I'm sure that's a great comfort for the thousands of Mexican police who've died fighting our drug war.
I literally don't care. Take back their cartels and get their criminals out of my country.
perhaps the answer is addressing the fundamental issues in the US driving that business, conflict, policy and profitability, rather than just telling people how you dont care about the collateral damage cause by said US issues...that are then spilling back across the border...
I'm sure that's a great comfort for the thousands of Mexican police who've died fighting our drug war.
I literally don't care. Take back their cartels and get their criminals out of my country.
perhaps the answer is addressing the fundamental issues in the US driving that business, conflict, policy and profitability, rather than just telling people how you dont care about the collateral damage cause by said US issues...that are then spilling back across the border...
Hey man. No Mexican fireworks like actual Mexicans on fire. Just grab your popcorn and watch the show.
As I said earlier, to add insult to injury, the cement making companies best placed by location to the wall's proposed site are Mexican!
Bonus question: you'll never guess where the best labour pool is for constructing the wall?
Yeah but "Mexico will build the wall and we will pay for it!" doesn't have quite the same ring to it, does it?
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Frazzled wrote: Shoot down anything that comes over it around it or under it.
You're planning on shooting down commercial passenger airlines? Wow, I guess Putin's influence on US politics goes deeper than we thought.
As you know, we in the UK have a very famous wall that took a long time to build, and with their slave workforce and generous interpretation of health and safety, even the Romans were delayed. I have this feeling that this crackpot scheme will be a shambles from start to finish, and Obama and Clinton will end up being blamed for it
I'm sure that's a great comfort for the thousands of Mexican police who've died fighting our drug war.
I literally don't care. Take back their cartels and get their criminals out of my country.
perhaps the answer is addressing the fundamental issues in the US driving that business, conflict, policy and profitability, rather than just telling people how you dont care about the collateral damage cause by said US issues...that are then spilling back across the border...
And a wall/control system can be part of that. Treat drugs as a disease here, but protect against crime and wage cutters coming in. We have the right to control our borders just like every other nation. If you disagree too bad. you lost.
I'm sure that's a great comfort for the thousands of Mexican police who've died fighting our drug war.
I literally don't care. Take back their cartels and get their criminals out of my country.
Have perspective guys...
Texas is having a knarly time with the cartel bidness and illegal aliens problems...
If it weren't for a biblically generous level of perspective, the ignorance of some previous comments from a certain poster would have gotten and deserved my full attention. Even so, there's lines and some of those posts were over them in a very big, fething way.
I'm sure that's a great comfort for the thousands of Mexican police who've died fighting our drug war.
I literally don't care. Take back their cartels and get their criminals out of my country.
Have perspective guys...
Texas is having a knarly time with the cartel bidness and illegal aliens problems...
If it weren't for a biblically generous level of perspective, the ignorance of some previous comments from a certain poster would have gotten and deserved my full attention. Even so, there's lines and some of those posts were over them in a very big, fething way.
What lines. There is nothing wrong to say the US has the right to control its own borders, that crime from foreign illegal aliens is a thing, and that a nation's self interest should be paramount vs. the feelz of another, who's in such a basket that 1/5 to 1/3 of its population bailed.
New flash. We have always had these problems with Mexico. They flare up then die down. Right now they are flaring up. Mexico is an unstable country and has been since day one of being formed. Great people but sucky government. We have the right to protect our borders to prevent a spillover of that, just like we did in 1917.
Frazzled wrote: We have the right to control our borders just like every other nation.
The right and the ability to exercise such are not the same thing.
And really, riding above all the rhetoric and really the issue at the heart of this matter, is the simple art of diplomacy and how it's applied. Our liar-in-chief believes in the "feth you" approach vs. the "let's talk" approach. Very neighborly and imminently comforting to our other allies/trading partners and certainly a wonderful harbinger of the obvious diplomatic prowess to come.
As you know, we in the UK have a very famous wall that took a long time to build, and with their slave workforce and generous interpretation of health and safety, even the Romans were delayed. I have this feeling that this crackpot scheme will be a shambles from start to finish, and Obama and Clinton will end up being blamed for it
It was also largely symbolic, the locals just went round the sides in boats
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: I fully support the USA's right to police its borders and determine who gets to enter, in any way that America sees fit.
That includes building a wall. But if I put up a wall in my garden, I'm not expecting the USA to have to pay for it. That's the difference.
Trump is out of line in asking the Mexicans to foot the bill.
Well, yea, thats just asinine stupid to think that. Its a sign of someone who speaks off the cuff instead of thinking, and then doubles down when criticized.
Its almost like he shouldn't have been elected or is just a flim flam guy (which also means he shouldn't have been elected).
We need firm border control, but thinking another nation would pay for it doesn't work.
I'm sure that's a great comfort for the thousands of Mexican police who've died fighting our drug war.
I literally don't care. Take back their cartels and get their criminals out of my country.
Have perspective guys...
Texas is having a knarly time with the cartel bidness and illegal aliens problems...
If it weren't for a biblically generous level of perspective, the ignorance of some previous comments from a certain poster would have gotten and deserved my full attention. Even so, there's lines and some of those posts were over them in a very big, fething way.
What lines. There is nothing wrong to say the US has the right to control its own borders, that crime from foreign illegal aliens is a thing, and that a nation's self interest should be paramount vs. the feelz of another, who's in such a basket that 1/5 to 1/3 of its population bailed.
New flash. We have always had these problems with Mexico. They flare up then die down. Right now they are flaring up. Mexico is an unstable country and has been since day one of being formed. Great people but sucky government. We have the right to protect our borders to prevent a spillover of that, just like we did in 1917.
"What lines." You're kidding, right?
You mean besides this veritable vomit of Neanderthal response actually advocating armed response and violence to our neighbor?..."Put the wall up and its irrelevant. Shoot down anything that comes over it around it or under it. Mexico is in the mi9ddle of a civil war, like they are every 30 years or so. They are not our friends nor have they ever been."
What lines. There is nothing wrong to say the US has the right to control its own borders, that crime from foreign illegal aliens is a thing, and that a nation's self interest should be paramount vs. the feelz of another, who's in such a basket that 1/5 to 1/3 of its population bailed.
I'm curious who exactly your taking too. Whoever claimed the US has no right to control its border. Where did anyone say illegals don't commit crimes (might debate how much crime they commit)? And in case you missed it, there is no debate over the paramound importance of national self interest. What, you think people can only oppose a border wall by thinking Mexico's interests are more important than America's? I'm thinking about the next fifties years when my generation has to clean up yet another mess gak onto us by our parents and their pipedream chasing. I don't want to deal with an overtly hostile Mexico that is uninterested in cooperation or partnership because of a stupid fething wall that is so riddled with problems the certainty people have in it is terrifying in itself.
Most importantly, I challenge that blowing up Mexico's economy for this will not improve anything. You'll simply send more job seekers into the US because there's nothing left there. That wall isn't going to stop anyone when we're the only jobs there are. There's thousands of more miles of US border to sneak through, assuming the wall is ever finished in the first place which is one hell of an assumption.
New flash. We have always had these problems with Mexico.
We haven't had them for a long time, and we do not need to have them now. We're having a flare up because some people are hellbent on making one, and writing off their responsibility for creating the crisis by saying "Mexico is Mexico."
Frazzled wrote: We have the right to control our borders just like every other nation.
The right and the ability to exercise such are not the same thing.
What are you smoking if you think the US can't control its border if it put its mind to it?
What are you smoking that you think the US can control all 12,000 miles of its borders? Just because you throw a wall up isn't going to erase the desire to get here, and if we've learned anything from stuff like coke launching air cannons and drug deliver drones it's that Mexicans are a mighty inventive folk at getting things from point a to point b.
I'm sure that's a great comfort for the thousands of Mexican police who've died fighting our drug war.
I literally don't care. Take back their cartels and get their criminals out of my country.
perhaps the answer is addressing the fundamental issues in the US driving that business, conflict, policy and profitability, rather than just telling people how you dont care about the collateral damage cause by said US issues...that are then spilling back across the border...
And a wall/control system can be part of that. Treat drugs as a disease here, but protect against crime and wage cutters coming in. We have the right to control our borders just like every other nation. If you disagree too bad. you lost.
As the immortal bard said: elections matter.
enhanced controls/surveillance is one thing, but a wall can be (and what wall do exist are) routinely defeated. To go to such lengths for such an ineffective measure, that will surely cause untold social, economic, and political strife, particularly when a minority of drugs and people are going through such routes (as most gain entry through normal, manned crossings), smacks of wasteful "stigginit" just for its own sake, or worse, particularly when we're the economic drivers of the cartels business?
Its not like the cartels arent undermining walls, submarining product over, and other such things already...
enhanced controls/surveillance is one thing, but a wall can be (and what wall do exist are) routinely defeated.
Oh yea, you need an Israeli style in depth system. Or flying monkeys with ray guns. I like ray guns.
To go to such lengths for such an ineffective measure, that will surely cause untold social, economic, and political strife, particularly when a minority of drugs and people are going through such routes (as most gain entry through normal, manned crossings), smacks of wasteful "stigginit" just for its own sake, or worse, particularly when we're the economic drivers of the cartels business.
Dude its Trump. Deep Thought is not the appropriate nickname here methinks.
Well, yea, thats just asinine stupid to think that. Its a sign of someone who speaks off the cuff instead of thinking, and then doubles down when criticized.
Its almost like he shouldn't have been elected or is just a flim flam guy (which also means he shouldn't have been elected).
That is a very apt observation. And one that sadly those who support Trump will never see.
Literally no matter how bad it gets, not matter how many executive orders he abuses, Trump supporters will see him as this heroic figure who "gets the job done" Meanwhile people are having liberties taken away, other nations are being disrespected (which will have consequences), the environment is being abused and our nation is being set back several decades
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer is apparently a neophyte when it comes to cybersecurity, particularly on social media.
As hacker The Jester pointed out, Spicer appears to have tweeted two different passwords on two consecutive days, though it isn’t clear if those were his Twitter passwords or email account passwords.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer is apparently a neophyte when it comes to cybersecurity, particularly on social media.
As hacker The Jester pointed out, Spicer appears to have tweeted two different passwords on two consecutive days, though it isn’t clear if those were his Twitter passwords or email account passwords.
Dude come on. He's not a democrat, a woman, or a murderer. It's only a big deal when someone who fits all three categories does it.
enhanced controls/surveillance is one thing, but a wall can be (and what wall do exist are) routinely defeated.
Oh yea, you need an Israeli style in depth system. Or flying monkeys with ray guns. I like ray guns.
The Israeli system has also proven defeatable and has been something of a major ongoing international issue. But really, anything that potentially jeapordizes my avocado and guacamole supply is something I'm going to get upset about, though flying monkeys would be amusing at least.
Dude its Trump. Deep Thought is not the appropriate nickname here methinks.
I wonder if Trump will end up building a renewed foundation of Mexican nationalism in response to his foreign oppressive behavior. Mexicans not living on the border or who follow the law will not want to pay for a wall. A glorious future where the cartels come together and build the world's first coke funded aerospace program....
Herr Goebbels does not appreciate mainstream news disrupting the party lie, I mean, line. "I want you to quote this," Mr. Bannon added. “The media here is the opposition party." And the lap dogs, just keep lapping it up.
BrotherGecko wrote: I wonder if Trump will end up building a renewed foundation of Mexican nationalism in response to his foreign oppressive behavior. Mexicans not living on the border or who follow the law will not want to pay for a wall. A glorious future where the cartels come together and build the world's first coke funded aerospace program....
BigWaaagh wrote: Herr Goebbels does not appreciate mainstream news disrupting the party lie, I mean, line. "I want you to quote this," Mr. Bannon added. “The media here is the opposition party." And the lap dogs, just keep lapping it up.
BigWaaagh wrote: Herr Goebbels does not appreciate mainstream news disrupting the party lie, I mean, line. "I want you to quote this," Mr. Bannon added. “The media here is the opposition party." And the lap dogs, just keep lapping it up.
Thats is something actually insanely Goebbels-esque...
Especially when you consider that the administration is more than happy to pander to Fox and the rest of the right-wing-outrage machine. So look at the bright side. There's finally an admission that Faux and Fiends aren't real news
BigWaaagh wrote: Herr Goebbels does not appreciate mainstream news disrupting the party lie, I mean, line. "I want you to quote this," Mr. Bannon added. “The media here is the opposition party." And the lap dogs, just keep lapping it up.
whembly wrote: Are we a nation that built the Hoover Dam? The Tennesse Valley Association?
Except these two things had qualitative, verifiable economic benefits.
The Apollo Program?
Ah yes, the program that brought about the peaceful exploration of the Moon in the name of all that is good in mankind. That's a perfect thing to compare this stupid fething wall idea too.
Are we still?
Sure, but the swelling of national pride should come from something for the benefit of everyone (see the Apollo Program), not the isolationist, xenophobic, wet dream of a raving moron.
whembly wrote: Are we a nation that built the Hoover Dam? The Tennesse Valley Association?
Except these two things had qualitative, verifiable economic benefits.
The Apollo Program?
Ah yes, the program that brought about the peaceful exploration of the Moon in the name of all that is good in mankind. That's a perfect thing to compare this stupid fething wall idea too.
Are we still?
Sure, but the swelling of national pride should come from something for the benefit of everyone (see the Apollo Program), not the isolationist, xenophobic, wet dream of a raving moron.
Trump used in favour of creating jobs, not destroying them.
Depends for who. After all, his definition of "Americans" may vary from what you would think it is.
What's really interesting isn't the same gak defense from the same people, but more like Trump is clearly acting like he's already campaigning for a second mandate.
I mean, he already secured the motto for its campaign. That's not a hazard. If you think about it, everything he tweets and does totally go in line with trying to please his base - the republican voting base, that is.
And by reading Frazzled and Whembly, it clearly works.
Which is why it's so interesting. Because that means it will be facing reality of the world. Now what will really matters are the reactions of others countries. We already saw Mexico for now. Next will be coming.
And if USA are suddenly left behind while China welcomes the "despised countries" with open arms, while digging their teeth deeper into USA's debt owning, I'm pretty sure Republicans will find a way to blame it all on the Democrats. Of course, it won't change the final result. But those are interesting times, indeed.
Sarouan wrote: I'm pretty sure Republicans will find a way to blame it all on the Democrats. But those are interesting times, indeed.
I don't think they have too. Setting aside the narcissism of the Republican base, there's also the narcissism of the Democratic base which hasn't been mentioned here lately, but a quick browse through a number of leftist opinion sights shows a disturbing demand from the "faithful" that the Democrats start playing the same game as the Republicans; obstruct, blame, chase pipe dream nonsense. The base is turning in on itself as the party proper continues to be non-adversarial at every turn. Many sites are trumpeting (no pun intended) the approval of some Trump nominees as a sign that the Democrats are too weak to beat Trump, and that a new option is needed.
So not only did the base not turn out to vote, but the base now blames the party that not voting kept out of power for not having the power to stop the "Regime" because it's kind of unreasonable to expect a given list of Dems to sabotage themselves blocking things they can't possibly block. Ignore that some of Trump's picks are absurd, a good number of them however crazy are too qualified to shut down with the current Senate minority.
whembly wrote: So it's not a matter of ability... but,will.
Of course it's a matter of will. Any country can build a giant wall, the technology for doing so has been available for thousands of years. The only thing stopping countries from building border walls is that most reasonable governments don't have any interest in throwing away money on something so unbelievably ing stupid. The current republican party seems to be the rare exception.
whembly wrote: But, what you're feeling now? That's how most of us non-Obama voters felt when he was elected twice.
