Chinook helicopter is airlifting it out, but several holes have sprung in the fabric, and it's fire-hosing liquid gak and piss all over everything and everyone, and no-one can tell what is government policy, or lies, or the deep state, or White House insiders, or President Trump's official announcements.
Kilkrazy wrote: It's like a large military cess bladder which has been overfilled, and a Chinook helicopter is airlifting it out, but several holes have sprung in the fabric, and it's fire-hosing liquid gak and piss all over everything and everyone, and no-one can tell what is government policy, or lies, or the deep state, or White House insiders, or President Trump's official announcements.
Which also happens to fit the Russian maskirovka doctrine to a perfect T
Going into the North Korea meeting, senior administration officials say, the president has been almost singularly focused on the pageantry of the summit —including the suspenseful roll-out of details. He has not been deeply engaged in briefing materials on North Korea’s nuclear program, said three people with knowledge of the White House efforts. They were not authorized to speak publicly.
Kilkrazy wrote: It's like a large military cess bladder which has been overfilled, and a Chinook helicopter is airlifting it out, but several holes have sprung in the fabric, and it's fire-hosing liquid gak and piss all over everything and everyone, and no-one can tell what is government policy, or lies, or the deep state, or White House insiders, or President Trump's official announcements.
Going into the North Korea meeting, senior administration officials say, the president has been almost singularly focused on the pageantry of the summit —including the suspenseful roll-out of details. He has not been deeply engaged in briefing materials on North Korea’s nuclear program, said three people with knowledge of the White House efforts. They were not authorized to speak publicly.
Uhhhh guess that explains this...thingy.
Spoiler:
WTF? That coin looks like some souvenir coin for a WWE grudge match or something, not potentially world-changing peace talks.
Going into the North Korea meeting, senior administration officials say, the president has been almost singularly focused on the pageantry of the summit —including the suspenseful roll-out of details. He has not been deeply engaged in briefing materials on North Korea’s nuclear program, said three people with knowledge of the White House efforts. They were not authorized to speak publicly.
Uhhhh guess that explains this...thingy.
Spoiler:
WTF? That coin looks like some souvenir coin for a WWE grudge match or something, not potentially world-changing peace talks.
Again, Trump is the only UNDEFEATED at Wrestlemania head of state.
Going into the North Korea meeting, senior administration officials say, the president has been almost singularly focused on the pageantry of the summit —including the suspenseful roll-out of details. He has not been deeply engaged in briefing materials on North Korea’s nuclear program, said three people with knowledge of the White House efforts. They were not authorized to speak publicly.
Uhhhh guess that explains this...thingy.
Spoiler:
WTF? That coin looks like some souvenir coin for a WWE grudge match or something, not potentially world-changing peace talks.
Again, Trump is the only UNDEFEATED at Wrestlemania head of state.
Strictly speaking, all heads of state are undefeated at Wrestlemania.
Except, of course, Jerry "the King" Lawler, and I'm very skeptical about the legitimacy of his claim to the throne.
Going into the North Korea meeting, senior administration officials say, the president has been almost singularly focused on the pageantry of the summit —including the suspenseful roll-out of details. He has not been deeply engaged in briefing materials on North Korea’s nuclear program, said three people with knowledge of the White House efforts. They were not authorized to speak publicly.
Uhhhh guess that explains this...thingy.
Spoiler:
WTF? That coin looks like some souvenir coin for a WWE grudge match or something, not potentially world-changing peace talks.
Again, Trump is the only UNDEFEATED at Wrestlemania head of state.
Strictly speaking, all heads of state are undefeated at Wrestlemania.
Except, of course, Jerry "the King" Lawler, and I'm very skeptical about the legitimacy of his claim to the throne.
but only Trump is 1-0. being undefeated at 0-0 is not the same.
Sasori wrote: We should be hearing the results of United States V Carpenter very soon, which are going to have some pretty major ramifications for the 4th amendment. I am hoping (And think likely) that the Supreme Court will rule in Carpenter's favor.
If they dont rule in Carpenter's favor, it essentially means that carrying a cell phone effectively means no warrant is required to track your whereabouts.
I have a feeling I know where this is going to end up, and I am not enthused.
I did a fair amount of research on this, and just going by some of the rulings of late by various appeals courts, and some of the past 4th amendment cases that we have seen I do feel like they will rule in favor of Carpenter. Even Gorsuch seemed to be on board with this from when they were hearing arguments.
Refusing to hand over a secure phone to be checked by IT is bad information security, but saying it's not the same as an intentional attempt to evade the FOIA is pretty accurate.
The Generic Ballot seems to be tightening between Dems and Rs. That Blue Wave in the Mid-terms may not be coming, and we are again seeing how effective the Rs are at turning out the base and controlling the narrative (especially to their base).
Interesting times..... but I can easily see the Dems failing to get traction in the next election.
I would only be surprised if the Dems failed to pick up the Senate. House is gerrymandered pretty hard, because, ya know, feth representing the people.
d-usa wrote: Historically, and with the seats that are up in the senate. they actually have a better shot at the house than the Senate.
Indeed. They're actually at good risk of losing seats in the Senate. There are 35 seats up for the reelection, 26 are Democrats. They may only need to pick up 2 seats to get the majority, but in order for that to happen they'll have to both keep all 26 seats they currently have AND flip 2 of the Republican seats. Quite a few of the incumbent Democrat seats are in red states.
d-usa wrote: Historically, and with the seats that are up in the senate. they actually have a better shot at the house than the Senate.
Indeed. They're actually at good risk of losing seats in the Senate. There are 35 seats up for the reelection, 26 are Democrats. They may only need to pick up 2 seats to get the majority, but in order for that to happen they'll have to both keep all 26 seats they currently have AND flip 2 of the Republican seats. Quite a few of the incumbent Democrat seats are in red states.
Hm, I didn't realize the situation was that unfavorable. Still, judging by how well Dems have been doing in special elections in red states...
d-usa wrote: Historically, and with the seats that are up in the senate. they actually have a better shot at the house than the Senate.
Indeed. They're actually at good risk of losing seats in the Senate. There are 35 seats up for the reelection, 26 are Democrats. They may only need to pick up 2 seats to get the majority, but in order for that to happen they'll have to both keep all 26 seats they currently have AND flip 2 of the Republican seats. Quite a few of the incumbent Democrat seats are in red states.
Hm, I didn't realize the situation was that unfavorable. Still, judging by how well Dems have been doing in special elections in red states...
Yeah... they have a daunting task to take the Senate.
The House? Man... who knows... I don't know if there is going to be a "blue wave"... but, democrats really don't need one to win the House.
Kilkrazy wrote: It's like a large military cess bladder which has been overfilled, and a Chinook helicopter is airlifting it out, but several holes have sprung in the fabric, and it's fire-hosing liquid gak and piss all over everything and everyone, and no-one can tell what is government policy, or lies, or the deep state, or White House insiders, or President Trump's official announcements.
As you know from the UK politics thread, I'm always keeping an eye on the EU, but for once, I'm on the EU side.
Why? Because even the EU don't know what the feth is going on in Washington.
Here's an example that should worry American dakka members: when the EU tried to contact Washington over the Iran deal and the previous 'trade wars,' with Europe
there's been such a high turnover of middle management in the State Department and important posts unfilled, that the EU were left scratching their heads.
Who do we talk to? Was the cry from Europe.
Donald Tusk, who is EU top brass, was pretty scathing of the shambles in Washington.
Tusk is normally mild-mannered and diplomatic, but it makes you wonder what the hell is happening on Trump's watch if even Tusk is getting exasperated.
there's been such a high turnover of middle management in the State Department and important posts unfilled, that the EU were left scratching their heads.
Who do we talk to? Was the cry from Europe.
Broadly speaking, we would like to know the same thing. It's not like we're getting any more out of Hucka-boo-boo than anyone's getting out of the gutted US state dept.
EDIT: Oh jeebus...this is whats being informing the decisionmaking of the President of the United States...
“I think he wants a picture with the American president,” Hegseth said on the show. “The sanctions are having massive effect there."
“And then I think there’s probably a point at which the guy who wants to meet with [former NBA star] Dennis Rodman and loves NBA basketball and loves Western pop culture. Probably doesn’t love being the guy that has to murder his people all day long,” Hegseth continued.
“[He] probably wants some normalization. Let’s give it to him if we can make the world safer," he concluded.
Again...I have no words.
While I'm all for talks and sincerely hope positive things result, the buttering up of Kim here is beyond nauseating, especially as its being done for domestic political reasons, and if someone with a D next to their name had put out a line like this, it would be treated as literal treason by these same people.
The Founders did not want blind obedience, and as a result, we got the 1st amendment, which IMO, is one of the greatest things that mankind ever put down on paper.
I respect the fact that a lot of Americans are proud of their flag and anthem, but to them I would say remember your roots: oaths of alligience to the Britiish Crown were a huge sticking point in the pre-revolutionary days.
American citizens burning their flag and not giving two hoots for the anthem as a political protest, is one of the most pro-American things an American can do.
And no, it's not a contradiction, because it taps into liberty and freedom, the right to free expression etc etc
which is the DNA of the USA. Even Justice Scalia baulked at making flag-burning illegal.
The Founders did not want blind obedience, and as a result, we got the 1st amendment, which IMO, is one of the greatest things that mankind ever put down on paper.
I respect the fact that a lot of Americans are proud of their flag and anthem, but to them I would say remember your roots: oaths of alligience to the Britiish Crown were a huge sticking point in the pre-revolutionary days.
American citizens burning their flag and not giving two hoots for the anthem as a political protest, is one of the most pro-American things an American can do.
And no, it's not a contradiction, because it taps into liberty and freedom, the right to free expression etc etc
which is the DNA of the USA. Even Justice Scalia baulked at making flag-burning illegal.
It's got nothing to do with free speech rights. The players are current employees of the team, fulfilling job duties in their place of business therefore their employer, the team ownership group, can dictate standards of behavior for their employees while they're on the job. I can be fired or disciplined for speech or actions at work that violate my employer's code of conduct. Now, simply because the team ownership groups have the ability to enact this policy doesn't make it good policy but it's not un-American or a violation of free speech rights.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said it bothers her that people think she misleads the press.
Sanders told The New York Times that she tries to deliver the “best and most accurate information at the time that I can,” adding that she has a responsibility to be truthful and accurate in her role as chief White House spokeswoman.
“One of the few things you have are your integrity and reputation,” Sanders said. “There’s a difference between misspeaking or not knowing something than maliciously lying."
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Hold on, let me catch my breath...please dont tell me you were actually serious or expected *anyone* to buy this line...
Had it been a preexisting policy that might be the case, but unilaterally changing the policy to restrict speech or action you previously allowed because of political pressure stinks of censorship.
Business changing policies because people are bitching because of the speech of employees is an American tradition.
My only issue in all this is when POTUS starts to demand a speech restriction from a business to employees. Then the line between government censorship and private speech becomes a bit more blurry.
Steve steveson wrote: Had it been a preexisting policy that might be the case, but unilaterally changing the policy to restrict speech or action you previously allowed because of political pressure stinks of censorship.
Private entities are entitled to censor their employees and dictate what product they produce. The NFL already has strict dress codes for game days which is perfectly fine because as the employer they can set uniform standards for their employees. Revising a policy that didn't exist previously because the issue it addresses didn't manifest until last year is a normal reaction. Do I have a right to express myself and lawfully protest an issue? Yes. Do I have a right to do that while on the job in my workplace without suffering any repercussions from my employer? No.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said it bothers her that people think she misleads the press.
Sanders told The New York Times that she tries to deliver the “best and most accurate information at the time that I can,” adding that she has a responsibility to be truthful and accurate in her role as chief White House spokeswoman.
“One of the few things you have are your integrity and reputation,” Sanders said. “There’s a difference between misspeaking or not knowing something than maliciously lying."
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Hold on, let me catch my breath...please dont tell me you were actually serious or expected *anyone* to buy this line...
Really?
Let me laugh harder
The worst is just shamelessness of it all. No ethics or morals whatsoever.
d-usa wrote: Business changing policies because people are bitching because of the speech of employees is an American tradition.
My only issue in all this is when POTUS starts to demand a speech restriction from a business to employees. Then the line between government censorship and private speech becomes a bit more blurry.