And this demonstrates the problem quite nicely: more both-sides-ism, and trying to pretend that Obama and Trump are in any way equivalent.
But, what you're feeling now? That's how most of us non-Obama voters felt when he was elected twice.
Honestly? My head cooled down. And I believe Obama did the right thing by acting like he did when he left the office. The election happened, and Trump is now your president. Republicans have won. They will now be able to do everything they wanted to do for such a long time.
They have all the tools in hand to do so. And they have the right to do so.
So, it's all in your hands now. Let's see if what was said will be true when faced to the rest of the world. I don't think the way Trump and his team will be leading USA on a good way on the long term, but hey, we will just have to see what happens.
Truly interesting times...with sad consequences, indeed, but what is done is done. We may not be changing the past, but we can act on the future.
That said...4 years of presidential tweets and "alternative facts" is sure a damn long time. It's funny only a week just happened and we are already that long of a topic. Maybe the Off Topic subforum could become its own separate entity, at this state.
whembly wrote: So it's not a matter of ability... but,will.
Of course it's a matter of will. Any country can build a giant wall, the technology for doing so has been available for thousands of years. The only thing stopping countries from building border walls is that most reasonable governments don't have any interest in throwing away money on something so unbelievably ing stupid. The current republican party seems to be the rare exception.
What you think may be stupid...
Others may think is pragmatic.
Trump was elected largely for that wall...
whembly wrote: But, what you're feeling now? That's how most of us non-Obama voters felt when he was elected twice.
And this demonstrates the problem quite nicely: more both-sides-ism, and trying to pretend that Obama and Trump are in any way equivalent.
A) Equivalent? No wayz. Although, Trumpesto seems EO-happy as Obama.
B) Keep on rationalizing... you'll get there.
Sarouan wrote: So, it's all in your hands now. Let's see if what was said will be true when faced to the rest of the world. I don't think the way Trump and his team will be leading USA on a good way on the long term, but hey, we will just have to see what happens.
Would it have been better if the Democrats got their way? Have you been following politics long enough to know what the name of the model their economic plan was based off of? The Greek Model. If choosing between what we apparently are going for right now (my plant has already had enough orders pushing through since November that I'm currently able to work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, in stark contrast to the near layoff I had in late April/early May) and the absolute utopian economy of Greece, then I'm glad that we went the way we did. Socialism isn't working. It has only worked efficiently once, and that was the Native Americans who became innovatively stunted because there was no drive to improve. So the Solicalist model will continue to fail unless you're willing to stagnate and figure out how to get the populace to forget about property. That's the only reason it worked for the Native Americans, and it's why it fails everywhere else.
That might not be entirely true, they either have to hybridize to make it sort of work, use military force to make people make it work, or it ends in open revolt as the proletariat tears down the bourgeoisie and try to reinstall a Socialist government where it winds up back at one of these three results.
Sarouan wrote: So, it's all in your hands now. Let's see if what was said will be true when faced to the rest of the world. I don't think the way Trump and his team will be leading USA on a good way on the long term, but hey, we will just have to see what happens.
Would it have been better if the Democrats got their way? Have you been following politics long enough to know what the name of the model their economic plan was based off of? The Greek Model. If choosing between what we apparently are going for right now (my plant has already had enough orders pushing through since November that I'm currently able to work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, in stark contrast to the near layoff I had in late April/early May) and the absolute utopian economy of Greece, then I'm glad that we went the way we did. Socialism isn't working. It has only worked efficiently once, and that was the Native Americans who became innovatively stunted because there was no drive to improve. So the Solicalist model will continue to fail unless you're willing to stagnate and figure out how to get the populace to forget about property. That's the only reason it worked for the Native Americans, and it's why it fails everywhere else.
That might not be entirely true, they either have to hybridize to make it sort of work, use military force to make people make it work, or it ends in open revolt as the proletariat tears down the bourgeoisie and try to reinstall a Socialist government where it winds up back at one of these three results.
Lol. If that's what you think the democrats are pushing for, then you are severely mistaken.
Somehow I suspect this post will be filled with stereotypes, gross generalizations, and hyberbole.
Socialism isn't working.
Neither is Neo-Liberalism, and at least a mixed system has the advantage of not screwing everyone over for the sake of a lucky few while the rest of us pray for the glory of a 84 hour work week where we never get to see our friends, family, or engage in reality because we're so busy working we don't have time to look up.
It has only worked efficiently once, and that was the Native Americans who became innovatively stunted because there was no drive to improve.
Oh hey I was right!
So the Solicalist model will continue to fail unless you're willing to stagnate and figure out how to get the populace to forget about property. That's the only reason it worked for the Native Americans, and it's why it fails everywhere else.
Wow that old myth? Damn man.
One native Americans not only had a conception of property, they actually operated on a rudimentary capitalist system with a trade network that spanned most of Eastern North America while Western Europeans were still engaged in Merchantalism. The myth that the Native Americans were tricked by smart white people because they didn't understand concepts of ownership is a really old (and frankly really racist) myth about Native cultures. They completely understood the concept of property and land ownership, it's just that Europeans never engaged them economically with any intent to keep up their end. They manipulated the fact even Natives who learned to speak English or Spanish or French couldn't read it, and told them one thing while the paper actually said something else and that's when Colonists didn't just outright ignored the agreements when they became inconvenient. William Penn's sons are two really good examples. Soon as daddy died (and daddy wasn't exactly great, just not as bad) they tossed out every agreement he made with the Lakota and said "feth it we're gonna take what we want." EDIT: The Lakota actually filed suit in European courts, argued their case before the judge, presented evidence, and seemed to have a surprising understanding of English Common law practices concerning property rights. The Judge was really impressed that their feeble savage minds could make such a good effort before telling them to gtfo.
Tell me about it. If we're going to learn history and sociology from television can it at least be the newest line hip shows on Fox that'll be cancelled by the end of the year? Bonanza is so date.
LordofHats wrote: Soon as daddy died (and daddy wasn't exactly great, just not as bad) they tossed out every agreement he made with the Lakota and said "feth it we're gonna take what we want."
Ah, the Trump Model
Also, the current (discredited) model used by Republicans doesn't seem too successful in Kansas.
Sarouan wrote: So, it's all in your hands now. Let's see if what was said will be true when faced to the rest of the world. I don't think the way Trump and his team will be leading USA on a good way on the long term, but hey, we will just have to see what happens.
Would it have been better if the Democrats got their way? Have you been following politics long enough to know what the name of the model their economic plan was based off of? The Greek Model. If choosing between what we apparently are going for right now (my plant has already had enough orders pushing through since November that I'm currently able to work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, in stark contrast to the near layoff I had in late April/early May) and the absolute utopian economy of Greece, then I'm glad that we went the way we did. Socialism isn't working. It has only worked efficiently once, and that was the Native Americans who became innovatively stunted because there was no drive to improve. So the Solicalist model will continue to fail unless you're willing to stagnate and figure out how to get the populace to forget about property. That's the only reason it worked for the Native Americans, and it's why it fails everywhere else.
There's a lot of mixed up concepts here.
Socialism != theoretical utopian Marxism where everybody owns nothing and everything, that's a pipe dream that nobody ever achieved (or even could achieve on any meaningful scale) or realistically actually attempted beyond platitudes for propaganda. There is no nation on earth that isn't socialist in some way except for failed states. Socialism is expressed in many different ways. The military for instance, is, by definition, an expression of socialism, that is the government owns some or all of the means to accomodate the needs for the market need of national defense. Same thing with police, fire departments, roads, schools, medicare, social security, trade regulation, census gathering, etc. Stuff the free market can't do or that doesn't have a profit incentive to cover adequately. The free market can't really handle national defense because it has no means of discretely assigning cost to customers, and even if it could, by necessity it would have to defend non-paying customers in order to defend paying customers, removing all demand incentive to pay and supplier incentive to deliver, with calamitous results for all, thus the government engages in socialism to provide for national defense as it is able to draw from all and in turn able and willing to defend all. It sounds weird when explained that way, but that's sort of the subconscious economic logic going on there.
And this is stupidity. The wall is a spectacular waste of money that will do little, if anything, to stop illegal immigration. Trump was elected for that wall because the republican party is a dysfunctional mess that wishes the US was North Korea.
A) Equivalent? No wayz.
But that's what you just said.
But, what you're feeling now? That's how most of us non-Obama voters felt when he was elected twice.
You're claiming that the two situations are equivalent, when they really aren't. Conservatives felt bad when Obama was elected because they listened to tinfoil hat nonsense about all the awful things Obama was supposedly going to do, things that had nothing to do with his stated policy positions or voting record or anything else involving real-world evidence. People feel bad about Trump being elected because his stated policy positions are a disaster and so far he is doing a very good job of confirming that impression.
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Just Tony wrote: So the Solicalist model will continue to fail unless you're willing to stagnate and figure out how to get the populace to forget about property.
Socialism =/= private property doesn't exist. Got any better arguments?
Rosebuddy wrote: The promise to build a wall was of course never understood as literal but as a promise to be extra racist against latinos.
That's what most people thought, it was just posturing by Trump. Similarly, the claim that Mexico was going to pay for it was never about budgetary concerns, it was about adding an extra dose of humiliation to Mexico about it.
And maybe it originally was just posturing by Trump, but now that everyone has been making fun of Trump for so long about his stupid wall, it's actually made him double down on actually building the thing. And then to that you can add in Trump's extra bit of humiliation when Mexico flatly refused to pay for the wall, and everyone had a good laugh at Trump when he discovered what the rest of us knew from day one, well now the great orange one is gonna build his wall no matter what.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Frazzled wrote: Our stock market would like to kick you in the financial cojones. It just broke 20,000. How's yours?
Under Obama the stock market tripled its value. I didn't hear you once mention that run of growth as a sign of Obama's successful policy making. Yet under Trump we have the market bump up 1% in a month and you're right in here crowing about.
Vaktathi wrote: That didn't take long to walk back that whole "20% tariff" thing on Mexico down to just a pandering "option on the table" schtick...
Because, of course, it would be US consumers and taxpayers bearing that cost, and congress expressed...disapproval.
And this is nicely demonstrated why Trump should never have been president. Your party has control over both houses of congress and can pass whatever they want, how can you possibly be stupid enough to announce a plan without bothering to ask if it's going to be possible to do it? Especially when it's a proposed policy with such major effects? But apparently practical questions of how best to govern a country are not relevant to Trump, he just says and does whatever impulsive thing he feels like at the moment.
One thing I find vaguely amusing is that Trump has signed off on three major building projects to be completed within his term of office. While expelling all the illegal immigrant labour that most construction firms probably rely on for non skilled work.
How does he expect to obtain the labour to build it all?
You make a bunch of terrible comparisons, I tell you why they're terrible, you fail to address my response in any meaningful way. Thank you for your typical non-response, I guess, though I'm sure once you read something on Twitter you think is a proper response, you'll come back with it.
“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”
Frazzled wrote: We have the right to control our borders just like every other nation. If you disagree too bad. you lost.
Yes no-one questions that. However this wall don't do anything toward it. It's just billions wasted to boost Trump's ego.
You are defending Trump's ego boosting project that doesn't actually help securing borders at all. If you are such a Trump fanboy why not ask Trump to spend those billions in a way that ACTUALYL helps secure border?
It's nothing but Trump wanting to build something big he will be remembered from. Too bad he doesn't realize that memory will be bad one. Especially to regular americans when they realize they paid billions out of nothing.
And indiscriminating machine gun fire at anything that moves is NOT okay. Can't believe you actually said that.
Oh jesus, reading the "Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States" EO is...rather 1984 worthy...
The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
wrote:
Sec. 9. Sanctuary Jurisdictions. It is the policy of the executive branch to ensure, to the fullest extent of the law, that a State, or a political subdivision of a State, shall comply with 8 U.S.C. 1373.
(b)To better inform the public regarding the public safety threats associated with sanctuary jurisdictions, the Secretary shall utilize the Declined Detainer Outcome Report or its equivalent and, on a weekly basis, make public a comprehensive list of criminal actions committed by aliens and any jurisdiction that ignored or otherwise failed to honor any detainers with respect to such aliens.
Sec. 13. Office for Victims of Crimes Committed by Removable Aliens. The Secretary shall direct the Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to take all appropriate and lawful action to establish within U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement an office to provide proactive, timely, adequate, and professional services to victims of crimes committed by removable aliens and the family members of such victims. This office shall provide quarterly reports studying the effects of the victimization by criminal aliens present in the United States.
The only purpose I can think of for these in this context is specifically to rile up and exploit xenophobia.
Sec. 14. Privacy Act. Agencies shall, to the extent consistent with applicable law, ensure that their privacy policies exclude persons who are not United States citizens or lawful permanent residents from the protections of the Privacy Act regarding personally identifiable information.
Awkward, lets make public that we're going to actively treat anyone not a US citizen as a data mining and surveillance target. Beeteedubbs, this is going to fundamentally sink the US-EU Data shield agreement that we just spent years negotiating following the Snowden revalations, which pretty much the entire US tech industry got behind, as the US will violate it by default and may result in US companies being unable to legally do business in the EU.
To be fair to Frazzled, he said rather plainly a page ago what he thinks about Trump and the idea of a literal "Great Wall Guadalupe Hidalgo" as a border defense a page ago and he was not positive.
Ustrello wrote: It only took less than a month for Whembs to go to team trump
He's been it for like year+ so no news there.
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LordofHats wrote: To be fair to Frazzled, he said rather plainly a page ago what he thinks about Trump and the idea of a literal "Great Wall Guadalupe Hidalgo" as a border defense a page ago and he was not positive.
Well then he changed his mind as he's clearly in favour of it now based on his posts.
enhanced controls/surveillance is one thing, but a wall can be (and what wall do exist are) routinely defeated.
Oh yea, you need an Israeli style in depth system. Or flying monkeys with ray guns. I like ray guns.
To go to such lengths for such an ineffective measure, that will surely cause untold social, economic, and political strife, particularly when a minority of drugs and people are going through such routes (as most gain entry through normal, manned crossings), smacks of wasteful "stigginit" just for its own sake, or worse, particularly when we're the economic drivers of the cartels business.
Dude its Trump. Deep Thought is not the appropriate nickname here methinks.
The idea of a border wall isn't uniquely Trump, and if we're going to argue with each other about what is and isn't "stupid", the least we can do is keep track of each other's various brands.
Would it not be cheaper to "liberate" Mexico instead of building the wall? The cia could take control of the cartels, and the US would have a new state with low wage workers, second rate Americans, like the people that don't have the same rights as US citizens in other acquired countries.
It would not be cheaper to "liberate" Mexico.We'd just inherit all their problems, and still have to deal with a drug war except now the Cartels can claim to be rebels fighting for Mexican independence... Well some of them kind of do that already but they'd have a leg to stand on.
tneva82 wrote: Other estimates I have seen have ranged from 12 to 25 billions...
That is money that could be used for lot more useful things. But nope. Wasted to boost Trump's ego instead.
Once we consider the cost of construction that's already happened, and remember those areas were by and large the cheapest and easiest section to build, $25b becomes a reasonable estimate. And that's just for construction. In order for the wall to do anything you have to spend money to maintain it and have agents monitor it. That pushes the cost up to something around $40b.
We had a chance to annex Mexico at the end of the Mexican-American War but just took Texas and California, I don't think the stance has really changed.
Park Service tweets pictures about crowd size.
Tweets then disappear. People here argue that Trump had nothing to do with that.
The White House officially denies that they ordered anyone to do anything.
Now it comes out that Trump personality called the Director of the NPS to complain about the tweets.
This is shaping the most alternative fact-filled administration yet...
whembly wrote: It's risk management for the everyone, especially the young folks...
So, a low premium insurance plan may have high deductibles and co-pays (because young'uns use it less), however, it's a good protection against massive debts if you get hit by a bus and face lengthy recovery.
The idea of insurance is that you remove risk. The idea that a person should get insurance, but only for some conditions and not others is utterly, completely fething bonkers.
You might want to counter that a young person is less likely to need a hip replacement, and that's true. But then what happens is young people pay a lot less to have hip replacement covered, and the one young person who actually ends up needing their hip replaced gets covered by the millions young people who kicked in about 4 cents each extra in case they were the lucky one.
What you're suggesting is like getting house insurance, and picking whether you will cover for fire, flood, earthquake etc. It's fething bonkers to say 'oh it doesn't rain much here so I'll guess I'll just risk manage and not get the flood insurance.' What happens is you get coverage, but because flood is a low risk in your area it costs very little.
Now, there is scope for personalizing insurance. A person might want access to more expensive extras like private suites and shorter waiting times for elective surgeries, or a greater choice of doctors. That's fine. But the idea that a person might remove from their insurance basic medical care because it probably won't happen to them is a basic rejection of what insurance is.
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whembly wrote: The ACA isn't the ONLY way to achieve a " better system ". This is a trap you're going to find yourself... if you like the ACA, and think that repealing it is the worst thing ever, then post-ACA will never be good enough...
There's enough issues with ACA that I could get go on board with all kinds of reform. I could even get on board with repeal if a good replacement system were proposed.
The problem is that every single Republican proposal so makes things much, much worse. This is because Republican thinking on healthcare is essentially broken.
whembly wrote: I get that there's uncertainty as to what the future will look like post-ACA repeal... and there's nothing anyone can say to allieviate that until we know more on what will transpire.
So given the events of 8 years ago, if there's uncertainty isn't it time to start talking about death panels? I mean, if it was okay for Republicans to scare people with ludicrous made up bs, isn't it right for Democrats to do the same now?
Consider this... the opponents of the ACA are simply saying "we can do better". Isn't that a worthy question to ask?
If Republicans had been attempting to suggest an improved system for the last 8 years, that line would work. But they've done nothing beyond 'repeal ACA'. No part of their motivation in this, starting from before we had any idea what ACA would even be, has ever been about looking for a better system. It's always been about absolute hostility to the idea of Democrats getting to drive policy.
I mean, even now if you read anything about why Republicans are looking to return to healthcare, you will see them say again and again that repealing and replacing was a core campaign promise. You won't find anything saying 'we think we can do better'... how could they even say that when they don't even know what their alternative might be?
Neither is Neo-Liberalism, and at least a mixed system has the advantage of not screwing everyone over for the sake of a lucky few while the rest of us pray for the glory of a 84 hour work week where we never get to see our friends, family, or engage in reality because we're so busy working we don't have time to look up.
The point was that since taking office, the business that my plant is in has fluctuated in insecurity to the point that there were several layoffs. One got me while I was working as an agency employee, and two essentially got me while working as a full time employee. The fact that we've called back all the layoff employees (at least the ones that would return) and started hiring agency workers again PLUS have enough work to get basically all the overtime we want is what I list as a positive. I make just north of $24 an hour, I don't hurt for money, but having enough business to earn extra and be able to splurge on things is more than a plus. That wasn't happening under Obama, and Clinton was intending to double down on most if not all of his policies.
So the Solicalist model will continue to fail unless you're willing to stagnate and figure out how to get the populace to forget about property. That's the only reason it worked for the Native Americans, and it's why it fails everywhere else.
Wow that old myth? Damn man.
One native Americans not only had a conception of property, they actually operated on a rudimentary capitalist system with a trade network that spanned most of Eastern North America while Western Europeans were still engaged in Merchantalism. The myth that the Native Americans were tricked by smart white people because they didn't understand concepts of ownership is a really old (and frankly really racist) myth about Native cultures. They completely understood the concept of property and land ownership, it's just that Europeans never engaged them economically with any intent to keep up their end. They manipulated the fact even Natives who learned to speak English or Spanish or French couldn't read it, and told them one thing while the paper actually said something else and that's when Colonists didn't just outright ignored the agreements when they became inconvenient. William Penn's sons are two really good examples. Soon as daddy died (and daddy wasn't exactly great, just not as bad) they tossed out every agreement he made with the Lakota and said "feth it we're gonna take what we want." EDIT: The Lakota actually filed suit in European courts, argued their case before the judge, presented evidence, and seemed to have a surprising understanding of English Common law practices concerning property rights. The Judge was really impressed that their feeble savage minds could make such a good effort before telling them to gtfo.
Their trade practices were well documented, I never argued that, and I never argued about personal property or belongings. They did not believe in owning land. The land was, to them, a very sacred thing. You took from it only what you needed, and gave what you could. "From each according to his need, to each according to his ability." Where did I read that from? Oh, yeah. Marx. To my knowledge there were two native peoples that had definitively permanent dwellings: the Navajos with their rather famous living accommodations, and the Iroquois with their lesser known long houses. Most other tribes lived a nomadic life, which didn't involve possession of land in the Western sense. They had territories that they had to defend from rival tribes from time to time, but no true property ownership. That is why they didn't protest the land deals in the back. It'd be like someone offering you money for the air in your back yard. The guy's insane, you can't own the air, it's the air. So you agree to some trade which doesn't cost the rube much but maybe teaches him a lesson, until six months later when a blimp is sitting in your back yard, since he was indeed serious about owning your air. It's entirely possible that there were some tribes that had permanent dwellings that I'm not familiar with, or that some tribe was enterprising enough to have concepts of real estate, but it wasn't the norm.
You also didn't touch the part about technological stagnation and lack of innovation, but that's because there is nothing to dispute.
Tell me about it. If we're going to learn history and sociology from television can it at least be the newest line hip shows on Fox that'll be cancelled by the end of the year? Bonanza is so date.
You didn't want to go with Rawhide? Since I was borne in '74, maybe a John Wayne western would be more appropriate. I shouldn't even dignify this with a response, but I want to make it clear that it isn't affecting me in the way you'd hoped.
Sarouan wrote: So, it's all in your hands now. Let's see if what was said will be true when faced to the rest of the world. I don't think the way Trump and his team will be leading USA on a good way on the long term, but hey, we will just have to see what happens.
Would it have been better if the Democrats got their way? Have you been following politics long enough to know what the name of the model their economic plan was based off of? The Greek Model. If choosing between what we apparently are going for right now (my plant has already had enough orders pushing through since November that I'm currently able to work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, in stark contrast to the near layoff I had in late April/early May) and the absolute utopian economy of Greece, then I'm glad that we went the way we did. Socialism isn't working. It has only worked efficiently once, and that was the Native Americans who became innovatively stunted because there was no drive to improve. So the Solicalist model will continue to fail unless you're willing to stagnate and figure out how to get the populace to forget about property. That's the only reason it worked for the Native Americans, and it's why it fails everywhere else.
There's a lot of mixed up concepts here.
Socialism != theoretical utopian Marxism where everybody owns nothing and everything, that's a pipe dream that nobody ever achieved (or even could achieve on any meaningful scale) or realistically actually attempted beyond platitudes for propaganda. There is no nation on earth that isn't socialist in some way except for failed states. Socialism is expressed in many different ways. The military for instance, is, by definition, an expression of socialism, that is the government owns some or all of the means to accomodate the needs for the market need of national defense. Same thing with police, fire departments, roads, schools, medicare, social security, trade regulation, census gathering, etc. Stuff the free market can't do or that doesn't have a profit incentive to cover adequately. The free market can't really handle national defense because it has no means of discretely assigning cost to customers, and even if it could, by necessity it would have to defend non-paying customers in order to defend paying customers, removing all demand incentive to pay and supplier incentive to deliver, with calamitous results for all, thus the government engages in socialism to provide for national defense as it is able to draw from all and in turn able and willing to defend all. It sounds weird when explained that way, but that's sort of the subconscious economic logic going on there.
Socialism!
See, it doesn't seem the same to me. You look at socialized health care across the board, it's nothing like a Medicare/Medicaid service with a private insurance option at all. Government taking over every aspect of a service gives them no need to be competitive, which leads to gouging (through taxes) which leads to people not being able to afford other necessities, which leads to government expanding to take on more of these services which leads to higher taxes yet until in the fullness of time you hand your entire earnings over in taxes but get your needs distributed to you. Suddenly, what is your incentive to work a more technical job if you are essentially in the same boat as a gas station clerk? If you wind up no better off becoming a doctor, why would you bother? THEREIN lies the failing. And something like socializing healthcare or housing is drastically different than organizing defense or rescue services.
Peregrine wrote:
Just Tony wrote: So the Socialist model will continue to fail unless you're willing to stagnate and figure out how to get the populace to forget about property.
Socialism =/= private property doesn't exist. Got any better arguments?
I never said private property, as I was clearly talking about property from a real estate perspective got any better rebuttals?
Oh, for the record I'm glad to see you posting. After all the things you said about the current establishment I was worried that Mike Pence's Grand Imperial Republican Military Police of Christ had rounded up the entirety of the LGBT community and all their supporters into concentration camps.
Jehan-reznor wrote:Would it not be cheaper to "liberate" Mexico instead of building the wall? The cia could take control of the cartels, and the US would have a new state with low wage workers, second rate Americans, like the people that don't have the same rights as US citizens in other acquired countries.
Actually, the smart idea would be to buy Mexico, and then flip it.
whembly wrote: We can debate of the merits/demerits of these plans/ideas... but, please stop this outright myth that the GOP doesn't have a plan.
Nope. That isn't how political parties work. Individuals can write up all the plans they want, but they are nothing more than suggestions until the party forms up around a single plan. This is because people want to know what they're getting. They want Republicans to nut up, and put one actual, real plan on the table that they are committed to actually trying to pass. This thing about repealing ACA and then replacing it with maybe Ryan's plan, maybe Price's plan, maybe the plan of those two centrists senators who think states should be able to choose ACA if they want, or maybe some other plan... that is fething nuts.
It also what the Republicans are trying to convince people is normal, functional politics. And it is a con that, like always, you've bought in to.
Just Tony wrote: The point was that since taking office, the business that my plant is in has fluctuated in insecurity to the point that there were several layoffs. One got me while I was working as an agency employee, and two essentially got me while working as a full time employee. The fact that we've called back all the layoff employees (at least the ones that would return) and started hiring agency workers again PLUS have enough work to get basically all the overtime we want is what I list as a positive. I make just north of $24 an hour, I don't hurt for money, but having enough business to earn extra and be able to splurge on things is more than a plus. That wasn't happening under Obama, and Clinton was intending to double down on most if not all of his policies.
What policies specifically kept your plant from being able to make whatever is that you make? Which of those policies has been reversed in the six days that that Trump has been President to allow you to work nonstop?
See, it doesn't seem the same to me. You look at socialized health care across the board, it's nothing like a Medicare/Medicaid service with a private insurance option at all.
Sure.
Government taking over every aspect of a service gives them no need to be competitive, which leads to gouging (through taxes) which leads to people not being able to afford other necessities
Hrm, it may lead to higher taxes, but that income is just going to the government to provide healthcare instead of a private insurance company, the cost to the end consumer isn't really increased.
In fact, in just about every other developed nation, the average level of care is higher and the average cost per patient is lower, usually dramatically so.
This particular example is a few years old, but gets the idea across
Despite all those other nations having socialized health care to varying extents.
which leads to government expanding to take on more of these services which leads to higher taxes yet until in the fullness of time you hand your entire earnings over in taxes but get your needs distributed to you.
And again...in what nation on earth has this happened? I mean, there are other developed nations one can point to where tax burdens are much higher, but again, that income is just going to a different places, people's net disposable incomes aren't meaningfully different and they don't have to deal with the potential risk of crippling medical debt that's by far the leading cause of bankruptcy in the US.
Suddenly, what is your incentive to work a more technical job if you are essentially in the same boat as a gas station clerk? If you wind up no better off becoming a doctor, why would you bother? THEREIN lies the failing.
Except this failing doesn't exist in reality. Doctors in the UK or Germany get paid far better than a janitor. There's just less administrative overhead and profit demands sucking huge amounts of wealth out of the system in the process. Your average experienced British or German physician makes well into six figures if not multiple six figures, much like your average experienced US physician. Labor markets still exist, the need for incentives doesn't go away. Even in the highly socialist environment of the military (where everyone works for the government, all the equipment is owned by the government, the bases & land they're built on is owned by the government, etc), there are different pay scales based on skill, seniority, role, etc.
And something like socializing healthcare or housing is drastically different than organizing defense or rescue services.
ScootyPuffJunior wrote: So the TL;DR is that it's Trump's opinion that "millions" of people voted illegally (which we all know is just as good as fact), he doesn't understand the basics of research papers, and doesn't like it when reporters tell the truth if it isn't what people want to hear.
Trump is actually trying to argue that there's millions of illegal votes cast... in non-swing states. Because if those votes were cast in swing states Trump loses. Instead he's claiming there's mass voter fraud undertaken by people who are too stupid to do it in places where their vote counts.
Just Tony wrote: Government taking over every aspect of a service gives them no need to be competitive, which leads to gouging (through taxes) which leads to people not being able to afford other necessities, which leads to government expanding to take on more of these services which leads to higher taxes yet until in the fullness of time you hand your entire earnings over in taxes but get your needs distributed to you. Suddenly, what is your incentive to work a more technical job if you are essentially in the same boat as a gas station clerk? If you wind up no better off becoming a doctor, why would you bother? THEREIN lies the failing.
Sorry, but this is just nonsense. We KNOW that the end result of government taking over health care doesn't lead down this bizarre slippery slope to nobody having the ambition to be more than a gas station clerk because there are countries where the government runs health care and there is still plenty of incentive to get a better job. You still get better working conditions, and you still get a bigger paycheck even if you pay more in taxes than you might in the anarcho-capitalist paradise.
I never said private property, as I was clearly talking about property from a real estate perspective got any better rebuttals?
Then your argument makes no sense. For your theory about socialism to make any sense you have to get rid of ALL property. If you can still own private property and only land is state-owned then there is still plenty of incentive for ambition and the capitalist system can continue to run just fine. You might not be able to own a piece of land, but you can still own all sorts of other desirable things.
Oh, for the record I'm glad to see you posting. After all the things you said about the current establishment I was worried that Mike Pence's Grand Imperial Republican Military Police of Christ had rounded up the entirety of the LGBT community and all their supporters into concentration camps.
Good to see you're taking the thread seriously and not just strawmanning things for cheap laughs. Oh wait...
The point was that since taking office, the business that my plant is in has fluctuated in insecurity to the point that there were several layoffs. One got me while I was working as an agency employee, and two essentially got me while working as a full time employee. The fact that we've called back all the layoff employees (at least the ones that would return) and started hiring agency workers again PLUS have enough work to get basically all the overtime we want is what I list as a positive. I make just north of $24 an hour, I don't hurt for money, but having enough business to earn extra and be able to splurge on things is more than a plus. That wasn't happening under Obama, and Clinton was intending to double down on most if not all of his policies.
That's fair enough, but somehow I find it faulty to think that a guy who hasn't even been in office for a week yet was somehow responsible for it.
They did not believe in owning land.