It was creating hysteria. It's such an easy fix. NFL make a policy and fire them if they don't follow it. It's not a free speech restriction.
The Founders did not want blind obedience, and as a result, we got the 1st amendment, which IMO, is one of the greatest things that mankind ever put down on paper.
I respect the fact that a lot of Americans are proud of their flag and anthem, but to them I would say remember your roots: oaths of alligience to the Britiish Crown were a huge sticking point in the pre-revolutionary days.
American citizens burning their flag and not giving two hoots for the anthem as a political protest, is one of the most pro-American things an American can do.
And no, it's not a contradiction, because it taps into liberty and freedom, the right to free expression etc etc
which is the DNA of the USA. Even Justice Scalia baulked at making flag-burning illegal.
Technically no. The NFL is a private organization, and can make its members have to stand for the Anthem if it wants.
I think some of you are missing the point: it's not about the legality of the NFL's decision, it's about the spirit of it. What I think DINLT is saying is that people complaining about how protesting the flag/anthem is being unAmerican are, in fact, forgetting that being able to protest the flag and anthem is very American.
forgetting that being able to protest the flag and anthem is very American.
Exactly. You said it better than I ever could.
Conservative opposition? Conservative opposition?
Feth me, Americans seem to forget that it was the Conservatives who didn't want change, who wanted to stick with King George and who took up arms as Loyalists to defend that system.
The radicals were the John Adams, the John Jays, the George Washingtons of this world, who risked all to change the system and give these American Conservatives the right to moan about flag burning and 'disrespecting' the anthem.
If you had listened to that lot in 1776, there wouldn't be a USA.
Blind obedience was what King George III demand. The founders did not want that.
Freedom is in your DNA, your birthright, and that includes the freedom to burn the flag and stick 2 fingers up at the national anthem.
Steve steveson wrote: Had it been a preexisting policy that might be the case, but unilaterally changing the policy to restrict speech or action you previously allowed because of political pressure stinks of censorship.
Private entities are entitled to censor their employees and dictate what product they produce. The NFL already has strict dress codes for game days which is perfectly fine because as the employer they can set uniform standards for their employees. Revising a policy that didn't exist previously because the issue it addresses didn't manifest until last year is a normal reaction. Do I have a right to express myself and lawfully protest an issue? Yes. Do I have a right to do that while on the job in my workplace without suffering any repercussions from my employer? No.
Yeah, but you don't lose your constitutional rights when you take up employment.
The Founders did not want blind obedience, and as a result, we got the 1st amendment, which IMO, is one of the greatest things that mankind ever put down on paper.
I respect the fact that a lot of Americans are proud of their flag and anthem, but to them I would say remember your roots: oaths of alligience to the Britiish Crown were a huge sticking point in the pre-revolutionary days.
American citizens burning their flag and not giving two hoots for the anthem as a political protest, is one of the most pro-American things an American can do.
And no, it's not a contradiction, because it taps into liberty and freedom, the right to free expression etc etc
which is the DNA of the USA. Even Justice Scalia baulked at making flag-burning illegal.
It's got nothing to do with free speech rights. The players are current employees of the team, fulfilling job duties in their place of business therefore their employer, the team ownership group, can dictate standards of behavior for their employees while they're on the job. I can be fired or disciplined for speech or actions at work that violate my employer's code of conduct. Now, simply because the team ownership groups have the ability to enact this policy doesn't make it good policy but it's not un-American or a violation of free speech rights.
Thank God this policy was not on a college campus! Imagine the Free Speech violation that would have been! /S
***To be clear, I agree that employers have the right to restrict speech as the 1A is specifically for the Government and not private employers.
For those who think Reuters is some kind of lefty Fake News[code]™ outlet, or the workblocked, or the TL'DR crowd:
Judges ruled today that el Cheeto cannot block users on Twitter because that is a violation of 1A rights. Really, no idea at all why this is so damn funny.
Was wondering what sort of interesting effects would follow from Spicer's declaration that Trump's twits were "official statements". Now its not Trump's personal outlet, he made them an aspect of his office and now a court has agreed.
Was wondering what sort of interesting effects would follow from Spicer's declaration that Trump's twits were "official statements". Now its not Trump's personal outlet, he made them an aspect of his office and now a court has agreed.
Was wondering what sort of interesting effects would follow from Spicer's declaration that Trump's twits were "official statements". Now its not Trump's personal outlet, he made them an aspect of his office and now a court has agreed.
Edit: ninjad by seconds...
I don't like this precedent that claims twitter is public speech. You don't have to have twitter on your device and you don't have to follow Trump or anybody else if you do have twitter. It's not a public space it's a two way connection created by two mutually consenting parties to engage in communication. If you and I are both on twitter and you decide to follow me and I accept you then we are now engaged in what is essentially a conversation between the two of us, like a phone call or texting. How is it different from you walking into a room where you know I am and we engage in a conversation? If I am on the sidewalk of a public street I can speak and anyone who passes by will hear me, nobody has to download an app and opt in to listening to me. Twitter is a private company, their app is a product they created so how is the twitterverse public domain?
I don't think Trump should be able to delete tweets since he has proclaimed them to be officially presidential statements, making them subject to various records acts. However I don't think the very act of a public official using a platform magically transforms said platform into a public space and that's actually opening the door to a really difficult area. They're essentially taking from Twitter, a private platform, the right to administer themselves as they see fit by dint of specific users that happen to use the service.
Was wondering what sort of interesting effects would follow from Spicer's declaration that Trump's twits were "official statements". Now its not Trump's personal outlet, he made them an aspect of his office and now a court has agreed.
Edit: ninjad by seconds...
I don't like this precedent that claims twitter is public speech. You don't have to have twitter on your device and you don't have to follow Trump or anybody else if you do have twitter. It's not a public space it's a two way connection created by two mutually consenting parties to engage in communication. If you and I are both on twitter and you decide to follow me and I accept you then we are now engaged in what is essentially a conversation between the two of us, like a phone call or texting. How is it different from you walking into a room where you know I am and we engage in a conversation? If I am on the sidewalk of a public street I can speak and anyone who passes by will hear me, nobody has to download an app and opt in to listening to me. Twitter is a private company, their app is a product they created so how is the twitterverse public domain?
Essentially he went out of his way to make his personal unique account a public space, and as such, the judge ruled he cannot block people from expressing their opinions, especially as he is still free to simply ignore them.
If Trump stops in a McDonalds for a Quarter Pounder, is that McDonalds franchisee now obligated to let anyone on the property who might want to speak to them? What if Trump declares that McDonalds a public space? What right does he have to convert that area?
This concept steals from the autonomy of a private actor.
Definitely presidential records, though, by his own decree.
I don't like this precedent that claims twitter is public speech. You don't have to have twitter on your device and you don't have to follow Trump or anybody else if you do have twitter. It's not a public space it's a two way connection created by two mutually consenting parties to engage in communication.
It essentially is a public space at least in the sense that whatever you through on there isn't even remotely private. I don't have to follow, know you, or agree to anything to know what you said there.
How is it different from you walking into a room where you know I am and we engage in a conversation?
Is the room lacking walls, surrounded by live stream cameras, and lined by a horde of people who aren't you and me watching and listening to everything?
The only problem I have with the protests is the lack of a clear endgame. At what point will the players stand and respect the flag/anthem? When no blacks are ever killed by whites ever again? When Chigao stops drowning in b vs b blood? When all cops just stop doing their jobs? There's no change that can be implemented to meet their loose demands. It's ridiculous.
SlaveToDorkness wrote: The only problem I have with the protests is the lack of a clear endgame. At what point will the players stand and respect the flag/anthem? When no blacks are ever killed by whites ever again? When Chigao stops drowning in b vs b blood? When all cops just stop doing their jobs? There's no change that can be implemented to meet their loose demands. It's ridiculous.
largely its a "hey, this is a problem and we're trying to make people think more about it and not just dismiss or forget about it" than a "we want to see a defined and clear solution". Thats a pretty common thing.
SlaveToDorkness wrote: The only problem I have with the protests is the lack of a clear endgame. At what point will the players stand and respect the flag/anthem? When no blacks are ever killed by whites ever again? When Chigao stops drowning in b vs b blood? When all cops just stop doing their jobs? There's no change that can be implemented to meet their loose demands. It's ridiculous.
largely its a "hey, this is a problem and we're trying to make people think more about it and not just dismiss or forget about it" than a "we want to see a defined and clear solution". Thats a pretty common thing.
What’s the endgame for those yellow ribbons on peoples cars?
d-usa wrote: It can be argued that telling people what they have to do in order to respect the flag is actually more disrespectful to the flag as a whole.
I would argue that demanding people respect the flag is probably one of the most unfree things anyone can say.
No one has any obligation to respect a piece of fabric, especially when they don't feel that all the things that fabric supposedly represents don't apply to them.
This is why free speech is a right. Now the NFL can of course as a private organization set whatever rules it wants for it's players, but honestly an entire team sitting out on a game sounds a lot worse than a few players kneeling so to me this just feels like doubling down on the stupidity. So a few players knelt during the national anthem because they want something to change. This entire issue has drawn far more attention than it ever warranted.
d-usa wrote: It can be argued that telling people what they have to do in order to respect the flag is actually more disrespectful to the flag as a whole.
I would argue that demanding people respect the flag is probably one of the most unfree things anyone can say.
No one has any obligation to respect a piece of fabric, especially when they don't feel that all the things that fabric supposedly represents don't apply to them.
This is why free speech is a right. Now the NFL can of course as a private organization set whatever rules it wants for it's players, but honestly an entire team sitting out on a game sounds a lot worse than a few players kneeling so to me this just feels like doubling down on the stupidity. So a few players knelt during the national anthem because they want something to change. This entire issue has drawn far more attention than it ever warranted.
Making the "Kneeling" the story rather than the"Black Lives Matter movement" the story is a pretty amazing piece of Co-opting the intent. I really have to hand it to the Right-wingers on this one. They completely changed and controlled the narrative almost from day 1 on this.
d-usa wrote: It can be argued that telling people what they have to do in order to respect the flag is actually more disrespectful to the flag as a whole.
I would argue that demanding people respect the flag is probably one of the most unfree things anyone can say.
No one has any obligation to respect a piece of fabric, especially when they don't feel that all the things that fabric supposedly represents don't apply to them.
This is why free speech is a right. Now the NFL can of course as a private organization set whatever rules it wants for it's players, but honestly an entire team sitting out on a game sounds a lot worse than a few players kneeling so to me this just feels like doubling down on the stupidity. So a few players knelt during the national anthem because they want something to change. This entire issue has drawn far more attention than it ever warranted.
Making the "Kneeling" the story rather than the"Black Lives Matter movement" the story is a pretty amazing piece of Co-opting the intent. I really have to hand it to the Right-wingers on this one. They completely changed and controlled the narrative almost from day 1 on this.
Easy E wrote: I am betting they will instead start using the raised fist salute (or other salute) either during or right after the anthem....Jesse Owens style.
That's. . . . . not Jesse Owens (no. . Jesse Owens was the one who single-handedly whipped the gak out of the 'superior' Nazis in 1936)
Pictured there is Tommie Smith (Gold), Peter Norman (silver, and an Aussie who, in talking with the American counterparts agreed with, and apparently campaigned in similar fashion for other groups in Australia), and John Carlos (Bronze)
Easy E wrote: I am betting they will instead start using the raised fist salute (or other salute) either during or right after the anthem....Jesse Owens style.
That's. . . . . not Jesse Owens (no. . Jesse Owens was the one who single-handedly whipped the gak out of the 'superior' Nazis in 1936)
Pictured there is Tommie Smith (Gold), Peter Norman (silver, and an Aussie who, in talking with the American counterparts agreed with, and apparently campaigned in similar fashion for other groups in Australia), and John Carlos (Bronze)
Also, Malcolm Jenkins did the fist salute all season long for the Eagles last year.
Peregrine wrote: I'm not really convinced on that. The numbers might be similar, but there are very different reasons for those numbers.
The numbers aren't similar, in 2006 to 2008 they were vastly better than they are now. Dems right now are tracking +7 or +8, about half the margins they had in 2006. Given how awful Trump is in so many ways, this shows how much more extreme conservative partisanship has become. In the back quarter of his presidency Bush hit 15% approvals, which was taken at the time to show that 15% of the voting public were willing to back a Republican no matter what. Now we've got a president who's even worse, and around 35% of voters are backing him no matter what, and another 5 to 7% don't seem to take much convincing to stay on board.
In 2006-2008 we had an unpopular republican president who was largely unpopular for policy reasons: tax cuts, a struggling economy, and an an unpopular war with no end in sight. It was certainly a favorable position for the democrats, but the republican party still had credibility left and wasn't all that far from power. In 2018 we have an unpopular president who is unpopular because he's a raging dumpster fire who doesn't even pretend to be a competent politician, backed by a party that has demonstrated that it has no plan or priorities or moral standards or really anything besides a desire to be in power. You can't even argue with Trump and the republican party over policy issues because the only thing they've managed to accomplish has been an unpopular tax cut for wealthy campaign donors. Everything else has been dumped or reversed the moment it looked like it would take any effort to pass something. The entire party has been revealed as utterly lacking in the ability to stand for something, anything at all. So where do you go in the post-Trump era? You're talking about a party that needs to completely reinvent itself and purge the failures before it can even think about competing, and that's a lot more difficult than waiting for the normal political cycle to come around again.
I agree with a lot of what you're saying. I think we're largely on the same page. I agree with the dire state of Republican politics. Not only does their policy platform have no popular support, not even among their own base, but the party lost its intellectual base years ago, so now the only academics attempting to argue for its platform are grifters and idiots.
The difference is I no longer believe this will produce some kind of great electoral reckoning. It is near impossible to understate how broken American politics is right now, in so many ways. No matter how bad Republicans are, they'll get 40 something % in the mid-terms, and that makes them competitive in the House, and favourites to keep the senate. Now matter how obvious Trump's crimes become and how blatant the Republican cover up is, most conservatives will get a wholly different version of events, so even if Trump or Pence or whoever is slaughtered in 2020, Republicans will be in a position to resume blocking Democratic legislation out of spite. At which point Republicans will fall for a bunch of stupid lies about the new Democratic president, meanwhile the socialist puritans will start virtue signalling and drop out of support for the Democratic candidate, and the whole mess will play out all over again.
Maybe at some point the Republican party will be so undeniably horrible that not even partisan conservative media and blind tribal loyalty will be able to save them. But if such a point exists, why haven't we reached it in the last two decades of Republican failure?
You know single polls are a stupid waste of time, we've discussed this many times, but you keep linking to ones that suit your narrative.
Meanwhile, in sensible polling aggregates, we see the generic lead for Dems has narrowed to about 5 points. The narrowing was to be expected, Republicans were always going to come home. Sure, they might hate the chaos and mess in the White House, think the only legislation passed by Republicans, the tax give away, was a bad policy, and be scared of Republicans plans to cut their health and social security, but they gotta stay with team red, because what's the alternative, vote for a Democrat?
The real question is what impact we'll see from turnout. Remember the position in 2010 looked good but not great for Republicans in 2010, but what polls couldn't capture is how many Democrat said they'd vote Democrat butt hen didn't show on election day, while the Republican turnout was crazy for a mid-term. It is not certain, but likely we might be seeing a similar phenomenon for Democrats this cycle.
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whembly wrote: Report didn't say it was "unsecured"... only that its good policy to swap it out (ala burner phone).
"President Donald Trump uses a White House cellphone that isn’t equipped with sophisticated security features designed to shield his communications..."
That is literally the first line of the article you linked to.
d-usa wrote: It can be argued that telling people what they have to do in order to respect the flag is actually more disrespectful to the flag as a whole.
SlaveToDorkness wrote: The only problem I have with the protests is the lack of a clear endgame. At what point will the players stand and respect the flag/anthem? When no blacks are ever killed by whites ever again? When Chigao stops drowning in b vs b blood? When all cops just stop doing their jobs? There's no change that can be implemented to meet their loose demands. It's ridiculous.
largely its a "hey, this is a problem and we're trying to make people think more about it and not just dismiss or forget about it" than a "we want to see a defined and clear solution". Thats a pretty common thing.
What’s the endgame for those yellow ribbons on peoples cars?
I would assume getting a loved one home from a deployment. That's not really a form of protest though.
It's only a problem as long as the media scours the country for similar stories to run. Pretty much fallen off the radar after the election. Now gun control and mass shootings are all the rage.
NinthMusketeer wrote: I would only be surprised if the Dems failed to pick up the Senate. House is gerrymandered pretty hard, because, ya know, feth representing the people.
The senate is the tougher task. The Dems only have to pick up a couple of seats, but they only have a few realistic shots at what they can pick up, and they've got to defend a lot of seats in red states.
It isn't impossible, but winning the senate will likely take a strong Dem environment where retaking the house is close to inevitable.
d-usa wrote: It can be argued that telling people what they have to do in order to respect the flag is actually more disrespectful to the flag as a whole.
SlaveToDorkness wrote: The only problem I have with the protests is the lack of a clear endgame. At what point will the players stand and respect the flag/anthem? When no blacks are ever killed by whites ever again? When Chigao stops drowning in b vs b blood? When all cops just stop doing their jobs? There's no change that can be implemented to meet their loose demands. It's ridiculous.
largely its a "hey, this is a problem and we're trying to make people think more about it and not just dismiss or forget about it" than a "we want to see a defined and clear solution". Thats a pretty common thing.
What’s the endgame for those yellow ribbons on peoples cars?
I would assume getting a loved one home from a deployment. That's not really a form of protest though.
It's only a problem as long as the media scours the country for similar stories to run. Pretty much fallen off the radar after the election. Now gun control and mass shootings are all the rage.
It fell off the radar after the election? I forgot that candidate Trump said all those things on Twitter, and Vice-President Elect Pence made a trip to a game for the sole purpose of walking out of it.
What really happened: It fell off the radar after the NFL season was over, its back on the radar as the NFL season gets closer.
Prestor Jon wrote: It's got nothing to do with free speech rights. The players are current employees of the team, fulfilling job duties in their place of business therefore their employer, the team ownership group, can dictate standards of behavior for their employees while they're on the job. I can be fired or disciplined for speech or actions at work that violate my employer's code of conduct. Now, simply because the team ownership groups have the ability to enact this policy doesn't make it good policy but it's not un-American or a violation of free speech rights.
Close but not quite. There is more to free speech than making sure you stick just to its legal requirements. A country where all media is owned by friends of the president and they all deny any media time to his critics wouldn't be illegal, because free speech doesn't require you to give a platform, but we all know how stifling that would be to public debate.
No-platforming is a major element of free speech, and while companies are entitled to control the speech of their employees, things pretty clearly get very murky very quickly when those companies restrict some speech but not other speech. Imagine if athletes were taking a knee to protest the poor state of care for wounded veterans. Does anyone want to pretend the fan reaction would have been the same, and the NFL's eventual policy the same?
The plain reality is that despite the legal protections of the first amendment, speech will be denied certain platforms if it makes sufficiently powerful people uncomfortable. Claiming there's nothing wrong with that because it doesn't cross the first amendment is not the point.
d-usa wrote: It can be argued that telling people what they have to do in order to respect the flag is actually more disrespectful to the flag as a whole.
SlaveToDorkness wrote: The only problem I have with the protests is the lack of a clear endgame. At what point will the players stand and respect the flag/anthem? When no blacks are ever killed by whites ever again? When Chigao stops drowning in b vs b blood? When all cops just stop doing their jobs? There's no change that can be implemented to meet their loose demands. It's ridiculous.
largely its a "hey, this is a problem and we're trying to make people think more about it and not just dismiss or forget about it" than a "we want to see a defined and clear solution". Thats a pretty common thing.
What’s the endgame for those yellow ribbons on peoples cars?
I would assume getting a loved one home from a deployment. That's not really a form of protest though.
It's only a problem as long as the media scours the country for similar stories to run. Pretty much fallen off the radar after the election. Now gun control and mass shootings are all the rage.
It fell off the radar after the election? I forgot that candidate Trump said all those things on Twitter, and Vice-President Elect Pence made a trip to a game for the sole purpose of walking out of it.
What really happened: It fell off the radar after the NFL season was over, its back on the radar as the NFL season gets closer.
Weird how that happens.
It never fell off the radar. It was always about the over policing of African Americans. Right now people are talking about the Starbucks case and Sterling Brown getting tackled and tased due to parking in two handicap spaces at Walgreens at 2 am.
This goes back to the comment about effectively hijacking the narrative.
The over-policing (aka: what the kneeling is about) stayed in the news, and was joined by news about people calling 911 on AirBnB users, people grilling, and house inspectors doing their job.
The disrespecting the flag (aka: how the kneeling is being covered) comes and goes with the kneeling players being on TV.
Ouze wrote: I don't think Trump should be able to delete tweets since he has proclaimed them to be officially presidential statements, making them subject to various records acts. However I don't think the very act of a public official using a platform magically transforms said platform into a public space and that's actually opening the door to a really difficult area. They're essentially taking from Twitter, a private platform, the right to administer themselves as they see fit by dint of specific users that happen to use the service.
I am not sure if I agree with the ruling, and I would be amazed if it survives appeal, but note there is a difference between blocking and ignoring someone. If you place someone on ignore you won't see their comments. If you block them they are made unable to see your comments or post replies to them. It's the difference between sticking your fingers in your ears when someone is talking, and locking them out of the room so they can't hear you and no-one can hear their side. If Trump is going to use twitter for official business, then I can see how blocking people from hearing those official pronouncements and making it impossible for them to give response can be seen as a problem.
And everyone should go and read through the responses to one of Trump's tweets one time. Well, read at least for a little bit, because there'll be a few thousand replies there. It's wild. There's PR accounts glorifying Trump and tweeting bible quotes. There's this one Trump loyalist, Jacob Wohl, who is there tweeting within seconds of Trump's post, putting out cheerleading spam, including a picture of him with Trump. Jacob is only 20 and already has a conviction for financial fraud, so of course he loves Trump and has somehow found some kind of role in his social media operation. In between there's hundreds of tweet media operatives making blue wave rally calls and calling people to join their little movement, because that's a business model somehow. It's like the whole broken US democratic experience, broken down in to tiny, ultra-crazy 280 character slices.
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SlaveToDorkness wrote: The only problem I have with the protests is the lack of a clear endgame. At what point will the players stand and respect the flag/anthem? When no blacks are ever killed by whites ever again? When Chigao stops drowning in b vs b blood? When all cops just stop doing their jobs? There's no change that can be implemented to meet their loose demands. It's ridiculous.
There's never a clear end game to any civil rights position, because absolute equality is an impossible, ever moving goal. The civil rights era protests were equally unclear in their end game, they never did and never could achieve absolute equality between the races. But the point is they led to improvement, things weren't made perfect but they were made better.
And of course there are changes that could be implemented. Less black people shot when they were not endangering anyone, and more police properly held accountable for bad shoots.
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Easy E wrote: Making the "Kneeling" the story rather than the"Black Lives Matter movement" the story is a pretty amazing piece of Co-opting the intent. I really have to hand it to the Right-wingers on this one. They completely changed and controlled the narrative almost from day 1 on this.
Pretty terrifying really.
They do this all the time. The right wing media isn't so much in partisan support of the Republican party, as the two are both organically part of the same organisation. It is impossible to say where the Republican party stops and The Daily Caller or FOX News begins, because they all work in such close co-ordination.
What this means is when an issue like this comes up, most media assigns a small amount of time to it, because it's pretty minor, and the attention they do assign will look to make the issue as interesting as possible, which means focusing on the controversial element in a "he said she said" fashion. Meanwhile the conservative media will see this as a great red meat issue for their base and the culture war stuff they love, they'll give it hours of coverage, and it will be entirely from the conservative point of view. That view then ends up bleeding back in to mainstream media, it is given more attention and now comes with a lot of in-built assumptions from the coverage it received in right wing media.
And yes, this is exactly how that stupid nonsense about Clinton's emails came to be a dominant electoral issue, while things like Trump running a scam university were minor footnotes.
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SlaveToDorkness wrote: It's only a problem as long as the media scours the country for similar stories to run. Pretty much fallen off the radar after the election.
You somehow missed Mike Pence as Vice President making a show of flying to a match, to make a highly publicized walk out. Funny that.