Except they did. They even sold and traded land among one another, which is probably different in the East and West coast tribes I'm familiar with compared to those elsewhere. Plains Indian tribes switched to a highly nomadic society once the Horse was introduced to the continent, and may not have had conceptions of land ownership comparable to ours. The More sedentary tribes, like pretty much anyone who isn't nomadic of course believed in property rights. You can't manage a sedentary, or even a quasi-nomadic culture, without managing the expectations of land use. Natives engaged in private, familial, and communal land ownership. Land tenure, stewardship, fee simple, and feudal systems were all in use by different tribes. Land ownership was not remotely foreign as a concept, nor was it forbidden.
The Plains Tribes are the only ones I know of off the top of my head who didn't engage in it, and not because the concept was foreign but because it wasn't much worth to them. Once the Horse was introduced by the Spanish the plains Indians switched from be quasi-nomadic to be straight nomadic, but they still recognized a degree of land ownership in regards to tribal groups.
Useful link[. A good book that covers the issue to a degree is Looking East From Indian Country by Daniel Richter. TV movies and idealized notions of nature loving hippie Indians invented by environmentalists in the 70s are a really bad source of info.
The land was, to them, a very sacred thing.
That's just another myth...
It's mostly an invention of 18th century white folks arguing that it was perfectly fine to take Indian lands because they didn't own it anyway (which is funny cause they fought an awful lot over their borders with the US for people who didn't believe in owning land).
Most other tribes lived a nomadic life, which didn't involve possession of land in the Western sense.
This is also a myth. Native Tribes in the American South were very sedentary, as were those in the South West, North West, and North East. The Plains tribes eventually became nomadic, but only after the introduction of the horse.
They had territories that they had to defend from rival tribes from time to time, but no true property ownership.
This is self contradictory. Either you recognize that you can own land, or you cannot. if you're defending territory from other tribes then you recognize that the land is yours. Fee Simple is not the own form of land ownership. Most of Western Europe hadn't even established Fee Simple ownership by the time of colonization, and was still operating on a loss tenure/steward system. The exception was England where a large number of people owned their own land outright, and these stereotypes you're falling back on are very classic Anglo assumptions about Native tribes.
That is why they didn't protest the land deals in the back
Except they did... What you think all those wars were just because they didn't like the smell?
You also didn't touch the part about technological stagnation and lack of innovation, but that's because there is nothing to dispute.
it's faulty to assume that just because natives didn't achieve the technological level of Western Europe that they weren't capable of innovation at all. By the time the US was expanding westward the advanced civilizations of North America were largely long dead or had declined from their progress in the wake of forced relocations, violent conflict, and disease. The Pueblo peoples, and the Mississippi Mound Builders for example. The former are still around, but they stopped living in those famous mesa towns and their farm manors by the 19th century, and the Mississippi Mound builders were probably wiped out by diseases that traveled rapidly along their advanced and well developed cities and trade routes.
You're operating on an extremely broad brush here. The Pueblo people were a quasi-Feudal society when the Spanish first encountered them, complete with manor houses and multi-story buildings. The Iroquois moved around when a large group of Iroquois moved, they didn't just pack up tents. They disassembled an entire village and carried it by hand as much as a week away and rebuilt it, then built earthwork fortifications. They'd stay in one spot for as much as thirty years. It's not even clear what drove the movement; resource depletion in the initial settlement area, or simple generation movement to a new location from an old one. The classic American log cabin? The Europeans developed it by mixing knowledge from Europe with knowledge gained from Indians. A tribes practices were defined far more by the economic activity they engaged in than some overarching concept of the holiness of the land. The Iroquois were hunters and farmers (lots more hunting when the fur trade became profitable), the pueblo had complex and well developed irrigation systems, and the North West tribes created some of the first fish farms.
The Americas were settled much latter than the Indus, or the Middle East. Native Americans were a vast group, and if anything stunted their development it was the sudden arrival of Europeans who'd been sedentary and developing for much longer than they had. By the time Pre-Columbian groups began building complex cities, the Europeans, Asians, and even Africans, had been doing it for over 2000 years.
You didn't want to go with Rawhide? Since I was borne in '74, maybe a John Wayne western would be more appropriate. I shouldn't even dignify this with a response, but I want to make it clear that it isn't affecting me in the way you'd hoped
I'll be honest. Blazing Saddles and Bonanza are like the only western TV shows I know by name (though Rawhide does come to mind now that you mention it).
And honestly, if you don't want people to talk like you're getting your history from TV, you could try not falling back on long disproven stereotypes (and that's without even pointing out the sweeping brush you're using).
ScootyPuffJunior wrote: So the TL;DR is that it's Trump's opinion that "millions" of people voted illegally (which we all know is just as good as fact), he doesn't understand the basics of research papers, and doesn't like it when reporters tell the truth if it isn't what people want to hear.
Trump is actually trying to argue that there's millions of illegal votes cast... in non-swing states. Because if those votes were cast in swing states Trump loses. Instead he's claiming there's mass voter fraud undertaken by people who are too stupid to do it in places where their vote counts.
It'd be funny if it wasn't so serious.
I'm sure it went something like this:
Illegal voters: Hey, there's like five million of us. Where do you want us to go?
Democrats: Umm... how about California and New York?
Illegal voters: Are you sure we shouldn't go to swing states to secure a victory?
Democrats: Nope. Just those two states.
Just listening to him talk about it just shows you how bizarre Trump really is. He claims that he didn't campaign to win the popular vote and that doing so would have been easier (it wouldn't have) but if he wanted to he could have and that he didn't lose the popular vote because of all of the millions of "illegal voters" but he also did lose the popular vote because he wasn't actually campaigning for it. Also, the fact that he sat on national television and claimed he never campaigned in California or New York shows how effortlessly he lies. He was in A Whale's Vagina (San Diego) in June, after he had secured the nomination and all other candidates had dropped from the primary. He was in New York ten times after the RNC, most of which were 'off the record' but two were actual campaign stops.
LordofHats wrote: The Americas were settled much latter than the Indus, or the Middle East. Native Americans were a vast group, and if anything stunted their development it was the sudden arrival of Europeans who'd been sedentary and developing for much longer than they had. By the time Pre-Columbian groups began building complex cities, the Europeans, Asians, and even Africans, had been doing it for over 2000 years.
While this would intuitively seem to be the case, its actually a different factor entirely. The development of complex civilization; towns, cities, etc, was indeed stunted in a way, but not due to any inherent trait of the Native Americans themselves. Rather, North and South America do not have any large animals that could be domesticated for labor. Europe, Asia, and Africa had cows, oxen, elephants, horses, while the Americas had... Llamas. More importantly, your point stands that it had nothing to do with the government systems in place (which were quite diverse).
Sec. 14. Privacy Act. Agencies shall, to the extent consistent with applicable law, ensure that their privacy policies exclude persons who are not United States citizens or lawful permanent residents from the protections of the Privacy Act regarding personally identifiable information.
Awkward, lets make public that we're going to actively treat anyone not a US citizen as a data mining and surveillance target. Beeteedubbs, this is going to fundamentally sink the US-EU Data shield agreement that we just spent years negotiating following the Snowden revalations, which pretty much the entire US tech industry got behind, as the US will violate it by default and may result in US companies being unable to legally do business in the EU.
Yay!
Fething hell. Am I reading that right? If i come to the US for a business trip i have essentially no privacy rights at all? Does that apply to things like data? If my foreigner self uses a US based email host, I have no privacy either?
That really will s rew to over your access yo European business. The Uk won't mind, May is a massive proponent of spying on her plebs.
CptJake wrote: If Mexico stops aiding folks from further south (they tightly control who passes through and aid in their passing) because there is not an easy way to pass them through, a lot of it stops at Mexico's southern border.
I live in a country surrounded by water, and people still get in. It is easier (and much cheaper) to walk over a land border, but if a person is going to cross through three countries to reach Mexico just to cross that border, then it is very stupid to think that one wall at the final border is going to stop them.
And your Asia point is borderline silly. Illegal immigrants from our south may be declining, and from Asia may be increasing (generally visa overstays), but the NUMBERS from each are still significantly different. Add Mexico to South and Central American nations and you have many times the total from Asian nations, and it isn't even close.
You say my point on Asia is silly, while you yourself raised South America... by your own figures 1.78m compared to 1.17m. So you're arguing that we really need to talk about 1.78m, but mentioning 1.17m is borderline silly. Funny stuff.
Anyhow, moving past the little debate holes you dig for yourself, and on to the substance of the issue, I'll repeat my point. People without visas from Asia are growing, people from Mexico without visas are declining. Trends matter. Declining illegal immigration from Mexico suggests a problem that is solving itself, primarily through improved economic conditions in Mexico. Arguing you need billions to build a wall for a problem that is solving itself is incredibly stupid policy.
NuggzTheNinja wrote: Mexico is going to bend the knee. The peso was already at an all-time low...today's cancellation puts it at a steady -1%. Nieto is facing two options, (1) bend the knee, (2) face near-certain economic ruin. Have fun with that.
This would make sense if bluster and idiocy was able to influence trade laws. But here in the real world international laws exist, they even apply to the great orange one.
Hence Trump's rather pathetic call to put a 20% tariff on Mexico, that got walked back as just a suggestion the same say, when it was explained to Trump, Pence and the rest of those idiots that you can't actually just create a single nation tariff because you want to. It breaks GATT, it breaks WTO, and those are things the US needs in order for its economy to exist.
Seriously, I know you want to spend the next 4 years cheering on Trump now that you've got one of your team in the whitehouse. But if you just cheer him on each time without reading what he's written, you're going to end up looking like an idiot, a lot. If you have any interest in not looking like an idiot, you are going to need to read a fair bit about Trump's ideas, and not just assume they must be awesome because they came from team red.
LordofHats wrote: The Americas were settled much latter than the Indus, or the Middle East. Native Americans were a vast group, and if anything stunted their development it was the sudden arrival of Europeans who'd been sedentary and developing for much longer than they had. By the time Pre-Columbian groups began building complex cities, the Europeans, Asians, and even Africans, had been doing it for over 2000 years.
While this would intuitively seem to be the case, its actually a different factor entirely. The development of complex civilization; towns, cities, etc, was indeed stunted in a way, but not due to any inherent trait of the Native Americans themselves. Rather, North and South America do not have any large animals that could be domesticated for labor. Europe, Asia, and Africa had cows, oxen, elephants, horses, while the Americas had... Llamas. More importantly, your point stands that it had nothing to do with the government systems in place (which were quite diverse).
Gah. That's a terrible answer to the question brought to us by my dear frienemy Jared Diamond
A lack of labor animals is an impediment to developing complex agriculture, but it didn't stop the Pueblo, Inca, Omec, Aztects, Maya, or the Mound Builders from developing such systems The first Americans arrived 24-14,000 years ago from Asia (possible some later migrants arrived from the Pacific somehow as there are genetic traces that suggest a possible link, as well as the Sweet Potato mystery) Compare that complex agricultural societies didn't even appear in Eurasia till 10,000 years ago, so really the Americas were making faster progress Though realistically they likely learned of some advanced agricultural techniques from late arrival settlers who appeared on the West Coast as late as 5,000 years ago. EDIT: Speaking of which, there's also a theory the Vikings introduced some improvements to the crop systems used in the far Northeast when they arrived Vinland over 1000 years ago.Viking Artifacts have been found as far south as Maine, though they likely traveled via trade rather than by actual vikings. Even funnier, there's an account in one of the Sagas of a war between the Vikings and the Native tribes of Vinland (called the Skaldi), and it turns out the natives kicked the Viking's asses so hard they were compared to demons XD
Our distant ancestors first began to leave Africa 70,000 years ago, reached India 50,000 years ago, and Asia/Australia (weird right? We got to Australia first) 40,000 years ago. There's still a bit of lag in the Americas, but the most straightforward explanation for it is that food was an abundant enough resource throughout most of the Americas that moving around was more economical for some time linger than it was for the Eurasians (and the geography was somewhat unfriendly to the develop of cosmopolitan societies in many places).
Fething hell. Am I reading that right? If i come to the US for a business trip i have essentially no privacy rights at all? Does that apply to things like data? If my foreigner self uses a US based email host, I have no privacy either?
That really will s rew to over your access yo European business. The Uk won't mind, May is a massive proponent of spying on her plebs.
Don't worry. We don't have any either. Not with cell phone and telecom companies selling all our data to the police for millions of our tax dollars
Kilkrazy wrote: It's a particularly stupid policy when it is likely to downgrade the Mexican economy and give Mexicans greater incentive to get into the USA.
Yeah, this is the incoherence that is Trump. He wants to build a wall that won't actually stop people, and at the same time he wants to create economic chaos in Mexico that will actually drive an increase in people wanting to come to the US.
sebster wrote: Yeah, this is the incoherence that is Trump. He wants to build a wall that won't actually stop people, and at the same time he wants to create economic chaos in Mexico that will actually drive an increase in people wanting to come to the US.
And it all comes back to this: 60 million people voted for this insanity. Weep for this country...
So how Trump figures US people paying more for stuff brought from Mexico means Mexico pays the wall? Actual money all comes from US citizens...Wonder how long it takes for Trump fans to realize this?
Unless Trump meant by "Mexico pays for it" by not in terms of money but "I'm going to hurt them bad". Economical sense of making them pay by hitting them teeth.
Problem with that is that it just results in economics of two country suffer so sorta like MAD scenario in use. And assumes Mexico can't find alternative markets elsewhere. If they can effect is much reduced while US tax payers still ends up paying the wall.
Sometimes I'm not sure does Trump even believe BS he sprouts or is it just tactics to get more wealth and ego boosting for himself. But pretty sad how millions actually buy this BS.
One of the insane things about it is that Mexico is one of our largest trade partners. Sure they make a lot of stuff we buy, but they buy a lot of our stuff in turn. They could easily retaliate against any attempt to hurt their trade, and then we're in the middle of a trade war.
LordofHats wrote: One of the insane things about it is that Mexico is one of our largest trade partners. Sure they make a lot of stuff we buy, but they buy a lot of our stuff in turn. They could easily retaliate against any attempt to hurt their trade, and then we're in the middle of a trade war.
Yeah. And they have already stated they will retaliate any tarif.
I soooooo badly want to see Trump's face when he realizes his plan didn't work out like he thought it would.
Maybe Trump then plans to invade Mexico. After all he already mentioned occupuing Iraq for their money so he's not against idea of invading other countries for money...And people accused of Clinton being a warhawk. At least she wasn't openly talking about invading and occupying other country for their natural resources!
I soooooo badly want to see Trump's face when he realizes his plan didn't work out like he thought it would.
Alas he'll never see it as being his fault, he'll deflect it as some sort of conspiracy, and probably blame Mexico.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I think what I'd do if I was mexico was to agree to build the wall under the following conditions:
1. The US loans mexico the fully $25bn, paid back over 50 years, 0% interest
2. The wall is built fully on the US side of the border
3. By a mexican construction company
4. With mexican staff
5. Mexican materials
6. And with no US involvement at all. No design, approval, anything.
Then use it as a great way to boost the Mexican economy at the US taxpayers expense.
enhanced controls/surveillance is one thing, but a wall can be (and what wall do exist are) routinely defeated.
Oh yea, you need an Israeli style in depth system. Or flying monkeys with ray guns. I like ray guns.
The Israeli system has also proven defeatable and has been something of a major ongoing international issue. But really, anything that potentially jeapordizes my avocado and guacamole supply is something I'm going to get upset about, though flying monkeys would be amusing at least.
Dude its Trump. Deep Thought is not the appropriate nickname here methinks.
true enough.
No reason tradee can't continue. Every other nation has both trade and attempts to control its border. Besides guac is probably made in china now...