Anyhow, your idea that this is a purely media driven exercise with no input from politicians really misses how politics works today.
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d-usa wrote: This goes back to the comment about effectively hijacking the narrative.
The over-policing (aka: what the kneeling is about) stayed in the news, and was joined by news about people calling 911 on AirBnB users, people grilling, and house inspectors doing their job.
The disrespecting the flag (aka: how the kneeling is being covered) comes and goes with the kneeling players being on TV.
I think its worth noting that while I think the reaction to players kneeling was pretty ugly and showed some real issues with the lack of honesty in many race issues in American politics, that doesn't mean the kneeling was a good idea. It was, ultimately, the idea of one player*, and was led more by his personal objection than any coherent political plan to force action.
Any kind of protest has to find a balance between symbolic acts that draw attention to the cause, and acts that distract from the cause or de-legitimise it. While I sympathise with Kaepernick's beliefs, I think his actions and the actions of the players that followed served mostly to give people a chance to pretend players kneeling was a big deal, and that let them ignore the real issues Kaepernick and the other players were trying to raise.
*And it was his second idea. At first he remained seated, it was only after conversations with veterans that Kaepernick instead switched to kneeling.
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d-usa wrote: In light of the recent SCOTUS ruling on arbitration:
That's a really good article. I think the article is right on the money when it talks about the role of monopoly power (really oligopoly in most cases) flattening wages. An industry with 20 large companies will see wages spike when workers with the right skills are in short supply, when there's only 3 or 4 major players then companies won't start bidding wars for works because they have enough impact on the market that any increase in wages they offered wouldn't get them more and better workers, it would just raise the base industry rate. That said, I don't think that's a complete story of what's happened - because other countries have far more limited numbers of players just because they're smaller countries, and haven't seen the same wage stagnation. I think a large part of the issue is a cultural change - it's likely that a large part of more equal wages was cultural - people simply accepted more even levels of pay as how things were, and that idea has been lost, people now think fair is whatever you can command to be paid.
However, the article is wrong on its last point, about federal reserve reaction. No, the fed doesn't crank interest rates if wages increase. It reacts to inflation, and inflation isn't just raising wages, it is when wage increases are unconnected to productivity increases. A lot of the research in to what's gone wrong with wages in the last four decades has come from the fed reserve. Far from building policy to keep wages down, the fed is doing a lot of the work to find out what's really going on.
Steve steveson wrote: Had it been a preexisting policy that might be the case, but unilaterally changing the policy to restrict speech or action you previously allowed because of political pressure stinks of censorship.
Private entities are entitled to censor their employees and dictate what product they produce. The NFL already has strict dress codes for game days which is perfectly fine because as the employer they can set uniform standards for their employees. Revising a policy that didn't exist previously because the issue it addresses didn't manifest until last year is a normal reaction. Do I have a right to express myself and lawfully protest an issue? Yes. Do I have a right to do that while on the job in my workplace without suffering any repercussions from my employer? No.
Kilkrazy wrote: Are you for or against the players protesting?
Why are you assuming that a post entirely about what the NFL is and isn't legally permitted to do requires knowing the poster's opinions about whether or not they should do it? You can be 100% in favor of the players protesting and still acknowledge that the NFL, as a private organization, has the legal right to set a code of conduct and fire employees who do not follow it.
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sebster wrote: If Trump is going to use twitter for official business, then I can see how blocking people from hearing those official pronouncements and making it impossible for them to give response can be seen as a problem.
This is the key point, and why the ruling is likely to stand on appeal. It only applies to a social media account being used for official business by Trump in his job as president. It isn't Trump's personal property, it's a function of the US federal government and the rights of freedom of speech and property ownership granted to individuals do not apply to it. If Trump had a separate personal account, used as a private citizen and not as a part of the government, he would be free to do whatever he wants with it and none of this ruling would apply.
Birtherism. Had flimsy evidence that Trump loyalists in the party and in the media twisted to produce a favorable narrative, only for it to finally fizzle out when the full facts were shown and it became clear there was never a sensible way to even pretend this story had legitimacy and it was a nonsense conspiracy theory from the beginning.
Voter fraud and the millions of fake votes for Clinton. Had flimsy evidence that Trump loyalists in the party and in the media twisted to produce a favorable narrative, only for it to finally fizzle out when the full facts were shown and it became clear there was never a sensible way to even pretend this story had legitimacy and it was a nonsense conspiracy theory from the beginning.
The unmasking scandal. Had flimsy evidence that Trump loyalists in the party and in the media twisted to produce a favorable narrative, only for it to finally fizzle out when the full facts were shown and it became clear there was never a sensible way to even pretend this story had legitimacy and it was a nonsense conspiracy theory from the beginning.
The Nunes memo. Had flimsy evidence that Trump loyalists in the party and in the media twisted to produce a favorable narrative, only for it to finally fizzle out when the full facts were shown and it became clear there was never a sensible way to even pretend this story had legitimacy and it was a nonsense conspiracy theory from the beginning.
The FBI spied on the Trump campaign. Had flimsy evidence that Trump loyalists in the party and in the media twisted to produce a favorable narrative, but could this be the one that doesn't turn out to be a stupid conspiracy theory?
No. It's another stupid conspiracy theory. I know this because I have the pattern recognition of at least a four year old.
Kilkrazy wrote: Are you for or against the players protesting?
Why are you assuming that a post entirely about what the NFL is and isn't legally permitted to do requires knowing the poster's opinions about whether or not they should do it? You can be 100% in favor of the players protesting and still acknowledge that the NFL, as a private organization, has the legal right to set a code of conduct and fire employees who do not follow it.
... ...
Because I don't believe "it's legal" means "it's right".
Because I want to know people's political opinons.
Because this thread is about politics, not contract law.
What do you guys make of the story floating around about Donald Trump and Elliot Broidy, casting doubt about who's child it was that got aborted?
The default story has been that Michael Cohen had two clients (and also maybe Sean Hannity, but we'll leave that alone). When Cohen's office was raided the story quickly came out that Cohen had arranged for playmate Shera Bechard to have an abortion. Elliot Broidy was identified as the source of the $1.6m paid to Berchard, he was asked by reporters and Broidy admitted he had the affair and it was his child that was aborted. Broidy resigned from his Republican party appointments and everyone moved on, because with Cohen's office being raided there was a whole lot of other stuff to talk about.
But it's always been a bit funny that Broidy would turn to ninth rate lawyer and all around screw up Michael Cohen to handle this extremely sensitive thing. And when Cohen set up the NDA, why did he use the exact same name as he had used on Trump's NDA's, David Denison?
Because while Trump is the kind of guy who goes about sleeping with playmates and pornstars, Broidy is the kind of guy who bribes public officials. He's been convicted of straight up bribing a NY state comptroller (he avoided jail time by flipping on the people he bribed), and he's currently being investigated for other bribery schemes involving the Malaysian embezzlement scandal, the Ukraine Poroshenko scandal, and the Saudi/UAE scheme to isolate Qatar from its US alliance.
So it's a bit strange that for this one instance Broidy would suddenly become like Trump, having an affair like Trump, and then using Trump's lawyer with Trump's false name to pay her off. It seems a lot more likely that Trump was being Trump and sleeping around, and Broidy was being Broidy and working schemes to make money for clients by bribing public officials. And the known facts line up with the latter.
Broidy made the first payment to Berchard on November 30, 2017. Two days later Broidy met with Trump in a private meeting at the White House. Broidy then signed a deal for consulting work with the UAE for $200 million, and began building a $1 billion consulting deal with Saudi Arabia. Trump then suddenly shifted US position in the ME away from support of Qatar, where the US has a permanent military base, and allowed the Saudis and UAE to blockade Qatar.
I don't know. I hate start linking a pile of stuff together because it starts sounding very conspiracy theory very quickly. But the idea of Broidy using Trump's lawyer and Trump's false name to pay off his own affair is a pretty weak story. Whereas Broidy paying off Trump's mistress then collecting millions in consulting ME nations, while Trump shifts US foreign policy to suit those ME nations, that fits the facts and fits the historic patterns Broidy and Trump very neatly.
Also, we know Broidy was working on having the White House flip their ME policies to suit Saudi Arabia and UAE, because that's what George Nader told us he was getting Broidy to do. George Nader is a co-operating witness with the Mueller investigation. This all might be why Cohen was raided in the first place. Or maybe not. Maybe Michael Cohen is so dumb he can't think of a second pretend name.
sebster: I felt uncomfortable reading that, because as you say it is verging into conspiracy theory territory. However, I would not be surprised to have something like that confirmed as things unfold. Seems Cohen was pretty stupid in how he handled everything so it's likely the prosecution will have a lot of information to work with.
sebster wrote: What do you guys make of the story floating around about Donald Trump and Elliot Broidy, casting doubt about who's child it was that got aborted?
Probably true and completely meaningless. It's exactly the sort of thing you'd expect Trump to have done, but that's kind of the problem. It's all been done before. Trump's rich friends will continue to ignore the corruption, the religious right will find a way to excuse the abortion with "we're all sinners" or whatever other nonsense is required, and the people who will care about it already hate Trump anyway. We're so far into scandal fatigue with Trump that a mere dispute over paying off his mistress is probably going to be forgotten by the end of the week when the next scandal is announced.
He even got his doctor... I mean mom.. argh I mean himself to write a nice cancellation note. At least he managed to save face from being led by the nose right!
Also...here's Trump's letter to Kim, The tone and language reads like a mix between "Mean Girls" and "Sarcastic South Park Comcast Employee" drowned in passive-aggressiveness
Easy E wrote: I am betting they will instead start using the raised fist salute (or other salute) either during or right after the anthem....Jesse Owens style.
That's. . . . . not Jesse Owens (no. . Jesse Owens was the one who single-handedly whipped the gak out of the 'superior' Nazis in 1936)
Pictured there is Tommie Smith (Gold), Peter Norman (silver, and an Aussie who, in talking with the American counterparts agreed with, and apparently campaigned in similar fashion for other groups in Australia), and John Carlos (Bronze)
Thanks. I had a feeling I would get the names wrong.
Disciple of Fate wrote: At least this can stop the ridiculous song and dance about Trump making historic progress with NK when nothing had happened yet and now won't.
That's not what's going to happen now. The conservative propaganda machine will spew out stories about how this is "normal" and just Trump's standard business model of being a hard deal maker, and how he did so much better than any President before because he got NK's and SK's leaders to hold hands at the border and almost got Kim to the table. And some regular media outlets will likely do the same. Just look at Axios' take: "Beyond the very serious geopolitical stakes, this move is pure Trump. A theatrical withdrawal from a potential “deal," and reminder to Americans that he milked his adversary and gave them nothing in return."
Disciple of Fate wrote: At least this can stop the ridiculous song and dance about Trump making historic progress with NK when nothing had happened yet and now won't.
That's not what's going to happen now. The conservative propaganda machine will spew out stories about how this is "normal" and just Trump's standard business model of being a hard deal maker, and how he did so much better than any President before because he got NK's and SK's leaders to hold hands at the border and almost got Kim to the table. And some regular media outlets will likely do the same. Just look at Axios' take: "Beyond the very serious geopolitical stakes, this move is pure Trump. A theatrical withdrawal from a potential “deal," and reminder to Americans that he milked his adversary and gave them nothing in return."
What exactly did Trump manage to "milk" from NK?
Sadly this is probably the spin on it. He managed to milk NK 'giving up' their test site, that is what is going to get milked in the feel good stories. Meanwhile Bush's (and others) admin actually got NK to the table to no long term avail but when have facts ever gotten in the way of a good rally amiright.
That's really something. He got the chance to claim (rightfully or not) a major diplomatic accomplishment basically gift-wrapped and handed to him, and he still went and did the wrong thing. Yeah, you can say it might / would have failed anyway. But we didn't get to SEE that.
I don't like him, but I'll downplay a lot of the hyperbolic stuff people say about him because the world really needs less hyperbole. This is pretty fethed up though.
All we need now to make his failure complete is a huge economic crash............ I really, really, really hope that does not happen.
Also, at the last all-company meeting of my Mega-corporation, I was really excited to hear all about how they were going to use the Tax Reform windfalls to do stock buybacks and pay dividends to investors! I was so surprised to hear that!
infinite_array wrote: As someone who's currently buying a house, I wouldn't mind a little housing bubble burst at the moment.