BigWaaagh wrote: Herr Goebbels does not appreciate mainstream news disrupting the party lie, I mean, line. "I want you to quote this," Mr. Bannon added. “The media here is the opposition party." And the lap dogs, just keep lapping it up.
I soooooo badly want to see Trump's face when he realizes his plan didn't work out like he thought it would.
Alas he'll never see it as being his fault, he'll deflect it as some sort of conspiracy, and probably blame Mexico.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I think what I'd do if I was mexico was to agree to build the wall under the following conditions:
1. The US loans mexico the fully $25bn, paid back over 50 years, 0% interest 2. The wall is built fully on the US side of the border 3. By a mexican construction company 4. With mexican staff 5. Mexican materials 6. And with no US involvement at all. No design, approval, anything.
Then use it as a great way to boost the Mexican economy at the US taxpayers expense.
Don't forget the bit where Mexico retains the contract to carry out all future repairs and maintenance, the cost of which is not included in the $25bn.
BigWaaagh wrote: Herr Goebbels does not appreciate mainstream news disrupting the party lie, I mean, line. "I want you to quote this," Mr. Bannon added. “The media here is the opposition party." And the lap dogs, just keep lapping it up.
Thats is something actually insanely Goebbels-esque...
Especially when you consider that the administration is more than happy to pander to Fox and the rest of the right-wing-outrage machine. So look at the bright side. There's finally an admission that Faux and Fiends aren't real news
Its actually hard to find "real news" now that isn't heavily slanted, and more importantly talking heads in Washington harrumping about this or that. It used to be slightly slanted now its heavily slanted. I tend to just read off feeds now.
Wait what? This sounds like something that would be in a childrens TV Show
The "sweet potato mystery" is related to the presence of Sweet Potatoes in Polynesia. By the time the Portugese arrived in the south Pacific the Sweet Potato was already widely cultivated by islanders throughout the region. It's interesting because the sweet potato is native to the Americas. There is however no accepted theory for how the Sweet Potato got off the Americas and ended up in Polynesia. Theoretically either group could have reached one another by sea but we have no direct evidence for a trade relationship like pottery or jewelry or anything. Just Sweet Potatoes. Which is weird.
Wait what? This sounds like something that would be in a childrens TV Show
The "sweet potato mystery" is related to the presence of Sweet Potatoes in Polynesia. By the time the Portugese arrived in the south Pacific the Sweet Potato was already widely cultivated by islanders throughout the region. It's interesting because the sweet potato is native to the Americas. There is however no accepted theory for how the Sweet Potato got off the Americas and ended up in Polynesia. Theoretically either group could have reached one another by sea but we have no direct evidence for a trade relationship like pottery or jewelry or anything. Just Sweet Potatoes. Which is weird.
Hence the Sweet Potato Mystery
I'm still going to imagine smiling people on TV reading out the story of Polynesia and the Sweet Potato Mystery from a big picture book
Boy, when Vervunhive in the south finally wakes up to the fact that that this isn't just any old Trade War, and that Ferrozoica has fallen completely under the control of Heritor Asphodel, and the dark gods of Chaos, they're going to be in for it...
Wait, no, that's a Gaunt's Ghosts book. I got confused for a second. Carry on.
Its actually hard to find "real news" now that isn't heavily slanted, and more importantly talking heads in Washington harrumping about this or that. It used to be slightly slanted now its heavily slanted. I tend to just read off feeds now.
I think it's not hard to find "real news" It's hard to find "hard news." The overwhelming amount of news is just networks, papers, blogs, and such repeating what an original source point says (Reuters and the AP are the most common source points). Few news services engage in lmore than basic fact checking, and many focus on news that will earn them money because most news is for profit. That means they produce what people want to hear much more than what anyone might actually need to hear. Serious investigative journalism is few and far between and more often than not buried in the minutia of day to day reporting. Many news groups are dependent on ad advertising online, and paper papers are dying across the country (though there has been a surge in the past few years with local online reporting that might help improve sourcing). They can't afford to actually investigate anything themselves so they rely on a select few sources for stories; government officials, international organizations, etc.
CNN is the most straight forward example I can think off. Literally 80% of what they publish is "X happens, Y says _____, Z disagrees, expert _______ has this to say." Like really. They've got a formula and they've mastered the hell out of it. It's not fake. It's not meaningless information, but it isn't very insightful and it's not very interesting. We don't really have anyone to blame for it but ourselves though. Especially with the growth of "outrage" news, that's really kind of our fault because 1) we operate in an environment where news is published for profit and 2) we buy that gak up.
LordofHats wrote: To be fair to Frazzled, he said rather plainly a page ago what he thinks about Trump and the idea of a literal "Great Wall Guadalupe Hidalgo" as a border defense a page ago and he was not positive.
Exactly, although if he develops a Manhattan project to develop sharks with with friggin lazer beams or if not sharks angry sea bass, then I am all for it.
LordofHats wrote: One of the insane things about it is that Mexico is one of our largest trade partners. Sure they make a lot of stuff we buy, but they buy a lot of our stuff in turn. They could easily retaliate against any attempt to hurt their trade, and then we're in the middle of a trade war.
We have a trade deficit with them since NAFTA started.
But they also made it clear to BuzzFeed News that they are likely to want something in return – and that could include improved access to the UK’s healthcare market.
Todd Young, a senator from Indiana, said he was receptive to the idea of a free-trade deal with the UK and said he is “always looking for opportunities to open up foreign markets” to goods and services produced in Indiana – including healthcare.
“The life sciences industry in my own state happens to be quite robust and a driver of job creation so there may be some opportunities there as well,” he said.
Asked whether a trade deal represented a good opportunity for such businesses to get involved in UK healthcare, he said: “Yes, indeed.
This latest debacle concerning the misspelling of Theresa May's name pretty much sums up Trump's first week.
Mexico, alternative facts, National Parks, inauguration crowds, and now this.
I appreciate the fact that mistakes happen, the staff are probably new to the job, but I get the impression that already after only 7 days, things are spiralling out of control.
Now I'm reading that the intelligence community will quietly get their revenge on Trump with a few well timed leaks.
If this is Trump + 7, God knows what Trump + 365 will look like.
TBF for ages they kept misspelling 'Osama Bin Laden' as 'Saddam Hussein'.
Have an exalt for that.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
tneva82 wrote: So how Trump figures US people paying more for stuff brought from Mexico means Mexico pays the wall? Actual money all comes from US citizens...Wonder how long it takes for Trump fans to realize this?
Unless Trump meant by "Mexico pays for it" by not in terms of money but "I'm going to hurt them bad". Economical sense of making them pay by hitting them teeth.
Problem with that is that it just results in economics of two country suffer so sorta like MAD scenario in use. And assumes Mexico can't find alternative markets elsewhere. If they can effect is much reduced while US tax payers still ends up paying the wall.
Sometimes I'm not sure does Trump even believe BS he sprouts or is it just tactics to get more wealth and ego boosting for himself. But pretty sad how millions actually buy this BS.
LordofHats wrote: One of the insane things about it is that Mexico is one of our largest trade partners. Sure they make a lot of stuff we buy, but they buy a lot of our stuff in turn. They could easily retaliate against any attempt to hurt their trade, and then we're in the middle of a trade war.
We have a trade deficit with them since NAFTA started.
The USA has had a trade deficit since 1976.
International trade doesn't work by every pair of countries making exactly equal exports and imports between each other. The USA can spend more money in Mexico than vice versa. Australia spends more money in the USA than vice versa. China spends more money in Australia than vice versa. And so on and so on.
Tell me about it. If we're going to learn history and sociology from television can it at least be the newest line hip shows on Fox that'll be cancelled by the end of the year? Bonanza is so date.
You didn't want to go with Rawhide? Since I was borne in '74, maybe a John Wayne western would be more appropriate. I shouldn't even dignify this with a response, but I want to make it clear that it isn't affecting me in the way you'd hoped.
Sorry, but that was not directed towards you. I mean to more add on to what you said. But seriously the education system we have is underfunded and budget gets cut every year.
I didn't really understand that stream of Tweets, but I am impressed at her Twitter name of ScatX. Edgy, especially for a traditional place like Texas.
Kilkrazy wrote: I didn't really understand that stream of Tweets, but I am impressed at her Twitter name of ScatX. Edgy, especially for a traditional place like Texas.
Rogue Nasa [Twitter] account fights Trump on climate change
The "Alt-Government" accounts have been freaking magical.
Also, for anyone interested in the National Parks Service? I highly suggest you track down a copy of "Can't Chew the Leather Anymore: Musings on Wildlife Conservation in Yellowstone from a Broken-Down Biologist".
I don't usually like plugging things from people I know, but one of the authors is a family friend...and it's a damn good read. We bought copies for everyone in my family when it first came out, and I've been leaving copies out and about town.
Kilkrazy wrote: I didn't really understand that stream of Tweets, but I am impressed at her Twitter name of ScatX. Edgy, especially for a traditional place like Texas.
Sheriff Sally Hernandez announced that her office would be scaling back its involvement w/ a voluntary ICE immigration program --She campaigned on this promise. She's still following federal law.
The Republican governor promised to revoke funding to Travis County if Hernandez does this...
& they want to pass A LAW to remove her from office
A top cybersecurity specialist in Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) was arrested on Wednesday reportedly on suspicion of leaking information to the U.S. intelligence community — a bombshell accusation that, if true, would mean Washington had a spy in the heart of Russia’s national defense infrastructure.
According to the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, the FSB believes Sergei Mikhailov tipped off U.S. officials to information about Vladimir Fomenko and his server rental company “King Servers,” which the American cybersecurity company ThreatConnect identified last September as “an information nexus” that was used by hackers suspected of working for Russian state security in cyberattacks.
According to the RBC news agency, a total of four individuals have been arrested in connection with the treason case against Mikhailov, including charges against Ruslan Stoyanov, the head of cybercrime investigations at Kaspersky Labs, and Dmitry Dokuchaev, who worked in the same FSB unit as Mikhailov.
The name of the fourth treason suspect is still unknown.
Last night I noted that a top Russian spy who is the number two person in the FSB department which allegedly oversaw the US election hacking operation had been arrested and charged with treason. Was he a sacrificial lamb and olive branch to Trump? A way for Putin to claim that his spy services had perhaps gone rogue? Or was he suspected of being a source to US intelligence? People who fall from grace in Putin's Russia are often dealt with with trumped up criminal prosecutions. But treason is a special charge.
Well, now we have reports that Sergei Mikhailov is suspected of being a US asset at the heart of Russian intelligence.
The report is from The Moscow Times, a respected English language publication. But the report appears to rely on a report in Novaya Gazeta.
From the Moscow Times ...
A top cybersecurity specialist in Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) was arrested on Wednesday reportedly on suspicion of leaking information to the U.S. intelligence community — a bombshell accusation that, if true, would mean Washington had a spy in the heart of Russia’s national defense infrastructure.
Here's the additional detail ...
According to the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, the FSB believes Sergei Mikhailov tipped off U.S. officials to information about Vladimir Fomenko and his server rental company “King Servers,” which the American cybersecurity company ThreatConnect identified last September as “an information nexus” that was used by hackers suspected of working for Russian state security in cyberattacks.
The article goes on to say that four others have been arrested in connection to the treason case against Mikhailov. It is important to note that even if these are the charges, in a country like Russia, what you're charged with isn't just not necessarily true. It may not even be what the state and prosecutors think is true.
But this immediately poses the question: if Mikhailov was a US asset, how was he compromised? Did the information put out by US intelligence somehow lead to his exposure? Without putting too fine a point on it, a number of close advisors to President Trump are being scrutinized for ties to Russia. Some of them participated in the intelligence briefings the President receives.
PPP's newest national poll finds Donald Trump continuing to fare poorly with the public in his first week in office. Voters split evenly in their appraisals of his job performance with 44% approving and 44% disapproving of him. These are historically awful numbers for a newly elected President. When it comes to Trump's favorability rating, only 44% of voters see him positively to 50% with a negative opinion. By contrast the women who participated in marches across the country last weekend against Trump are seen positively by 50% of voters, to just 41% who see them poorly.
There are a number of reasons for Trump's continuing unpopularity. One piece of it is that voters don't like the policies he wants to enact:
-We find that only 34% of voters want to build a wall with Mexico if American taxpayers have to pay up front for it, compared to 53% who are opposed to doing that.
-We find that with Trump in office now, the Affordable Care Act is reaching record levels of popularity with 45% of voters supporting it to 41% who are opposed. Only 30% of voters think the best plan is to repeal the act and start over, while 61% would prefer Congress to keep the Affordable Care Act and fix parts that aren't working.
Another set of reasons that Trump's struggling right now are concerns about his transparency and conflicts of interest:
-59% of voters think Trump needs to release his tax returns, to just 32% who don't think it's necessary for him to. In fact, 54% of voters would support a law requiring candidates for President to release 5 years of tax returns in order to appear on the ballot, to just 34% who would be opposed to putting that requirement in place.
-61% of voters think Trump needs to fully divest from his business interests, to only 28% who don't think it's necessary for him to do that.
-Trump's ties to Russia continue to be a problem for him. Only 13% of voters have a favorable opinion of Russia, to 60% with a negative view of it. For Vladimir Putin himself, the numbers are even worse. Just 10% of voters see him positively, with 67% having an unfavorable opinion of him. Continued close ties to Russia could be a problem for Trump even with his own base- among his voters Russia has a 20/47 favorability rating and Putin's is 15/55.
Voters are so dim on Trump that they think, in the first week of his administration, that he will prove to be a worse President than everyone who's held the office since Richard Nixon
-42% of Trump voters think he should be allowed to have a private email server to just 39% who think he shouldn't be allowed to. Maybe cyber security wasn't such a big issue in last year's election after all.
-And finally only 18% of voters think it's acceptable to punch a Nazi in the face, to 51% who say it's unacceptable and 31% who are unsure on the moral quandary of our times. Clinton and Trump voters are actually in alignment on this with only 18% of each saying it's ok to punch a Nazi. 78% of Jill Stein voters though say that they are pro punching a Nazi, this may be where Hillary fell short.
BigWaaagh wrote: Herr Goebbels does not appreciate mainstream news disrupting the party lie, I mean, line. "I want you to quote this," Mr. Bannon added. “The media here is the opposition party." And the lap dogs, just keep lapping it up.
I think you just officilly tripped the Godwin alarm. Usually Democrats don't start calling the Republicans nazis until the third week.
Sorry, that doesn't play, because when the shoe fits, Bannon's gotta wear it. Stay blindly partisan and be complicit with the slow, but organized assault on mainstream media and contrarian information sources by this administration, i.e. Government Agencies being told what they can and can't release to the American people, CNN being called "Fake News", etc. I'm not going to sit by and just say, "Oh, Donald, you're so spirited." Nope, I will not be a alt-right dupe.
BigWaaagh wrote: Herr Goebbels does not appreciate mainstream news disrupting the party lie, I mean, line. "I want you to quote this," Mr. Bannon added. “The media here is the opposition party." And the lap dogs, just keep lapping it up.
I think you just officilly tripped the Godwin alarm. Usually Democrats don't start calling the Republicans nazis until the third week.
Sorry, that doesn't play, because when the shoe fits, Bannon's gotta wear it. Stay blindly partisan and be complicit with the slow, but organized assault on mainstream media and contrarian information sources by this administration, i.e. Government Agencies being told what they can and can't release to the American people, CNN being called "Fake News", etc. I'm not going to sit by and just say, "Oh, Donald, you're so spirited." Nope, I will not be a alt-right dupe.
LordofHats wrote: One of the insane things about it is that Mexico is one of our largest trade partners. Sure they make a lot of stuff we buy, but they buy a lot of our stuff in turn. They could easily retaliate against any attempt to hurt their trade, and then we're in the middle of a trade war.
We have a trade deficit with them since NAFTA started.
We have a trade deficit with them because we're the biggest consumer on the planet and they're a developing nation that produces quality consumer goods cheaply. Mexico was developing into what it is today before NAFTA came along. The trade agreement only accelerated the process.
Looks like all the Texas politicians actually stopped and realized what protectionism costs. You mean there's a reason why the world has prospered under globalization and the destruction of trade barriers? A lesson learned that's quickly being forgotten to the detriment of all.
"Knock, knock."
"Who is it?"
"Reality check for."
"Reality check for who?"
"Reality check for the neighbor immediately to the north."
BigWaaagh wrote: Herr Goebbels does not appreciate mainstream news disrupting the party lie, I mean, line. "I want you to quote this," Mr. Bannon added. “The media here is the opposition party." And the lap dogs, just keep lapping it up.
I think you just officilly tripped the Godwin alarm. Usually Democrats don't start calling the Republicans nazis until the third week.
Sorry, that doesn't play, because when the shoe fits, Bannon's gotta wear it. Stay blindly partisan and be complicit with the slow, but organized assault on mainstream media and contrarian information sources by this administration, i.e. Government Agencies being told what they can and can't release to the American people, CNN being called "Fake News", etc. I'm not going to sit by and just say, "Oh, Donald, you're so spirited." Nope, I will not be a alt-right dupe.
In contrast to the Obama administration actually wiretapping an entire new bureau and trying to indict the Fox reporter right?
The Nazis didn't shut down the media. They took it over. You're thinking of your commie friends.
BigWaaagh wrote: Herr Goebbels does not appreciate mainstream news disrupting the party lie, I mean, line. "I want you to quote this," Mr. Bannon added. “The media here is the opposition party." And the lap dogs, just keep lapping it up.
I think you just officilly tripped the Godwin alarm. Usually Democrats don't start calling the Republicans nazis until the third week.
Sorry, that doesn't play, because when the shoe fits, Bannon's gotta wear it. Stay blindly partisan and be complicit with the slow, but organized assault on mainstream media and contrarian information sources by this administration, i.e. Government Agencies being told what they can and can't release to the American people, CNN being called "Fake News", etc. I'm not going to sit by and just say, "Oh, Donald, you're so spirited." Nope, I will not be a alt-right dupe.
In contrast to the Obama administration actually wiretapping an entire new bureau and trying to indict the Fox reporter right?
The Nazis didn't shut down the media. They took it over. You're thinking of your commie friends.
What's that, an article about non-existent steelworkers?
Layoffs.
I'm not defending what the Obama administration did. As a matter of fact, we're not even talking about Obama or the Obama administration, Frazz, so please stay with the current thread instead of deflecting in an attempt to avoid the stink of this administration's efforts to undermine mainstream media and stifle dissent.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Trump wants to get rid of the environment enforcement side of the EPA...he does understand that the "P" in "EPA" stands for "Protection", right? His EPA transition guy calls the EPA's work on climate change "junk science". Well, add that to the whole alt-world that Trump is championing. There's a common theme here and it's a drive by this administration to manipulate the population and it usually starts with controlling the dissemination and availability of information.
Associated Press wrote:"We're making more with fewer people," says Howard Shatz, a senior economist at the Rand Corp. think tank.
General Motors, for instance, now employs barely a third of the 600,000 workers it had in the 1970s. Yet it churns out more cars and trucks than ever.
Or look at production of steel and other primary metals. Since 1997, the United States has lost 265,000 jobs in the production of primary metals — a 42 percent plunge — at a time when such production in the U.S. has surged 38 percent.
Allan Collard-Wexler of Duke University and Jan De Loecker of Princeton University found last year that America didn't lose most steel jobs to foreign competition or faltering sales. Steel jobs vanished because of the rise of a new technology: Super-efficient mini-mills that make steel largely from scrap metal.
This is a reality that must be faced. Even in places like China, workers are being replaced by automation. It's easy and convenient to place all the blame on foreign dumping or undercutting, but increasingly automation is just making each individual worker much more productive and thus companies need less of them, though the rewards such productivity gains are captured almost entirely by shareholders rather than resulting in increased pay as well.
BBC wrote:Apple and Samsung supplier Foxconn has reportedly replaced 60,000 factory workers with robots.
One factory has "reduced employee strength from 110,000 to 50,000 thanks to the introduction of robots", a government official told the South China Morning Post.
Xu Yulian, head of publicity for the Kunshan region, added: "More companies are likely to follow suit."
Associated Press wrote:"We're making more with fewer people," says Howard Shatz, a senior economist at the Rand Corp. think tank.
General Motors, for instance, now employs barely a third of the 600,000 workers it had in the 1970s. Yet it churns out more cars and trucks than ever.
Or look at production of steel and other primary metals. Since 1997, the United States has lost 265,000 jobs in the production of primary metals — a 42 percent plunge — at a time when such production in the U.S. has surged 38 percent.
Allan Collard-Wexler of Duke University and Jan De Loecker of Princeton University found last year that America didn't lose most steel jobs to foreign competition or faltering sales. Steel jobs vanished because of the rise of a new technology: Super-efficient mini-mills that make steel largely from scrap metal.
This is a reality that must be faced. Even in places like China, workers are being replaced by automation. It's easy and convenient to place all the blame on foreign dumping or undercutting, but increasingly automation is just making each individual worker much more productive and thus companies need less of them, though the rewards such productivity gains are captured almost entirely by shareholders rather than resulting in increased pay as well.
BBC wrote:Apple and Samsung supplier Foxconn has reportedly replaced 60,000 factory workers with robots.
One factory has "reduced employee strength from 110,000 to 50,000 thanks to the introduction of robots", a government official told the South China Morning Post.
Xu Yulian, head of publicity for the Kunshan region, added: "More companies are likely to follow suit."
China is investing heavily in a robot workforce.
At some point with automation growing the way it is. We will have to deal with a future where some people don't work.
Eliminating a trade deficit is also not worth it if it results in a 0.something percentage increase in total employment for the country, but also results in a single or double digit increase in cost of goods for the entire country.
Sometimes the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.
BigWaaagh wrote: Herr Goebbels does not appreciate mainstream news disrupting the party lie, I mean, line. "I want you to quote this," Mr. Bannon added. “The media here is the opposition party." And the lap dogs, just keep lapping it up.
I think you just officilly tripped the Godwin alarm. Usually Democrats don't start calling the Republicans nazis until the third week.
Sorry, that doesn't play, because when the shoe fits, Bannon's gotta wear it. Stay blindly partisan and be complicit with the slow, but organized assault on mainstream media and contrarian information sources by this administration, i.e. Government Agencies being told what they can and can't release to the American people, CNN being called "Fake News", etc. I'm not going to sit by and just say, "Oh, Donald, you're so spirited." Nope, I will not be a alt-right dupe.
In contrast to the Obama administration actually wiretapping an entire new bureau and trying to indict the Fox reporter right?
The Nazis didn't shut down the media. They took it over. You're thinking of your commie friends.
What's that, an article about non-existent steelworkers?
Layoffs.
I'm not defending what the Obama administration did. As a matter of fact, we're not even talking about Obama or the Obama administration, Frazz, so please stay with the current thread instead of deflecting in an attempt to avoid the stink of this administration's efforts to undermine mainstream media and stifle dissent.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Trump wants to get rid of the environment enforcement side of the EPA...he does understand that the "P" in "EPA" stands for "Protection", right? His EPA transition guy calls the EPA's work on climate change "junk science". Well, add that to the whole alt-world that Trump is championing. There's a common theme here and it's a drive by this administration to manipulate the population and it usually starts with controlling the dissemination and availability of information.
At some point with automation growing the way it is. We will have to deal with a future where some people don't work.
One thing I learned over the past year is that the same people who point to people wanting an increase in minimum wage and laugh when they are replaced by this:
Are often the same people who think that regulations and taxes cost them their manufacturing jobs when in reality they were replaced by this:
Tell all the steel workers in your country, oh wait, you don't have any any more.
18,000 of them disagree.
Compared to 1974 when the steel industry employed 521,000 people, yeah, That's basically nothing.
But "basically nothing" wasn't what Frazzled said. You're moving the goal posts.
I would rather say people are playing being obtuse to weasel out of the argument, as I think frazzleds meaning was quite clear, but I will leave it to frazzled to explain it.
Associated Press wrote:"We're making more with fewer people," says Howard Shatz, a senior economist at the Rand Corp. think tank.
General Motors, for instance, now employs barely a third of the 600,000 workers it had in the 1970s. Yet it churns out more cars and trucks than ever.
Or look at production of steel and other primary metals. Since 1997, the United States has lost 265,000 jobs in the production of primary metals — a 42 percent plunge — at a time when such production in the U.S. has surged 38 percent.
Allan Collard-Wexler of Duke University and Jan De Loecker of Princeton University found last year that America didn't lose most steel jobs to foreign competition or faltering sales. Steel jobs vanished because of the rise of a new technology: Super-efficient mini-mills that make steel largely from scrap metal.
This is a reality that must be faced. Even in places like China, workers are being replaced by automation. It's easy and convenient to place all the blame on foreign dumping or undercutting, but increasingly automation is just making each individual worker much more productive and thus companies need less of them, though the rewards such productivity gains are captured almost entirely by shareholders rather than resulting in increased pay as well.
BBC wrote:Apple and Samsung supplier Foxconn has reportedly replaced 60,000 factory workers with robots.
One factory has "reduced employee strength from 110,000 to 50,000 thanks to the introduction of robots", a government official told the South China Morning Post.
Xu Yulian, head of publicity for the Kunshan region, added: "More companies are likely to follow suit."
China is investing heavily in a robot workforce.
At some point with automation growing the way it is. We will have to deal with a future where some people don't work.
Associated Press wrote:"We're making more with fewer people," says Howard Shatz, a senior economist at the Rand Corp. think tank.
General Motors, for instance, now employs barely a third of the 600,000 workers it had in the 1970s. Yet it churns out more cars and trucks than ever.
Or look at production of steel and other primary metals. Since 1997, the United States has lost 265,000 jobs in the production of primary metals — a 42 percent plunge — at a time when such production in the U.S. has surged 38 percent.
Allan Collard-Wexler of Duke University and Jan De Loecker of Princeton University found last year that America didn't lose most steel jobs to foreign competition or faltering sales. Steel jobs vanished because of the rise of a new technology: Super-efficient mini-mills that make steel largely from scrap metal.
This is a reality that must be faced. Even in places like China, workers are being replaced by automation. It's easy and convenient to place all the blame on foreign dumping or undercutting, but increasingly automation is just making each individual worker much more productive and thus companies need less of them, though the rewards such productivity gains are captured almost entirely by shareholders rather than resulting in increased pay as well.
BBC wrote:Apple and Samsung supplier Foxconn has reportedly replaced 60,000 factory workers with robots.
One factory has "reduced employee strength from 110,000 to 50,000 thanks to the introduction of robots", a government official told the South China Morning Post.
Xu Yulian, head of publicity for the Kunshan region, added: "More companies are likely to follow suit."
China is investing heavily in a robot workforce.
At some point with automation growing the way it is. We will have to deal with a future where some people don't work.
The future? That future occurred 20 years ago.
Not to the extent it will be. We will have to come together as a country and make sure people can live when there is no jobs for them to do. I understand there is a problem now, but it will only get worse.
Associated Press wrote:"We're making more with fewer people," says Howard Shatz, a senior economist at the Rand Corp. think tank.
General Motors, for instance, now employs barely a third of the 600,000 workers it had in the 1970s. Yet it churns out more cars and trucks than ever.
Or look at production of steel and other primary metals. Since 1997, the United States has lost 265,000 jobs in the production of primary metals — a 42 percent plunge — at a time when such production in the U.S. has surged 38 percent.
Allan Collard-Wexler of Duke University and Jan De Loecker of Princeton University found last year that America didn't lose most steel jobs to foreign competition or faltering sales. Steel jobs vanished because of the rise of a new technology: Super-efficient mini-mills that make steel largely from scrap metal.
This is a reality that must be faced. Even in places like China, workers are being replaced by automation. It's easy and convenient to place all the blame on foreign dumping or undercutting, but increasingly automation is just making each individual worker much more productive and thus companies need less of them, though the rewards such productivity gains are captured almost entirely by shareholders rather than resulting in increased pay as well.
BBC wrote:Apple and Samsung supplier Foxconn has reportedly replaced 60,000 factory workers with robots.
One factory has "reduced employee strength from 110,000 to 50,000 thanks to the introduction of robots", a government official told the South China Morning Post.
Xu Yulian, head of publicity for the Kunshan region, added: "More companies are likely to follow suit."
China is investing heavily in a robot workforce.
At some point with automation growing the way it is. We will have to deal with a future where some people don't work.
The future? That future occurred 20 years ago.
Not to the extent it will be. We will have to come together as a country and make sure people can live when there is no jobs for them to do. I understand there is a problem now, but it will only get worse.
While I agree with you, we won't. Most of the world has a tiny uber wealthy class and a vast poor to hyper poor group. That will only exacerbate.
Shadow Captain Edithae wrote: "You have no steelworkers".
"Yes we do".
"You have basically no steelworkers. Stop being obtuse".
Say what you fething mean in the first place then.
I think it was fairly obvious what he meant. There's only 2% of the steel workers there used to be.
Correct. Although the fact there were any surprised. From a BBC show a few months ago it sounded like TATA was going to close UK operations completely in a year.
Associated Press wrote:"We're making more with fewer people," says Howard Shatz, a senior economist at the Rand Corp. think tank.
General Motors, for instance, now employs barely a third of the 600,000 workers it had in the 1970s. Yet it churns out more cars and trucks than ever.
Or look at production of steel and other primary metals. Since 1997, the United States has lost 265,000 jobs in the production of primary metals — a 42 percent plunge — at a time when such production in the U.S. has surged 38 percent.
Allan Collard-Wexler of Duke University and Jan De Loecker of Princeton University found last year that America didn't lose most steel jobs to foreign competition or faltering sales. Steel jobs vanished because of the rise of a new technology: Super-efficient mini-mills that make steel largely from scrap metal.
This is a reality that must be faced. Even in places like China, workers are being replaced by automation. It's easy and convenient to place all the blame on foreign dumping or undercutting, but increasingly automation is just making each individual worker much more productive and thus companies need less of them, though the rewards such productivity gains are captured almost entirely by shareholders rather than resulting in increased pay as well.
BBC wrote:Apple and Samsung supplier Foxconn has reportedly replaced 60,000 factory workers with robots.
One factory has "reduced employee strength from 110,000 to 50,000 thanks to the introduction of robots", a government official told the South China Morning Post.
Xu Yulian, head of publicity for the Kunshan region, added: "More companies are likely to follow suit."
China is investing heavily in a robot workforce.
At some point with automation growing the way it is. We will have to deal with a future where some people don't work.
The future? That future occurred 20 years ago.
Not to the extent it will be. We will have to come together as a country and make sure people can live when there is no jobs for them to do. I understand there is a problem now, but it will only get worse.
This will be the defining challenge of the 21st century.
Shadow Captain Edithae wrote: "You have no steelworkers".
"Yes we do".
"You have basically no steelworkers. Stop being obtuse".
Say what you fething mean in the first place then.
I think it was fairly obvious what he meant. There's only 2% of the steel workers there used to be.
A trend that is reflected worldwide. There will always be a need for steel in the foreseeable future, but new materials are emerging, and of course, new manufacturing methods also reduce the number of workers needed.