Lol, as someone trying to sell one. . . I don't.
Thing is, those who know, know that he's already an economic failure. On the other hand, his tax plans and economic "stuff" has done exactly what he's wanted it to: made people like him even richer. The majority of people who are claiming anything he's done as a success are his typical voter base: uneducated as feth, and brainwashed by the right-wing propaganda circuit
Unreliable Trump becomes even more unreliable. Quelle surprise.
Trump cancelling that summit is really bad for the US' negotiating power in sensitive international issues, not to mention it ruins an opportunity for real progress to be made on the issue. A real shame, especially since North Korea for the first time in forever actually seemed somewhat willing to make big compromises.
skyth wrote: Kneeling IS respecting the flag/anthem.
But the point is that blacks are seen as less human than whites, especially by police. Until that is fixed there is a problem.
I think the problem is that police perceive blacks as more of a threat than whites even when a black person hasn't done anything to demonstrate being an imminent threat and responding with an escalation of force in the name of officer safety that isn't warranted. I think police enter into otherwise routine encounters with blacks with an expectation that it will escalate into the use of force that isn't present in their minds when they have routine interactions with whites or other ethnic groups that are perceived to be less threatening than blacks. There's also frequently found evidence of racist selective enforcement of laws. Ferguson, for example, showed that when the police department needed to bring in more revenue they wrote more tickets in the black neighborhoods because the people they were squeezing revenue out of in those neighborhoods weren't likely to also be golfing buddies of the mayor or be similarly connected like the people in the more affluent neighborhoods where the cops didn't write tickets. These kinds of perceptions and procedures become unwritten standards of operation in police departments over the years and get passed on to new officers as they come into the force creating bias in the officers regardless of their own ethnicities or pre-existing attitudes.
d-usa wrote: It can be argued that telling people what they have to do in order to respect the flag is actually more disrespectful to the flag as a whole.
I would argue that demanding people respect the flag is probably one of the most unfree things anyone can say.
No one has any obligation to respect a piece of fabric, especially when they don't feel that all the things that fabric supposedly represents don't apply to them.
This is why free speech is a right. Now the NFL can of course as a private organization set whatever rules it wants for it's players, but honestly an entire team sitting out on a game sounds a lot worse than a few players kneeling so to me this just feels like doubling down on the stupidity. So a few players knelt during the national anthem because they want something to change. This entire issue has drawn far more attention than it ever warranted.
Making the "Kneeling" the story rather than the"Black Lives Matter movement" the story is a pretty amazing piece of Co-opting the intent. I really have to hand it to the Right-wingers on this one. They completely changed and controlled the narrative almost from day 1 on this.
Pretty terrifying really.
Kaepernick started his protest by sitting on the bench during the anthem but after speaking with a retired Green Beret from Texas and being told that sitting was disrespectful but kneeling would get his point across without being disrespectful. This fact was largely ignored in the media narrative that proclaimed his kneeling protest was somehow horribly disrespectful.
In the 49ers' final preseason game, backup quarterback Colin Kaepernick decided to kneel for the national anthem instead of taking a seat on the bench.
Turns out it was former Seahawks player and Green Beret Nate Boyer who talked Kap into making the change. Boyer wrote an open letter to Kaepernick earlier this season, and it caused the two to meet up and discuss America and honoring the anthem.
On the upcoming episode of HBO's "Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel" (airing Tuesday night at 10 p.m. ET), Boyer reveals what happened in the discussion between the two men.
"We sorta came to a middle ground where he would take a knee alongside his teammates," Boyer says. "Soldiers take a knee in front of a fallen brother's grave, you know, to show respect.
This may work out for me, I'd love to see a new housing bubble crash personally, maybe then I could afford a condo
I would really like to see Congress pass revisions to laws that show that they've spent time reviewing the intent of the law, how it was put into practice and how it could be improved instead of just deciding if a law is good or bad depending on which party sponsored the original bill. I think there's plenty of room for improvement with Dodd Frank but that's true with everything Congress passes because the process of passing it usually mangles the original intent of the bill. There's a lot of laws and regulations that could be improved or removed but just throwing the baby out with the bathwater every time is stupid. We keep sending the same people back to Congress no matter how much incompetence they show or how often they abdicate their responsibilities.
Prestor Jon wrote: It's got nothing to do with free speech rights. The players are current employees of the team, fulfilling job duties in their place of business therefore their employer, the team ownership group, can dictate standards of behavior for their employees while they're on the job. I can be fired or disciplined for speech or actions at work that violate my employer's code of conduct. Now, simply because the team ownership groups have the ability to enact this policy doesn't make it good policy but it's not un-American or a violation of free speech rights.
Close but not quite. There is more to free speech than making sure you stick just to its legal requirements. A country where all media is owned by friends of the president and they all deny any media time to his critics wouldn't be illegal, because free speech doesn't require you to give a platform, but we all know how stifling that would be to public debate.
No-platforming is a major element of free speech, and while companies are entitled to control the speech of their employees, things pretty clearly get very murky very quickly when those companies restrict some speech but not other speech. Imagine if athletes were taking a knee to protest the poor state of care for wounded veterans. Does anyone want to pretend the fan reaction would have been the same, and the NFL's eventual policy the same?
The plain reality is that despite the legal protections of the first amendment, speech will be denied certain platforms if it makes sufficiently powerful people uncomfortable. Claiming there's nothing wrong with that because it doesn't cross the first amendment is not the point.
Nobody is entitled to use the media platforms of private businesses for their personal speech. The company I work for has our own corporate email system and if I wanted to I could send out an email to the entire department I work in, about 1000 people promoting whatever cause/issue/protest I chose. This would be a violation of company policy and I would be disciplined. Now, the exact content of my policy violating email blast would likely factor into whether I was disciplined with a written reprimand in my file or fired but no matter how virtuous my email may have been it would not be condoned by my employer and if i persisted in doing it, again regardless of the content, I'd be fired.
I didn't object to the player protests but the NFL exercising their authority to try to eliminate them isn't unreasonable or unjust.
The NFL's policy is clearly a PR move. The policy governs the teams not the players because the pregame activity isn't something that is included in the collective bargaining agreement between the owners and players and owners didn't bargain with the players' union to set this policy. The NFL set the rule that everyone on the field has to stand for the anthem or the team will fined. The NFL doesn't have the authority to fine the individual players so they'll fine the team. Some owners have already publicly said they'd pay the fine and wouldn't discipline players who didn't stand. This policy allows the NFL to pass the blame from the League to the Team to try to limit any controversy and negativity. It's a bad policy because it really doesn't address the issue it just creates the procedure for the League to fine a time for not having compliant players. The NFL is really bad at handling controversies, all they do is keep playing games knowing that they're popular enough for people to keep watching while they muddle through creating ham fisted poorly thought out policies to deal with the issue. It's like how the IOC is a hot mess but people still love the Olympics so the IOC being horrid doesn't stop the games from being popular and generating attendance and ratings.
Prestor Jon wrote: [I didn't object to the player protests but the NFL exercising their authority to try to eliminate them isn't unreasonable or unjust..
Actually, it is unreasonable and unjust. it may not be illegal, but it definitely is unreasonable and unjust.
Prestor Jon wrote: [I didn't object to the player protests but the NFL exercising their authority to try to eliminate them isn't unreasonable or unjust..
Actually, it is unreasonable and unjust. it may not be illegal, but it definitely is unreasonable and unjust.
NFL players get paid game checks, every week during the season they get a check for the game they played. Being in uniform, on the field on game day puts them on company time, in company uniform, doing the work the company hired them to do so it is not unreasonable or unjust for the company that employs them and pays them to be on the field for the game to impose standards of behavior they have to follow during that time.
NFL players enjoy a much greater access to the media, politicians and authorities due to the fame inherent to their job and they are free to make use of that access however they want on their own personal time. Postgame there is media in the locker room that will listen to the players say whatever they want about whatever they want. When the players aren't on the clock working they are free to speak about whatever social issues they want to whomever they want via whatever platform they want and they won't be disciplined by the league or the team.
feeder wrote: Why would you want an heirloom of that time there was some talk of peace and reconciliation, but was then derailed by idiocy and bluster?
Iron_Captain wrote: A real shame, especially since North Korea for the first time in forever actually seemed somewhat willing to make big compromises.
I'm not sure that's true at all (well, the real shame is true). They functionally have finished their nuclear program, and the only reason they are closing their biggest site is because it already collapsed under them. And do the nuclear weapons really matter? Not at all. Their real danger is the not-going-anywhere artillery that holds SK hostage.
I still hold out hope that while this was a false start and ultimately there will be a peaceful end to the Korean war in my lifetime, there isn't any reason to think this wasn't another NK fakeout. Words are wind.
Its a travesty that it took that long for Johnson to get his post-humus pardon. Slight *head nod* towards Trump.
I haven't caught up on the news on NK... but, at first glance it should at least quiet down fears that Trump would accept *any* deal from NK. At least they know he's willing to walk away...
The US: NK better negotiate or it will be very bad for them. And cooperating with us and having your body dragged through the street after being murdered is always an option. But we will make NK comply or they will regret it.
NK: Your leaders are idiots, and we will fight if needed.
The US: well, that kind of language is just not very productive. We are out of here.
Prestor Jon wrote: [I didn't object to the player protests but the NFL exercising their authority to try to eliminate them isn't unreasonable or unjust..
Actually, it is unreasonable and unjust. it may not be illegal, but it definitely is unreasonable and unjust.
NFL players get paid game checks, every week during the season they get a check for the game they played. Being in uniform, on the field on game day puts them on company time, in company uniform, doing the work the company hired them to do so it is not unreasonable or unjust for the company that employs them and pays them to be on the field for the game to impose standards of behavior they have to follow during that time.
NFL players enjoy a much greater access to the media, politicians and authorities due to the fame inherent to their job and they are free to make use of that access however they want on their own personal time. Postgame there is media in the locker room that will listen to the players say whatever they want about whatever they want. When the players aren't on the clock working they are free to speak about whatever social issues they want to whomever they want via whatever platform they want and they won't be disciplined by the league or the team.
Protesting against police brutality is more important than racists not having to see protests against police brutality. So it's unreasonable and unjust to ban NFL players from doing so before the game starts, considering that they still actually play the game.
This may work out for me, I'd love to see a new housing bubble crash personally, maybe then I could afford a condo
Is this actually worrying anyone else?
Depends on who you bank with. Basically what Trump did was deregulate "smaller" (under $250bn in assets) and community banks and credit unions. I completely agree that banks of different types and sizes should be subject to slightly different regulations and that small banks/credit unions should be regulated the same way as giant national/international banks but this doesn't replace illfitting regulation with good regulation it just removes regulation completely. Operating costs for smaller banks are now lower which should hopefully be passed on to lower customer fees but it is also now easier for smaller banks to overextend themselves and make terrible decisions.
This may work out for me, I'd love to see a new housing bubble crash personally, maybe then I could afford a condo
Is this actually worrying anyone else?
Depends on who you bank with. Basically what Trump did was deregulate "smaller" (under $250bn in assets) and community banks and credit unions. I completely agree that banks of different types and sizes should be subject to slightly different regulations and that small banks/credit unions should be regulated the same way as giant national/international banks but this doesn't replace illfitting regulation with good regulation it just removes regulation completely. Operating costs for smaller banks are now lower which should hopefully be passed on to lower customer fees but it is also now easier for smaller banks to overextend themselves and make terrible decisions.
Am I correct that "smaller" means any bank outside of the top 9? I want to make sure I understand.
This may work out for me, I'd love to see a new housing bubble crash personally, maybe then I could afford a condo
Is this actually worrying anyone else?
I have been expecting it since he was elected.
The Auld Grump - gosh, that would be really stupid, and only an idiot would... Oh, Hi Donald....
Trump is not the problem any more than 50 Republicans and 16 democrats (12 of which helped write the damn changes themselves) are. I don't presume to know how anyone else would have handled this, but I suspect this outcome was inevitable.
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/115-2018/s54
My current solution is "guillotines". Most people have problems with that. I can understand that, and so have been patiently waiting for a better solution. I shall continue to wait.
EDIT: I might have an attitude problem today. Corrected.
Yeah, it was interesting how Trump even thanked Democrats for helping...then invites none to the signing, which ia probably good for those Democrats given the likely inevitable scapegoat this legislation will become, correctly or not.
This may work out for me, I'd love to see a new housing bubble crash personally, maybe then I could afford a condo
Is this actually worrying anyone else?
Depends on who you bank with. Basically what Trump did was deregulate "smaller" (under $250bn in assets) and community banks and credit unions. I completely agree that banks of different types and sizes should be subject to slightly different regulations and that small banks/credit unions should be regulated the same way as giant national/international banks but this doesn't replace illfitting regulation with good regulation it just removes regulation completely. Operating costs for smaller banks are now lower which should hopefully be passed on to lower customer fees but it is also now easier for smaller banks to overextend themselves and make terrible decisions.
Am I correct that "smaller" means any bank outside of the top 9? I want to make sure I understand.
According to the article smaller is any bank with less than $250 billion in assets. It’s been too long of a day for me to figure out the conversions from the link you posted but I’m going to guess that yes that means they deregulated every bank smaller than the top nine.
What do I think? I think it's the worst corrupted mess to strike the USA since General Grant was President.
There were problems with corruption by others in Grant's presidency, but they were later overblown for political reasons. It was certainly not the defining feature of Grant's presidency.
And if the American people have any sense, Trump will get run out of Washington next POTUS election.
I reacted against Comey's statement that it should be up to the American people, not Mueller, to remove Trump from power. But more and more I'm seeing what Comey was getting at.
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Da Boss wrote: sebster: I felt uncomfortable reading that, because as you say it is verging into conspiracy theory territory. However, I would not be surprised to have something like that confirmed as things unfold. Seems Cohen was pretty stupid in how he handled everything so it's likely the prosecution will have a lot of information to work with.
Yeah, it is pretty conspiracy theory. Any time it's relying on events being a day or two apart to build the narrative, I get more than a little wary. However, it makes a lot more sense than the existing explanation. So I dunno.
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Peregrine wrote: Probably true and completely meaningless. It's exactly the sort of thing you'd expect Trump to have done, but that's kind of the problem. It's all been done before. Trump's rich friends will continue to ignore the corruption, the religious right will find a way to excuse the abortion with "we're all sinners" or whatever other nonsense is required, and the people who will care about it already hate Trump anyway. We're so far into scandal fatigue with Trump that a mere dispute over paying off his mistress is probably going to be forgotten by the end of the week when the next scandal is announced.
Very true. It's leading me to believe that when we learn what Mueller has, even if it is a plain as day case that Trump actively co-ordinated with Russia, it won't matter to the Trump/Republican base. This won't be resolved by convincing Trump/Republican voters of Trump's crimes. That is a dynamic of ordinary, functioning democracy that doesn't exist in America right now.
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Vaktathi wrote: Also...here's Trump's letter to Kim, The tone and language reads like a mix between "Mean Girls" and "Sarcastic South Park Comcast Employee" drowned in passive-aggressiveness
When Trump sent that letter there were US journalists in North Korea, there to view the demolition of the North Korean nuclear site. A functioning head of state brings prime targets out of the country before doing anything like that letter.
wonder what they're gonna do with those challenge coins...
If they turn up on ebay I'm gonna go hard to get me one.
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Disciple of Fate wrote: Meanwhile Bush's (and others) admin actually got NK to the table to no long term avail but when have facts ever gotten in the way of a good rally amiright.
Clinton got NK to the table. They even got a deal, which fell apart during the Bush administration (not blaming Bush, NK did plenty to sabotage the deal).
Bigger point is bringing NK 'to the table' is no achievement, never was. NK wants talks. NK has two basic foreign policy aims - greater international prestige and extorting stuff from China and America. Sitting down with America for talks is a big part of both, and if they can get an American president to be in those talks its like a dream come true.
That's why before Trump the US position was no talks without clear disarmament commitments from NK, and certainly no talks with a US president without some a long list of major commitments. But with Trump he had a conversation with SK president Moon, who gave a rose coloured representation of the NK position, then 45 minutes later, with no advice from the State Dept, Trump announced he would talk to Kim. Trump conceding a major bargaining chip based on what one person told him another person was saying.
Pretty shocked it hasn't worked out.
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Ensis Ferrae wrote: Thing is, those who know, know that he's already an economic failure. On the other hand, his tax plans and economic "stuff" has done exactly what he's wanted it to: made people like him even richer. The majority of people who are claiming anything he's done as a success are his typical voter base: uneducated as feth, and brainwashed by the right-wing propaganda circuit
Yep. For all his talk of growing jobs, they're growing slower than Obama's last five years in office. That isn't Trump's fault, the economy is leveling off, but it should make clear to people that a lot of economic activity is beyond the control of any president. Meanwhile, Trump did claim that the cut to corporate taxes were great because they'd drive up wages, yet wage growth just took a sudden turn for stagnation, which is almost impossible to understand in an economy nearing full capacity.
The net result of all that is basically all Trump has done is inherit an economy reaching peak activity, then pass a tax cut that means even in the best economic times the US has an unsustainable deficit.
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Prestor Jon wrote: Nobody is entitled to use the media platforms of private businesses for their personal speech.
I'm not talking about entitlement. I'm not talking about what everyone must be entitled to receive regardless of how they choose to use it. I'm talking about a society that understands that free speech is more than just what government can and can't take away.
I didn't object to the player protests but the NFL exercising their authority to try to eliminate them isn't unreasonable or unjust.
I would agree the NFL's decision is reasonable, but it is unjust.
The NFL's policy is clearly a PR move.
Absolutely. And the reality is that PR will always operate to favour the most economically powerful, because they are the ones companies can least afford to offend. In this instance Trump and Pence whooped up the base to get angry at NFL players who were attempting a protest, the base followed along, and the NFL conceded.
And of course, Kaepernik isn't playing, isn't getting paid, despite recognition by the NFL that he's a starting QB. In that context, talking purely about the legality of the NFL's actions seems to be missing the point.
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Prestor Jon wrote: Depends on who you bank with. Basically what Trump did was deregulate "smaller" (under $250bn in assets) and community banks and credit unions. I completely agree that banks of different types and sizes should be subject to slightly different regulations and that small banks/credit unions should be regulated the same way as giant national/international banks but this doesn't replace illfitting regulation with good regulation it just removes regulation completely. Operating costs for smaller banks are now lower which should hopefully be passed on to lower customer fees but it is also now easier for smaller banks to overextend themselves and make terrible decisions.
It's true that smaller banks need different regulation. The problem is in part like you say that this isn't different regulation but no regulation at all. The second problem is that Dodd Frank was a pretty bare minimum set of regs already. What was needed wasn't less regs for smaller banks, but must tighter regs for bigger banks.
I know a lot of people just hate the idea of regulations and are certain there's always lots too many regs doing all sorts of bad stuff, but end of the day Australia has strong regs on its banks, and when the GFC wiped out trillions in the US and Europe, Australia carried on booming. In fact just recently we managed to reach the longest period in world history without a recession. Now I'm not just bragging about Australia, claiming we'll never have a recession or claiming our banking sector incredible*, I'm just pointing out that effective fin sector regulation is really important to overall economic stability.
But of course, the banking sector has lots of money and a remarkable level of confidence in their own ability to ride out economic crashes, so they will pay huge amounts to congressmen to dismantle regs. And then look what keeps happening.
*Right now we have a Royal Commission in to the sector which is revealing some shocking practices.
The DoJ briefings have happened. Paul Ryan attended the first, but turned down the second because he had a fundraiser to attend. Which would be a really weird choice for the leader of a legislative house, when facing a briefing about the most controversial act of investigative over-reach in US history. Unless Donald was lying and there wasn't actually a spy placed in the Trump campaign for political benefit. But surely a sitting US president wouldn't just lie like that.
Meanwhile Emmet Flood, the White House attorney assigned to the Mueller investigation attended both meetings. So did John Kelly. Because this is really about finding an in-road in the Mueller investigation and what they have on Trump and his staff, and no-one is even pretending it is about anything else.
I look forward to seeing the narrative Republicans invent in the next 24 hours to try and justify this whole production and find some way of throwing shade on the Mueller investigation. But meanwhile its quite telling that Adam Schiff left the room and was immediately able to state that nothing showed any attempt to place a spy in the Trump campaign or broke any procedures during their investigation, while Republicans have gone quiet searching for the best way to frame what they were told.
Yeah, that Eric Garland dude is weird. I've seen him pop up on my twitter feed a lot because some people I follow will sometimes comment on his tweets. He's a pretty good reminder that the left has more than a healthy dose of crazy of its own, and the gatekeepers and the greater party should fight to make sure that stuff always stays on the fringes.
Disciple of Fate wrote: Meanwhile Bush's (and others) admin actually got NK to the table to no long term avail but when have facts ever gotten in the way of a good rally amiright.
Clinton got NK to the table. They even got a deal, which fell apart during the Bush administration (not blaming Bush, NK did plenty to sabotage the deal).
Bigger point is bringing NK 'to the table' is no achievement, never was. NK wants talks. NK has two basic foreign policy aims - greater international prestige and extorting stuff from China and America. Sitting down with America for talks is a big part of both, and if they can get an American president to be in those talks its like a dream come true.
That's why before Trump the US position was no talks without clear disarmament commitments from NK, and certainly no talks with a US president without some a long list of major commitments. But with Trump he had a conversation with SK president Moon, who gave a rose coloured representation of the NK position, then 45 minutes later, with no advice from the State Dept, Trump announced he would talk to Kim. Trump conceding a major bargaining chip based on what one person told him another person was saying.
Pretty shocked it hasn't worked out.
Yeah, my age is coming through a bit referring to Clinton as "others". Its just amazing how quickly the right was willing to throw history overboard and run with 'historic' to throw Trump a bone. We're talking about a man who's plan it was to wing it when the 12th came around. Sure, it would have been historical, but the historical we got used to under Trump, as in rock bottom's basement.
Kim played it pretty well. He has nukes now and defused the situation of a year ago. And I assume a bit of sucking up to Trump by Kim will let Kim do this whole show over again if it gets a bit heated.
Trump did it because Obama considered the case and refused a pardon (on the grounds that this boxer was also a wife beater.)
In other words, it's just another standard Trump anti-Obama move.
That and the next time someone points out how racist the guy is everyone one will just point out how he pardoned that dead guy who probably could have used justice a long time before now and can't really use any now. But hey as long as the dead are getting their due, feth the living right
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Kilkrazy wrote: The more Trump tries to defuse the Mueller investigation the more it makes me feel there must be some real dirt for Trump to want to hide.
Meh. I'd agree if discrediting the investigation into alleged malfeasance wasn't Law 101. This is what every powerful person being investigated for things does, regardless of guilt. It's an essential tactic to maintaining your public image amongst a busy/disinterested/idiotic populace with an attention span to short to remember their own week let alone whatever you supposed did last year.
sebster wrote: For all his talk of growing jobs, they're growing slower than Obama's last five years in office. That isn't Trump's fault, the economy is leveling off, but it should make clear to people that a lot of economic activity is beyond the control of any president. Meanwhile, Trump did claim that the cut to corporate taxes were great because they'd drive up wages, yet wage growth just took a sudden turn for stagnation, which is almost impossible to understand in an economy nearing full capacity.
The net result of all that is basically all Trump has done is inherit an economy reaching peak activity, then pass a tax cut that means even in the best economic times the US has an unsustainable deficit.
If you're hoping to steer me into agreeing that the US government is trying to herd immigrant children into death camps, then I'm going to disappoint you.
I'll take this one since I work in this field, albeit for another agency.
All Federal documents have a limited lifespan due to the sheer volume of them. Some are retained longer than others, based on their presumed value. What ICE is asking NARA for is to reduce the time that these records will be retained, not to start shredding at once. That said, I'm not sure how they decided these numbers, which seem pretty small. Social Security, by comparison, retains documents for up to 300 years, which translates into a gigantic storage and maintenance problem.
The sort of timescale they're proposing suggests to me that they want to hamper anyone coming back as an adult and pressing charges about what happened to them as a child. 20 year retention feels far too short.
Ouze wrote: If you're hoping to steer me into agreeing that the US government is trying to herd immigrant children into death camps, then I'm going to disappoint you.
Will you deny that it's already done that once before with Native Children?