Fantastic press conference with May and Trump.
Tomorrow he's looking forward to phone with Putin, Holland and Merkel.
I guess will be less fantastic up to the talk with the russian bear.
I know we are weird (because we say "June 4th, 1985", whereas you say, "The 4th of June, 1985), but even I know that the brits use DD/MM/YYYY. Although this is why I think all forms with dates should specify.
Preposterous. I've been informed by the best people, the good people, that Twitter is full of beanie babies who wouldn't harm a fly, and would never say anything hateful
Trump is against the EU. He has planned to build a golf course in Ireland. He has gotten the approval from Ireland, but for some reasons not from the EU. He hates the EU for that.
Tell all the steel workers in your country, oh wait, you don't have any any more.
The Steel Industry in America began dying in the 40s for a lot of reasons, the foremost being that it is really expensive to make steel in the US and steel costing a lot drives up prices on virtually everything because steel is so ubiquitous in consumer goods. On top of that, US Steel was always of middling quality anyway. The Iron resources in the US aren't exactly the best. The only reason we really had a booming steel industry in the first place was blatant protectionism and the abundance of coal in Appalachia.
That press conference went WAY, WAY better than I expected. Trump behaved himself, even acted like an adult, overall.
I will admit, I kinda might have p**-ed myself a little bit when Laura Kuenssberg asked her question but after only a little awkwardness, it kinda worked out ok.
I'm not gonna say it was the best press conference on the face of the planet but, well, considering what it could very well have been, I'd call it a win.
If we're lucky, May (and, apparently, General Mattis), might be able to keep an eye on Trump, rein him in a little.
That press conference went WAY, WAY better than I expected. Trump behaved himself, even acted like an adult, overall.
I will admit, I kinda might have p**-ed myself a little bit when Laura Kuenssberg asked her question but after only a little awkwardness, it kinda worked out ok.
I'm not gonna say it was the best press conference on the face of the planet but, well, considering what it could very well have been, I'd call it a win.
If we're lucky, May (and, apparently, General Mattis), might be able to keep an eye on Trump, rein him in a little.
So the minute Obama passed the latest round of Russian sanctions, right before he left office, Paul Ryan stated emphatically that they were "overdue". Let's see how this plays out.
That press conference went WAY, WAY better than I expected. Trump behaved himself, even acted like an adult, overall.
I will admit, I kinda might have p**-ed myself a little bit when Laura Kuenssberg asked her question but after only a little awkwardness, it kinda worked out ok.
I'm not gonna say it was the best press conference on the face of the planet but, well, considering what it could very well have been, I'd call it a win.
If we're lucky, May (and, apparently, General Mattis), might be able to keep an eye on Trump, rein him in a little.
Honestly just about anything would be an improvement over this past week.
wuestenfux wrote: Trump is against the EU. He has planned to build a golf course in Ireland. He has gotten the approval from Ireland, but for some reasons not from the EU. He hates the EU for that.
wuestenfux wrote: Trump is against the EU. He has planned to build a golf course in Ireland. He has gotten the approval from Ireland, but for some reasons not from the EU. He hates the EU for that.
Something I've noticed here in the last few days. Trump supporters seem to pop in now and then and offer one sentence summaries of what they like about him/his policies. When confronted with opposing facts, they don't respond . A few days go by, new Trump supporter sentences.
A few of our die hard right leaning supporters stay engaged. Whembly, Frazz, Prestor Jon, and so on. They make claims and counter claims and the thread goes on as usual but they attempt to make clear that they do not like or support Trump explicitly, just some of the policies.
Question: do we have, in the little dakka community, a Trump plant or two? I really doubt it. Do we have a few posters who are doing for trump what the right wing posters said was the initial problem with Obama--essentially religious fanatics? Seems more likely. But still, it doesn't really explain it. Where do the one hit wonders come from? What is their motive?
My opinion? The Trump fans have sublimated the way Trump thinks and talks into their own thoughts and posts. It is a twitter tweet tweet. It is an off hand comment that doesn't really mean anything other than how that person is feeling at that instant. Forget thought, get reaction. Film and post it. Done. Now move on to the next thought. The problem is that doesn't work for thought or analysis or debate.
Mr. Nuggaztheninja, Mr. Just Tony, Mr. (Redacted because they have made comments that have greeted them with bans for posting here), please tell me what your rationale for posting here is, if it isn't for actual discussion.
wuestenfux wrote: Trump is against the EU. He has planned to build a golf course in Ireland. He has gotten the approval from Ireland, but for some reasons not from the EU. He hates the EU for that.
Are you saying Trump is a wee bit vindictive?
Water is a wee bit wet!
Technically, no it isn't.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Gordon Shumway wrote: Something I've noticed here in the last few days. Trump supporters seem to pop in now and then and offer one sentence summaries of what they like about him/his policies. When confronted with opposing facts, they don't respond . A few days go by, new Trump supporter sentences.
A few of our die hard right leaning supporters stay engaged. Whembly, Frazz, Prestor Jon, and so on. They make claims and counter claims and the thread goes on as usual but they attempt to make clear that they do not like or support Trump explicitly, just some of the policies.
Question: do we have, in the little dakka community, a Trump plant or two? I really doubt it. Do we have a few posters who are doing for trump what the right wing posters said was the initial problem with Obama--essentially religious fanatics? Seems more likely. But still, it doesn't really explain it. Where do the one hit wonders come from? What is their motive?
My opinion? The Trump fans have sublimated the way Trump thinks and talks into their own thoughts and posts. It is a twitter tweet tweet. It is an off hand comment that doesn't really mean anything other than how that person is feeling at that instant. Forget thought, get reaction. Film and post it. Done. Now move on to the next thought. The problem is that doesn't work for thought or analysis or debate.
Alternatively, people simply lead busy lives and not everyone has the time or inclination for long drawn out in depth political discussions on a toy soldier forum...not a right wing conspiracy theory.
Question: do we have, in the little dakka community, a Trump plant or two? I really doubt it. Do we have a few posters who are doing for trump what the right wing posters said was the initial problem with Obama--essentially religious fanatics? Seems more likely. But still, it doesn't really explain it. Where do the one hit wonders come from? What is their motive?
I suspect that some (nobody specific) are not really Trump supporters. They are in it for the trolling. The Liberal Tears(tm). The lulz.
Question: do we have, in the little dakka community, a Trump plant or two? I really doubt it. Do we have a few posters who are doing for trump what the right wing posters said was the initial problem with Obama--essentially religious fanatics? Seems more likely. But still, it doesn't really explain it. Where do the one hit wonders come from? What is their motive?
I suspect that some (nobody specific) are not really Trump supporters. They are in it for the trolling. The Liberal Tears(tm). The lulz.
edit: fix quote derp
Yup, that's the reason. They support Trump because it makes SJWs/'Libtards" cry and rage. So they come in, drop a line or two, and then sit back and hope that someone takes the bait.
wuestenfux wrote: Trump is against the EU. He has planned to build a golf course in Ireland. He has gotten the approval from Ireland, but for some reasons not from the EU. He hates the EU for that.
Are you saying Trump is a wee bit vindictive?
Water is a wee bit wet!
Technically, no it isn't.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Gordon Shumway wrote: Something I've noticed here in the last few days. Trump supporters seem to pop in now and then and offer one sentence summaries of what they like about him/his policies. When confronted with opposing facts, they don't respond . A few days go by, new Trump supporter sentences.
A few of our die hard right leaning supporters stay engaged. Whembly, Frazz, Prestor Jon, and so on. They make claims and counter claims and the thread goes on as usual but they attempt to make clear that they do not like or support Trump explicitly, just some of the policies.
Question: do we have, in the little dakka community, a Trump plant or two? I really doubt it. Do we have a few posters who are doing for trump what the right wing posters said was the initial problem with Obama--essentially religious fanatics? Seems more likely. But still, it doesn't really explain it. Where do the one hit wonders come from? What is their motive?
My opinion? The Trump fans have sublimated the way Trump thinks and talks into their own thoughts and posts. It is a twitter tweet tweet. It is an off hand comment that doesn't really mean anything other than how that person is feeling at that instant. Forget thought, get reaction. Film and post it. Done. Now move on to the next thought. The problem is that doesn't work for thought or analysis or debate.
Alternatively, people simply lead busy lives and not everyone has the time or inclination for long drawn out in depth political discussions on a toy soldier forum...not a right wing conspiracy theory.
Next you'll be calling people Russian trolls.
Fair enough. I would hope, however, that people posting here have thought about what they are actually thinking and can defend their thoughts. The fact that they choose not to suggests that there is not defense for their thoughts or that they haven't thought of a defense. People do lead busy lives, that is fair. If they are going to engage with a discussion about politics online, they have the free time to do so. If you do not want a long drawn out discussion, don't post your tweets in the discussion forum. It's sort of a place to discuss stuff.
Gordon Shumway wrote: Fair enough. I would hope, however, that people posting here have thought about what they are actually thinking and can defend their thoughts. The fact that they choose not to suggests that there is not defense for their thoughts or that they haven't thought of a defense. People do lead busy lives, that is fair. If they are going to engage with a discussion about politics online, they have the free time to do so. If you do not want a long drawn out discussion, don't post your tweets in the discussion forum. It's sort of a place to discuss stuff.
TBF I would rather people do that then continue to defend a position based on faulty logic that was already debunked a half-dozen times.
Gordon Shumway wrote: Fair enough. I would hope, however, that people posting here have thought about what they are actually thinking and can defend their thoughts. The fact that they choose not to suggests that there is not defense for their thoughts or that they haven't thought of a defense. People do lead busy lives, that is fair. If they are going to engage with a discussion about politics online, they have the free time to do so. If you do not want a long drawn out discussion, don't post your tweets in the discussion forum. It's sort of a place to discuss stuff.
TBF I would rather people do that then continue to defend a position based on faulty logic that was already debunked a half-dozen times.
While tiresome, it is necessary to strike down those undead arguments every time they are raised from the grave. There are different people lurking in here all the time, and the silent reader is who we are arguing for, not the other side's foot soldiers.
To badly paraphrase someone or other, the price of sensible policy is eternal discourse.
Gordon Shumway wrote: Fair enough. I would hope, however, that people posting here have thought about what they are actually thinking and can defend their thoughts. The fact that they choose not to suggests that there is not defense for their thoughts or that they haven't thought of a defense. People do lead busy lives, that is fair. If they are going to engage with a discussion about politics online, they have the free time to do so. If you do not want a long drawn out discussion, don't post your tweets in the discussion forum. It's sort of a place to discuss stuff.
TBF I would rather people do that then continue to defend a position based on faulty logic that was already debunked a half-dozen times.
A shot across the bow at whembly. It makes no dent. At least he attempts to defend his claims. If asked for sources, he tries to oblige. If caught in a completely nutty spiral, he either ducks out or will admit his fault if pushed hard enough. The Trump one off posters attempt none of that. Time goes by, they just post some other stupid "alternate fact". Set off a discussion of how dumb Trump is, time goes by, new stupid Trump "fact". Is this the modern discussion of politics?
Since I mostly get online on my breaks at work, and do more than just live in the US Politics thread when I AM online, I'll take a brief moment to address this before reading back however many pages to get caught up on Weber's Greatest Hits. I know one had to do with my work from what I skimmed, and I want more time to type for that one...
Gordon Shumway wrote:Something I've noticed here in the last few days. Trump supporters seem to pop in now and then and offer one sentence summaries of what they like about him/his policies. When confronted with opposing facts, they don't respond . A few days go by, new Trump supporter sentences.
A few of our die hard right leaning supporters stay engaged. Whembly, Frazz, Prestor Jon, and so on. They make claims and counter claims and the thread goes on as usual but they attempt to make clear that they do not like or support Trump explicitly, just some of the policies.
Question: do we have, in the little dakka community, a Trump plant or two? I really doubt it. Do we have a few posters who are doing for trump what the right wing posters said was the initial problem with Obama--essentially religious fanatics? Seems more likely. But still, it doesn't really explain it. Where do the one hit wonders come from? What is their motive?
My opinion? The Trump fans have sublimated the way Trump thinks and talks into their own thoughts and posts. It is a twitter tweet tweet. It is an off hand comment that doesn't really mean anything other than how that person is feeling at that instant. Forget thought, get reaction. Film and post it. Done. Now move on to the next thought. The problem is that doesn't work for thought or analysis or debate.
Mr. Nuggaztheninja, Mr. Just Tony, Mr. (Redacted because they have made comments that have greeted them with bans for posting here), please tell me what your rationale for posting here is, if it isn't for actual discussion.
See above, also see below. Also, see that you don't need a justification from me as to why I post. I don't ask you to justify why YOU post.
wuestenfux wrote: Trump is against the EU. He has planned to build a golf course in Ireland. He has gotten the approval from Ireland, but for some reasons not from the EU. He hates the EU for that.
Are you saying Trump is a wee bit vindictive?
Water is a wee bit wet!
Technically, no it isn't.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Gordon Shumway wrote: Something I've noticed here in the last few days. Trump supporters seem to pop in now and then and offer one sentence summaries of what they like about him/his policies. When confronted with opposing facts, they don't respond . A few days go by, new Trump supporter sentences.
A few of our die hard right leaning supporters stay engaged. Whembly, Frazz, Prestor Jon, and so on. They make claims and counter claims and the thread goes on as usual but they attempt to make clear that they do not like or support Trump explicitly, just some of the policies.
Question: do we have, in the little dakka community, a Trump plant or two? I really doubt it. Do we have a few posters who are doing for trump what the right wing posters said was the initial problem with Obama--essentially religious fanatics? Seems more likely. But still, it doesn't really explain it. Where do the one hit wonders come from? What is their motive?
My opinion? The Trump fans have sublimated the way Trump thinks and talks into their own thoughts and posts. It is a twitter tweet tweet. It is an off hand comment that doesn't really mean anything other than how that person is feeling at that instant. Forget thought, get reaction. Film and post it. Done. Now move on to the next thought. The problem is that doesn't work for thought or analysis or debate.
Alternatively, people simply lead busy lives and not everyone has the time or inclination for long drawn out in depth political discussions on a toy soldier forum...not a right wing conspiracy theory.
Next you'll be calling people Russian trolls.
Actually, I'm of Lithuanian descent. That, and I look more like an Orc physically than a Troll.
But here he covers it pretty well. Between work, a special needs 10 month old boy, a massively hyperactive 4 year old girl, a drama filled 15 year old girl, dealing with two sons in college, AND the military, I get on when I can. I tried to simply walk away, but for some reason the odd comment or two will drag me back into posting.
Just Tony wrote: Since I mostly get online on my breaks at work, and do more than just live in the US Politics thread when I AM online, I'll take a brief moment to address this before reading back however many pages to get caught up on Weber's Greatest Hits. I know one had to do with my work from what I skimmed, and I want more time to type for that one...
Gordon Shumway wrote:Something I've noticed here in the last few days. Trump supporters seem to pop in now and then and offer one sentence summaries of what they like about him/his policies. When confronted with opposing facts, they don't respond . A few days go by, new Trump supporter sentences.
A few of our die hard right leaning supporters stay engaged. Whembly, Frazz, Prestor Jon, and so on. They make claims and counter claims and the thread goes on as usual but they attempt to make clear that they do not like or support Trump explicitly, just some of the policies.
Question: do we have, in the little dakka community, a Trump plant or two? I really doubt it. Do we have a few posters who are doing for trump what the right wing posters said was the initial problem with Obama--essentially religious fanatics? Seems more likely. But still, it doesn't really explain it. Where do the one hit wonders come from? What is their motive?