Kilkrazy wrote: Does the US federal government keep all its records on paper?
There's a lot that's electronic, but there's still a lot that's also on paper. There are still a lot of outdated policies that require things like original signatures and such on important forms. My own agency is getting better at adopting electronic signatures, but we're only halfway there, and it'll still be a few years before our next big step.
Ouze wrote: If you're hoping to steer me into agreeing that the US government is trying to herd immigrant children into death camps, then I'm going to disappoint you.
Will you deny that it's already done that once before with Native Children?
It feels like you're trying to equate my refusal that the US government is currrently organizing concentration camps for migrant children as apologism for atrocities the government committed 150 years ago.
I'd like to be able to just say no, of course the government did lots of horrific things in the history of the country, but then I've also got to acknowledge the mistreatment of Chinese railroad workers and then slavery and so on and I really only have so much time to spend on these forums that I'd prefer not to have to try to hit an endlessly moving target of victimhood whataboutism.
Kilkrazy wrote: Does the US federal government keep all its records on paper?
sebster wrote: For all his talk of growing jobs, they're growing slower than Obama's last five years in office. That isn't Trump's fault, the economy is leveling off, but it should make clear to people that a lot of economic activity is beyond the control of any president. Meanwhile, Trump did claim that the cut to corporate taxes were great because they'd drive up wages, yet wage growth just took a sudden turn for stagnation, which is almost impossible to understand in an economy nearing full capacity.
The net result of all that is basically all Trump has done is inherit an economy reaching peak activity, then pass a tax cut that means even in the best economic times the US has an unsustainable deficit.
It feels like you're trying to equate my refusal that the US government is currrently organizing concentration camps for migrant children as apologism for atrocities the government committed 150 years ago.
Why are you refusing to believe this? You admit there is considerable precedent and the various reports of ICE's activities and lack of oversight are certainly troubling.
sebster wrote: For all his talk of growing jobs, they're growing slower than Obama's last five years in office. That isn't Trump's fault, the economy is leveling off, but it should make clear to people that a lot of economic activity is beyond the control of any president. Meanwhile, Trump did claim that the cut to corporate taxes were great because they'd drive up wages, yet wage growth just took a sudden turn for stagnation, which is almost impossible to understand in an economy nearing full capacity.
The net result of all that is basically all Trump has done is inherit an economy reaching peak activity, then pass a tax cut that means even in the best economic times the US has an unsustainable deficit.
The article is exactly what my Mega-Corporation decided to do with the Tax Break as well. From the article:
Days later, Harley-Davidson announced a dividend increase and a stock buyback plan to reward shareholders, repurchasing 15 million of its shares, valued at nearly $700 million.
They were very open about it at the all-corporate meetings.
I guess if your sole Presidnetial "accomplishment" is the economy based on the success of the Stock Market.... i guess that is one way to juice your own "success" as a President.
In this country... separating parents from their childrens happens all the time... especially when said parents breaks the law and goes to jail.
Quick, device a system where you have to deal with families, including children, in a detained setting. Also, you aren't allowed to build new detention centers, you must figure out how to use the ones you've got.
One solution is to release the children into the custody of guardians - usually family, but sometimes not. And sometimes - not always, but not a trivial number - those children do not appear for their court dates.
Pick your poison... you want DHS/HHS to keep track of them? Okay, they'll stay in detention with their parents until their court date.
Oh? That's inhumane?? Well.. they can be released to guardians. Which means DHS/HHS can't watch them and ensure they make their court date to adjudicate their immigration status.
Also, force the families to go back instead - (if they're attempting to claim asylum, which most are...) is a no-go either, as it would be a horrible policy. They're here... now what?
Ouze wrote: You're asking why I don't think the US government is establishing concentration camps for migrant children? Because I'm not a fething idiot, I guess.
Hm.
whembly wrote: In this country... separating parents from their childrens happens all the time... especially when said parents breaks the law and goes to jail.
Quick, device a system where you have to deal with families, including children, in a detained setting. Also, you aren't allowed to build new detention centers, you must figure out how to use the ones you've got.
One solution is to release the children into the custody of guardians - usually family, but sometimes not. And sometimes - not always, but not a trivial number - those children do not appear for their court dates.
Pick your poison... you want DHS/HHS to keep track of them? Okay, they'll stay in detention with their parents until their court date.
Oh? That's inhumane?? Well.. they can be released to guardians. Which means DHS/HHS can't watch them and ensure they make their court date to adjudicate their immigration status.
Better idea: not nabbing people and throwing them into detention under shady circumstances.
Ouze wrote: You're asking why I don't think the US government is establishing concentration camps for migrant children? Because I'm not a fething idiot, I guess.
Hm.
That didn't quite come out the way I meant it, re-reading. To be clear, I'm not saying you're an idiot, or implying it; just that I think this "Auschwitz 2.0" theory is absolutely pants on head Alex Jones style crazy talk. This country did some awful things and still does some rather crappy things but that is really, really out there.
Better idea: not nabbing people and throwing them into detention under shady circumstances.
I totally agree. I think this policy of separating the minor children serves no serious, useful purpose other than cruelty. I would prefer to see the current sort of ridiculous barriers to legal immigration be substantially relaxed rather than this weird action we have currently where a family fleeing Honduras is treated as if they're Osama bin Laden.
(Edit - that was hyperbole, I'm not saying the Navy Seals are dropping out of helicopters and shooting migrant children)
I guess if your sole Presidnetial "accomplishment" is the economy based on the success of the Stock Market.... i guess that is one way to juice your own "success" as a President.
And really, the success of "the stock market"* doesn't help anyone above the upper half or so of the population, really. The guy making a lifetime of pumping gas with no 401(k) and no investments gets virtually nothing out of this. Meanwhile, I see jobs lost and am lubing up for what things are going to look like when the fallout once the trade war hits full stride.
* I don't know what the feth the stock market is here, but everyone keeps repeating it. I assume that it's referring to securities, and not, like, commodities or forex? Doesn't unjustifiable rise there usually imply that there's an impending crash when overconfidence in the market suddenly shrinks back down? I know barely enough about this kind of stuff to know I don't know for sure WTF it implies.
That didn't quite come out the way I meant it, re-reading. To be clear, I'm not saying you're an idiot, or implying it; just that I think this "Auschwitz 2.0" theory is absolutely pants on head Alex Jones style crazy talk. This country did some awful things and still does some rather crappy things but that is really, really out there.
I actually don't think they are either, but at the same time to dismiss it out of hand is also a bad idea. After all, reading through the Nuremberg tribunal testimony, a lot of Nazis dismissed the idea that they were committing genocide even as they aided in the commission of genocide. Things got that pidgeonholed.
As far as paper documents in government, not all agencies do, some, such as SSA had been storing it on ten million miles of microfilm. The decay of said microfilm is why documents have been lost, and digital copies are being made.
And then there's the Office of Personnel Management, who's offices literally overflow with actual paper documents, and covers an area bigger than a football field with filing cabinets stacked four and five high.
Veterans Affairs actually had a concrete building collapse under the weight of it's documents.
At this point, president Trump may have to send all "alien" childs to North Korea the 12th June instead of him. Or at a later date, who knows, we'll see.
Nonsense ? Yeah, pretty much. America is totally unreliable to anyone in the world with the Orange in charge. Allies, enemies.. it doesn't matter.
Wonder how much you americans will be able to endure before you finally stand up and say "enough".
Wonder how much you americans will be able to endure before you finally stand up and say "enough".
Based on my own experience, until he starts gaking himself on live TV, while screaming incoherently about how the government must all die! He'd still get about 20% support at that point, just because 20% of the population gives no gaks but wants to troll the other 80%
Hell some people can't wait for the end of the world because they're convinced the "dam liberuls" won't survive it, so Trump has a pretty safe supporter base regardless.
Wonder how much you americans will be able to endure before you finally stand up and say "enough".
Based on my own experience, until he starts gaking himself on live TV, while screaming incoherently about how the government must all die! He'd still get about 20% support at that point, just because 20% of the population gives no gaks but wants to troll the other 80%
his approval rating would probably actually go up in GOP circles, starve the beast!
But more seriously, people have been standing up since election day, and the fundamental mechanisms of checks and balances (or Deep State if you prefer) of government are rolling. We'll see where it all ends up, but people have been standing up for a while.
Ouze wrote: I think it's pretty clear that every single child that DHS loses track of gets promptly shoved into an oven, no exceptions.
Man WTF, you guys.
I don't mean to say that ICE is currently operating extermination camps. Not that I know yet, anyway. I'm saying that what they are doing is building all the infrastructure needed to get there. Both the practical side of assembling a corps of unaccountable agents to whisk off undesirables and of the propaganda effort to mark a population as undesirable. Not caring precisely how it was done and wanting a part of the population just gone was how the Nazis ended up with the extermination camps, after all. We already know that ICE doesn't much care whether the people they take die. There aren't many steps more needed for that to become inofficial policy and then official policy.
Ouze wrote: I think it's pretty clear that every single child that DHS loses track of gets promptly shoved into an oven, no exceptions.
Man WTF, you guys.
Wait... don't they get on trains first or something?
Have you seen the condition of our rail system? We need to crank up our national infrastructure spending if we want to have an efficient genocide network. That’s why we should let the private system handle the murder or migrants
Ouze wrote: I think it's pretty clear that every single child that DHS loses track of gets promptly shoved into an oven, no exceptions.
Man WTF, you guys.
I don't mean to say that ICE is currently operating extermination camps. Not that I know yet, anyway. I'm saying that what they are doing is building all the infrastructure needed to get there. Both the practical side of assembling a corps of unaccountable agents to whisk off undesirables and of the propaganda effort to mark a population as undesirable. Not caring precisely how it was done and wanting a part of the population just gone was how the Nazis ended up with the extermination camps, after all. We already know that ICE doesn't much care whether the people they take die. There aren't many steps more needed for that to become inofficial policy and then official policy.
I know a lot of folks in the federal government who are working to make sure people held by ICE get good healthcare. Even had some friends spend some short deployments away from their family to provide care to the children during the influx of unaccompanied minors.
This while thing is “death panels” and “FEMA extermination camps” level stupid.
Ouze wrote: I think it's pretty clear that every single child that DHS loses track of gets promptly shoved into an oven, no exceptions.
Man WTF, you guys.
Wait... don't they get on trains first or something?
Have you seen the condition of our rail system? We need to crank up our national infrastructure spending if we want to have an efficient genocide network. That’s why we should let the private system handle the murder or migrants
But...but... I thought one of the good things of having a genocidal despotic dictators is that TRAINS.WLL.BE.ON.TIME!!!
Those are old news. Guess you missed the last update where your president decided to say he would go in the end. Until next time he decides not to do so or whatever.
Those are old news. Guess you missed the last update where your president decided to say he would go in the end. Until next time he decides not to do so or whatever.
To be fair to Trump and I don't like being fair to Trump
I don't think the North Korea talks were ever going to happen.
They do this every few years - hold out an olive branch and then shake down the USA and South Korea for some bags of grain and a few barrels of oil...
Their state media then tells the people that the great leader scored a great propaganda victory against the evil capitalists or North Korea had to 'reluctantly' withdraw in the face of imperialist 'aggression.'
That's crazy. If I was moving and had a house to sell, odds are I'd be happy to sell it to someone I had a problem with, because that guarantees they won't wind up living next-door to me. Bonus points if it'll piss off the neighbors too.
I'd be thrilled with the knowledge that my house is going to look even better than I left it.
People should put out giant "no homosexuals allowed" sign next to the "for sale" sign and see how many people take a walk-through. If you care that much about someone else's life, don't be afraid to flaunt it .
I'd be thrilled with the knowledge that my house is going to look even better than I left it.
People should put out giant "no homosexuals allowed" sign next to the "for sale" sign and see how many people take a walk-through. If you care that much about someone else's life, don't be afraid to flaunt it .
H.Res.907 - Expressing the sense of Congress that the Attorney General of the United States should appoint a Special Counsel to investigate misconduct at the Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation, including an investigation of abuse of the FISA warrant process, how and why the Hillary Clinton probe ended, and how and why the Donald Trump-Russia probe began.
H.Res.907 - Expressing the sense of Congress that the Attorney General of the United States should appoint a Special Counsel to investigate misconduct at the Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation, including an investigation of abuse of the FISA warrant process, how and why the Hillary Clinton probe ended, and how and why the Donald Trump-Russia probe began.
Last time President Trump tweeted about the Inspector Generals Office I had this comment;
Hang on!
Did the President just ask/tweet why the Inspector General -
( The oversight division of the state aimed at preventing inefficient or illegal operations within their parent agency, whose employees are charged with identifying, auditing, and investigating fraud, waste, abuse, embezzlement and mismanagement of any kind within the executive department )
- is set to investigate potential massive FISA abuse?
Is he slowed?
Well, Donald, it's because it's what Inspectors General do.
It is their job.
It is the very reason we have Inspectors General in the first place.
It is their sole purpose in life to investigate just this kind of issue.
In addition, does President Trump know that there are more than one Inspector General?
You know, it's been months now, and I still can't quite believe that the current PotUS is a pretend billionaire with an 11 year old's understanding of how the world works.
Trump to Naval Academy graduates: "Our country has regained the respect that we used to have long ago, abroad. Yes, they're respecting us again. Yes, America is back."
Confidence in US leadership, change from Obama to Trump:
-75%: Germany
-71%: South Korea
-70%: France
-57%: UK -54% Japan
+42%: Russia
(Pew Research 2017)
We just got you a big pay raise. First time in 10 years. We got you a big pay increase. First time in OVER 10 years.
More important, military pay increases are, by law, tied to the employment cost index, which measures private-sector wages — although the president or Congress can ask for more or less.
The Pentagon requested, and Congress enacted, pay increases smaller than the index’s growth rate from 2014 through 2016. But both before and after that time — from 2011 to 2013 and 2017 to 2018 — pay for troops rose at the exact rate as the index grew.
Mr. Trump’s proposed budgets for 2017 and 2018 had requested pay increases of 1.6 percent and 2.1 percent — rates that were lower than the statutory formula, and that were ultimately ignored by Congress.
reds8n wrote: Confidence in US leadership, change from Obama to Trump:
-75%: Germany
-71%: South Korea
-70%: France
-57%: UK -54% Japan
+42%: Russia
(Pew Research 2017)
To be fair, Trump like a lot of Republicans seems to think that being able to scream "feth you" at the top of your lungs is what being respected means
I know a lot of folks in the federal government who are working to make sure people held by ICE get good healthcare. Even had some friends spend some short deployments away from their family to provide care to the children during the influx of unaccompanied minors.
Confidence in US leadership, change from Obama to Trump:
-75%: Germany
-71%: South Korea
-70%: France
-57%: UK -54% Japan
+42%: Russia
(Pew Research 2017)
The most important/powerful country on that list happens to be the only one where the confidence rose. Russia is also the only one on the list capable of using both its soft and hard power to further its interests.
Confidence in US leadership, change from Obama to Trump:
-75%: Germany
-71%: South Korea
-70%: France
-57%: UK -54% Japan
+42%: Russia
(Pew Research 2017)
The most important/powerful country on that list happens to be the only one where the confidence rose. Russia is also the only one on the list capable of using both its soft and hard power to further its interests.
Russia is 12th on the list of world's GDP, behind everyone on that list. Russia has virtually no soft power and it's hard power is limited to it's geographical area.
Why do you think Russia is going so hard with it's virtual maskirovka? They are trying to drag the rest of the world down to their level.
Confidence in US leadership, change from Obama to Trump:
-75%: Germany
-71%: South Korea
-70%: France
-57%: UK -54% Japan
+42%: Russia
(Pew Research 2017)
The most important/powerful country on that list happens to be the only one where the confidence rose. Russia is also the only one on the list capable of using both its soft and hard power to further its interests.
Russia is 12th on the list of world's GDP, behind everyone on that list. Russia has virtually no soft power and it's hard power is limited to it's geographical area.
Why do you think Russia is going so hard with it's virtual maskirovka? They are trying to drag the rest of the world down to their level.
edit: quote derp
they have been able to pretty much do whatever they want on the world stage and noone has done anything significant about it. They simply took large chunks of the ukraine, shot down an airliner and are calling the shots in syria.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
LordofHats wrote: And yet we're dependent on all the countries where confidence fell for our own soft and hard power.
with the possible exception of Japan, none of those other countries are militarily significant., Europe just isnt as important as Asia on the world stage. only Germany and Japan even make our top 5 for export and they are behind China (arguably by far our most important relationship) without veto power in the UN, France and England are of no real consequence to the US.
Confidence in US leadership, change from Obama to Trump:
-75%: Germany
-71%: South Korea
-70%: France
-57%: UK -54% Japan
+42%: Russia
(Pew Research 2017)
The most important/powerful country on that list happens to be the only one where the confidence rose. Russia is also the only one on the list capable of using both its soft and hard power to further its interests.
Russia is 12th on the list of world's GDP, behind everyone on that list. Russia has virtually no soft power and it's hard power is limited to it's geographical area.
Why do you think Russia is going so hard with it's virtual maskirovka? They are trying to drag the rest of the world down to their level.
edit: quote derp
they have been able to pretty much do whatever they want on the world stage and noone has done anything significant about it. They simply took large chunks of the ukraine, shot down an airliner and are calling the shots in syria.
Yep, that's the hard power in their backyard I was talking about.
Note they were suffering punishing sanctions, and would have suffered further if their Useful Idiot had not squeaked into power. Russia gets away with what America lets them get away with. Right now Putin's cock holster is letting his daddy run amok.
Confidence in US leadership, change from Obama to Trump:
-75%: Germany
-71%: South Korea
-70%: France
-57%: UK -54% Japan
+42%: Russia
(Pew Research 2017)
The most important/powerful country on that list happens to be the only one where the confidence rose. Russia is also the only one on the list capable of using both its soft and hard power to further its interests.
Russia is 12th on the list of world's GDP, behind everyone on that list. Russia has virtually no soft power and it's hard power is limited to it's geographical area.
Why do you think Russia is going so hard with it's virtual maskirovka? They are trying to drag the rest of the world down to their level.
edit: quote derp
they have been able to pretty much do whatever they want on the world stage and noone has done anything significant about it. They simply took large chunks of the ukraine, shot down an airliner and are calling the shots in syria.
Yep, that's the hard power in their backyard I was talking about.
Note they were suffering punishing sanctions, and would have suffered further if their Useful Idiot had not squeaked into power. Russia gets away with what America lets them get away with. Right now Putin's cock holster is letting his daddy run amok.
the more that the arctic opens up, the more in our backyard they will be.
thekingofkings wrote: with the possible exception of Japan, none of those other countries are militarily significant.
Try projecting power across Europe, Africa, and the Mid-East without bases in Europe. With the loss of projection ability comes a loss of clout (what most of the rest of us actually consider to be respect as opposed to just throwing out middle fingers for the hell of it).
Try having anywhere near the international clout we currently have without the support of France and the UK. You're talking about dissolving the international power bloc that made the US the strongest nation on the planet, a core component of our ability to tell the rest of the world to feth off without ending up like any number of other countries who tried and found it didn't work. That will effect our economy long term. Countries don't like making deals with countries that don't keep them, and the US is already terrible at it and has only gotten around paying for the consequences by having friends.
Meanwhile, Russia is a country that is geographically locked, doesn't have any soft power outside of the convenience of cultural enmity that tends to cut both ways for them, and can't really give us anything we want.
And that's the country you want to trade all the other countries who do give us what we want for?
thekingofkings wrote: with the possible exception of Japan, none of those other countries are militarily significant.
Try projecting power across Europe, Africa, and the Mid-East without bases in Europe. With the loss of projection ability comes a loss of clout (what most of the rest of us actually consider to be respect as opposed to just throwing out middle fingers for the hell of it).
Try having anywhere near the international clout we currently have without the support of France and the UK. You're talking about dissolving the international power bloc that made the US the strongest nation on the planet, a core component of our ability to tell the rest of the world to feth off without ending up like any number of other countries who tried and found it didn't work. That will effect our economy long term. Countries don't like making deals with countries that don't keep them, and the US is already terrible at it and has only gotten around paying for the consequences by having friends.
Meanwhile, Russia is a country that is geographically locked, doesn't have any soft power outside of the convenience of cultural enmity that tends to cut both ways for them, and can't really give us anything we want.
And that's the country you want to trade all the other countries who do give us what we want for?
I am not convinced that we need to project power over the world. those bases in Europe were made to keep the Russians out of western Europe for a war that never happened and to prevent the Germans from doing what seemed to be their national hobby in the early 1900s. We have bases in the middle east and Africa, of the two the middle eastern states are the ones most important to us, Saudi Arabia being the key. Russia has considerable pull with Syria and Iran, and those countries are involved in things directly relating to our national interest. Especially concerning affairs in Yemen. Russia still has clout with the central republics around Afghanistan and its ports at Vladivostok and Petropavlovsk are open to Pacific trade.
thekingofkings wrote: I am not convinced that we need to project power over the world.
We barter power projection for international prestige which we then use for economic gain. It's what we do. Literally nothing else justifies the mind boggling monetary pit hole that is the US military. Certainly not that whole spreading democracy thing cause that's been a massive failure. Which just goes back to the complete incoherence of Trump's nonexistent international strategy.
We have bases in the middle east and Africa, of the two the middle eastern states are the ones most important to us, Saudi Arabia being the key.
Those bases are dependent on ones in Europe. Not just in terms of functionality and logistics, but in existence. Saudi Arabia doesn't just give us stuff to be nice with us. They do it because its worth being nice with us because we bring everyone else to the table. Western support is the shield their international position depends on. Good luck maintaining it while pushing Iran toward Russia and Europe away.
Russia has considerable pull with Syria and Iran, and those countries are involved in things directly relating to our national interest.
Russia wouldn't have any pull with Iran if we weren't constantly shooting that relationship in the foot. Russia doesn't have any pull with Syria. They have pull with Assad who is likely finished no matter how things pan out there. Maybe not tomorrow or next year but his government will never have hold again.
Especially concerning affairs in Yemen.
Yemen goes with the Saudi's go. Always have always will.
Russia still has clout with the central republics around Afghanistan and its ports at Vladivostok and Petropavlovsk are open to Pacific trade.
Afghanistan is internationally insignificant. Russia can have all the pull in that part of the world it wants. There's nothing there which is really pointing out that they don't have any real pull outside of some puppets who don't really give it much more than immediate security and resources to exploit.
And seriously. Someone already pointed out that Russia is smaller economically than every other country listed and you're going to throw out two ports that are meaningless in the scheme of US trade as a pro? Trade isn't just about port locations its about having things to trade. Russia doesn't have anything we can't get elsewhere cheaper. How many "Made in Russia" products do you think anyone in America buys? Russia's primary exports are things we get from Mexico and the rest of South America for less and their ports are closer. There's a reason they've never at any point in time been a big trading partner here.
Aside from the value right this minute is it really that hard to see the value of maintaining power and relationships in the long run? The whole point of maintaining alliances is that you may need them in the future, and therefore you invest in them even when there is no immediate return. It takes a lot of time and effort to build up a strong alliance and Trump is busy throwing all of that away out of sheer incompetence. The idea that France and the UK are expendable is short-sighted madness, and it's unbelievable that we're having to have a serious conversation about this.
Peregrine wrote: Aside from the value right this minute is it really that hard to see the value of maintaining power and relationships in the long run? The whole point of maintaining alliances is that you may need them in the future, and therefore you invest in them even when there is no immediate return. It takes a lot of time and effort to build up a strong alliance and Trump is busy throwing all of that away out of sheer incompetence. The idea that France and the UK are expendable is short-sighted madness, and it's unbelievable that we're having to have a serious conversation about this.
I dont agree, interests change over time and countries that were once useful allies don't always remain that way. I think its time to move on from the old world and start looking more to the rising economies of asia for alliances and trade. We could invest in South America more and Africa. be as incredulous as you want but are you seriously suggesting that Europe has more to offer than Asia?
friends will continue to ignore the corruption, the religious right will find a way to excuse the abortion with "we're all sinners" or whatever other nonsense is required, and the people who will care about it already hate Trump anyway. We're so far into scandal fatigue with Trump that a mere dispute over paying off his mistress is probably going to be forgotten by the end of the week when the next scandal is announced.