My opinion? The Trump fans have sublimated the way Trump thinks and talks into their own thoughts and posts. It is a twitter tweet tweet. It is an off hand comment that doesn't really mean anything other than how that person is feeling at that instant. Forget thought, get reaction. Film and post it. Done. Now move on to the next thought. The problem is that doesn't work for thought or analysis or debate.
Mr. Nuggaztheninja, Mr. Just Tony, Mr. (Redacted because they have made comments that have greeted them with bans for posting here), please tell me what your rationale for posting here is, if it isn't for actual discussion.
See above, also see below. Also, see that you don't need a justification from me as to why I post. I don't ask you to justify why YOU post.
wuestenfux wrote: Trump is against the EU. He has planned to build a golf course in Ireland. He has gotten the approval from Ireland, but for some reasons not from the EU. He hates the EU for that.
Are you saying Trump is a wee bit vindictive?
Water is a wee bit wet!
Technically, no it isn't.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Gordon Shumway wrote: Something I've noticed here in the last few days. Trump supporters seem to pop in now and then and offer one sentence summaries of what they like about him/his policies. When confronted with opposing facts, they don't respond . A few days go by, new Trump supporter sentences.
A few of our die hard right leaning supporters stay engaged. Whembly, Frazz, Prestor Jon, and so on. They make claims and counter claims and the thread goes on as usual but they attempt to make clear that they do not like or support Trump explicitly, just some of the policies.
Question: do we have, in the little dakka community, a Trump plant or two? I really doubt it. Do we have a few posters who are doing for trump what the right wing posters said was the initial problem with Obama--essentially religious fanatics? Seems more likely. But still, it doesn't really explain it. Where do the one hit wonders come from? What is their motive?
My opinion? The Trump fans have sublimated the way Trump thinks and talks into their own thoughts and posts. It is a twitter tweet tweet. It is an off hand comment that doesn't really mean anything other than how that person is feeling at that instant. Forget thought, get reaction. Film and post it. Done. Now move on to the next thought. The problem is that doesn't work for thought or analysis or debate.
Alternatively, people simply lead busy lives and not everyone has the time or inclination for long drawn out in depth political discussions on a toy soldier forum...not a right wing conspiracy theory.
Next you'll be calling people Russian trolls.
Actually, I'm of Lithuanian descent. That, and I look more like an Orc physically than a Troll.
But here he covers it pretty well. Between work, a special needs 10 month old boy, a massively hyperactive 4 year old girl, a drama filled 15 year old girl, dealing with two sons in college, AND the military, I get on when I can. I tried to simply walk away, but for some reason the odd comment or two will drag me back into posting.
That, is actually a really honest and insightful post. Thank you. Now, please, for the love of your country, if you are going to post about political ideas, discussions, laws, or propositions, take the time to explain why you believe what you are posting and respond to others who might disagree in a similarly insightful way. I want your fellas or (female fellas-couldn't think of female fellas) to grow up in the healthiest, most enriching , thoughtful environment you-or us-could provide for them. I want them to take a cue from their old man that sometimes we can disagree with ideas, but we need to know what your ideas are, why you have them, and what the alternatives are.
Gordon Shumway wrote: Fair enough. I would hope, however, that people posting here have thought about what they are actually thinking and can defend their thoughts. The fact that they choose not to suggests that there is not defense for their thoughts or that they haven't thought of a defense. People do lead busy lives, that is fair. If they are going to engage with a discussion about politics online, they have the free time to do so. If you do not want a long drawn out discussion, don't post your tweets in the discussion forum. It's sort of a place to discuss stuff.
TBF I would rather people do that then continue to defend a position based on faulty logic that was already debunked a half-dozen times.
A shot across the bow at whembly. It makes no dent. At least he attempts to defend his claims. If asked for sources, he tries to oblige. If caught in a completely nutty spiral, he either ducks out or will admit his fault if pushed hard enough. The Trump one off posters attempt none of that. Time goes by, they just post some other stupid "alternate fact". Set off a discussion of how dumb Trump is, time goes by, new stupid Trump "fact". Is this the modern discussion of politics?
<---Zero feths given... that's moi.
We ain't all perfect... but, some are more perfect than others. (channeling Animal Farm-ish there kiddo)
Just over a week in Trumpesto's Presidency... I think everyone needs to chillax a bit, and pay attention to only things that matters... like what Trumpesto's and his administration are doing... not, over crowd-size arguments.
Those are obvious attempts of stray-voltage and gas lightings...
Well, for my part, and if I'm being honest about it, I try and be as fair and balanced as possible.
Obviously, I'm not American, so I didn't vote for or against Trump.
In many ways, and I've said this before, I think Trump is and will be an awful President, will HRC being equally as bad, if she had won.
To be fair though, it's a long time since the USA had a 'good president.' Nixon was gifted, but flawed. LBJ was gifted, and a master of getting laws through Congress, but Vietnam was his doom. Harry Truman was another able president who was also undone by a war.
I'm old enough to remember Reagan, and I liked him as a friendly old uncle type, but I never rated him as a politicians.
Trump is no better or worse than Obama, Bush, or Bill Clinton in many respects.
Back to Trump. As somebody who followed Trump for years, due to his involvement with golf courses in Scotland, I draw one conclusion about Trump: if things are going well, he seems a good guy. If things go against him, avoid him like the plague.
That duality will cause problems in the next 4 years. No President, from Washington to Trump can control fate or predict the future.
Something will go wrong. Not if, but when. And I think Trump is ill suited to handle this.
I still think his foreign policy, if he holds true to his campaign talk, is exactly what America needs right now: realpolitik.
Gordon Shumway wrote: Fair enough. I would hope, however, that people posting here have thought about what they are actually thinking and can defend their thoughts. The fact that they choose not to suggests that there is not defense for their thoughts or that they haven't thought of a defense. People do lead busy lives, that is fair. If they are going to engage with a discussion about politics online, they have the free time to do so. If you do not want a long drawn out discussion, don't post your tweets in the discussion forum. It's sort of a place to discuss stuff.
TBF I would rather people do that then continue to defend a position based on faulty logic that was already debunked a half-dozen times.
A shot across the bow at whembly. It makes no dent. At least he attempts to defend his claims. If asked for sources, he tries to oblige. If caught in a completely nutty spiral, he either ducks out or will admit his fault if pushed hard enough. The Trump one off posters attempt none of that. Time goes by, they just post some other stupid "alternate fact". Set off a discussion of how dumb Trump is, time goes by, new stupid Trump "fact". Is this the modern discussion of politics?
<---Zero feths given... that's moi.
We ain't all perfect... but, some are more perfect than others. (channeling Animal Farm-ish there kiddo)
Just over a week in Trumpesto's Presidency... I think everyone needs to chillax a bit, and pay attention to only things that matters... like what Trumpesto's and his administration are doing... not, over crowd-size arguments.
Those are obvious attempts of stray-voltage and gas lightings...
I agree, but have a question: is an executive order a doing something or saying something? I mean he is doing things with his executive orders by physically moving his pen to sign his name. But he isn't really doing anything about any thing. Nor, I expect with the way that his executive orders have been worded, does he really expect them to do much of anything.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: Well, for my part, and if I'm being honest about it, I try and be as fair and balanced as possible.
Obviously, I'm not American, so I didn't vote for or against Trump.
In many ways, and I've said this before, I think Trump is and will be an awful President, will HRC being equally as bad, if she had won.
To be fair though, it's a long time since the USA had a 'good president.' Nixon was gifted, but flawed. LBJ was gifted, and a master of getting laws through Congress, but Vietnam was his doom. Harry Truman was another able president who was also undone by a war.
I'm old enough to remember Reagan, and I liked him as a friendly old uncle type, but I never rated him as a politicians.
Trump is no better or worse than Obama, Bush, or Bill Clinton in many respects.
Back to Trump. As somebody who followed Trump for years, due to his involvement with golf courses in Scotland, I draw one conclusion about Trump: if things are going well, he seems a good guy. If things go against him, avoid him like the plague.
That duality will cause problems in the next 4 years. No President, from Washington to Trump can control fate or predict the future.
Something will go wrong. Not if, but when. And I think Trump is ill suited to handle this.
I still think his foreign policy, if he holds true to his campaign talk, is exactly what America needs right now: realpolitik.
I'll give Trump credit for that if it works.
One thing I don't think many people think about: when you are president, the things you have to address are the gak crap that others couldn't figure out. It is all bad. You have no good days. Bill passed you like? NK also tested a nuclear bomb. It is why their hair all goes grey. What will happen with trump's hair is a serious national discussion. If it doesn't change, like his wife's face, something is wrong.
Edit: I was wrong to say something about his wife's artificially smiling face. Ignore that bit. She isn't bothered by it so why should we be?
Gordon Shumway wrote: Fair enough. I would hope, however, that people posting here have thought about what they are actually thinking and can defend their thoughts. The fact that they choose not to suggests that there is not defense for their thoughts or that they haven't thought of a defense. People do lead busy lives, that is fair. If they are going to engage with a discussion about politics online, they have the free time to do so. If you do not want a long drawn out discussion, don't post your tweets in the discussion forum. It's sort of a place to discuss stuff.
TBF I would rather people do that then continue to defend a position based on faulty logic that was already debunked a half-dozen times.
A shot across the bow at whembly. It makes no dent. At least he attempts to defend his claims. If asked for sources, he tries to oblige. If caught in a completely nutty spiral, he either ducks out or will admit his fault if pushed hard enough. The Trump one off posters attempt none of that. Time goes by, they just post some other stupid "alternate fact". Set off a discussion of how dumb Trump is, time goes by, new stupid Trump "fact". Is this the modern discussion of politics?
<---Zero feths given... that's moi.
We ain't all perfect... but, some are more perfect than others. (channeling Animal Farm-ish there kiddo)
Just over a week in Trumpesto's Presidency... I think everyone needs to chillax a bit, and pay attention to only things that matters... like what Trumpesto's and his administration are doing... not, over crowd-size arguments.
Those are obvious attempts of stray-voltage and gas lightings...
I agree, but have a question: is an executive order a doing something or saying something? I mean he is doing things with his executive orders by physically moving his pen to sign his name. But he isn't really doing anything about any thing. Nor, I expect with the way that his executive orders have been worded, does he really expect them to do much of anything.
I would categorically call signing EO "doing something" as they're directive from the top to the agencies...
Here's his EO so far (sans proclamations/memoranda):
Multi-pronged orders on border security and immigration enforcement including: the authorization of a U.S.-Mexico border wall; the stripping of federal grant money to sanctuary cities; hiring 5,000 more Border Patrol agents; ending “catch-and-release” policies for illegal immigrants; and reinstating local and state immigration enforcement partnerships.
Two orders reviving the Keystone XL pipeline and Dakota Access piplines. He also signed three other related orders that would: expedite the environmental permitting process for infrastructure projects related to the pipelines; direct the Commerce Department to streamline the manufacturing permitting process; and give the Commerce Department 180 days to maximize the use of U.S. steel in the pipeline.
An order to reinstate the so-called "Mexico City Policy" – a ban on federal funds to international groups that perform abortions or lobby to legalize or promote abortion. The policy was instituted in 1984 by President Reagan, but has gone into and out of effect depending on the party in power in the White House.
He signed a notice that the U.S. will begin withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal. Trump called the order "a great thing for the American worker."
An order imposing a hiring freeze for some federal government workers as a way to shrink the size of government. This excludes the military, as Trump noted at the signing.
An order that directs federal agencies to ease the “regulatory burdens” of ObamaCare. It orders agencies to “waive, defer, grant exemptions from, or delay the implementation of any provision or requirement” of ObamaCare that imposes a “fiscal burden on any State or a cost, fee, tax, penalty, or regulatory burden on individuals, families, healthcare providers, health insurers, patients, recipients of healthcare services, purchasers of health insurance, or makers of medical devices, products, or medications.”
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: ...Trump is no better or worse than Obama, Bush, or Bill Clinton in many respects.
You don't half talk some rubbish sometimes, especially when you go onto say...
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: Back to Trump. As somebody who followed Trump for years, due to his involvement with golf courses in Scotland, I draw one conclusion about Trump: if things are going well, he seems a good guy. If things go against him, avoid him like the plague.
That duality will cause problems in the next 4 years. No President, from Washington to Trump can control fate or predict the future.
Something will go wrong. Not if, but when. And I think Trump is ill suited to handle this.
Obama, Bush and Clinton all had things go wrong, and handled them without having an online meltdown over trivia. How can you say hes no better or worse when you then go onto say that he is ill suited? Trump can't even handle criticism of the size of a crowd. He's not even a tenth of the president of any of these you mentioned, the man is a fething joke.
Gordon Shumway wrote: Fair enough. I would hope, however, that people posting here have thought about what they are actually thinking and can defend their thoughts. The fact that they choose not to suggests that there is not defense for their thoughts or that they haven't thought of a defense. People do lead busy lives, that is fair. If they are going to engage with a discussion about politics online, they have the free time to do so. If you do not want a long drawn out discussion, don't post your tweets in the discussion forum. It's sort of a place to discuss stuff.
TBF I would rather people do that then continue to defend a position based on faulty logic that was already debunked a half-dozen times.
A shot across the bow at whembly. It makes no dent. At least he attempts to defend his claims. If asked for sources, he tries to oblige. If caught in a completely nutty spiral, he either ducks out or will admit his fault if pushed hard enough. The Trump one off posters attempt none of that. Time goes by, they just post some other stupid "alternate fact". Set off a discussion of how dumb Trump is, time goes by, new stupid Trump "fact". Is this the modern discussion of politics?
<---Zero feths given... that's moi.
We ain't all perfect... but, some are more perfect than others. (channeling Animal Farm-ish there kiddo)
Just over a week in Trumpesto's Presidency... I think everyone needs to chillax a bit, and pay attention to only things that matters... like what Trumpesto's and his administration are doing... not, over crowd-size arguments.
Those are obvious attempts of stray-voltage and gas lightings...
I agree, but have a question: is an executive order a doing something or saying something? I mean he is doing things with his executive orders by physically moving his pen to sign his name. But he isn't really doing anything about any thing. Nor, I expect with the way that his executive orders have been worded, does he really expect them to do much of anything.
I would categorically call signing EO "doing something" as they're directive from the top to the agencies...
Here's his EO so far (sans proclamations/memoranda):
Multi-pronged orders on border security and immigration enforcement including: the authorization of a U.S.-Mexico border wall; the stripping of federal grant money to sanctuary cities; hiring 5,000 more Border Patrol agents; ending “catch-and-release” policies for illegal immigrants; and reinstating local and state immigration enforcement partnerships.
Two orders reviving the Keystone XL pipeline and Dakota Access piplines. He also signed three other related orders that would: expedite the environmental permitting process for infrastructure projects related to the pipelines; direct the Commerce Department to streamline the manufacturing permitting process; and give the Commerce Department 180 days to maximize the use of U.S. steel in the pipeline.
An order to reinstate the so-called "Mexico City Policy" – a ban on federal funds to international groups that perform abortions or lobby to legalize or promote abortion. The policy was instituted in 1984 by President Reagan, but has gone into and out of effect depending on the party in power in the White House.
He signed a notice that the U.S. will begin withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal. Trump called the order "a great thing for the American worker."
An order imposing a hiring freeze for some federal government workers as a way to shrink the size of government. This excludes the military, as Trump noted at the signing.
An order that directs federal agencies to ease the “regulatory burdens” of ObamaCare. It orders agencies to “waive, defer, grant exemptions from, or delay the implementation of any provision or requirement” of ObamaCare that imposes a “fiscal burden on any State or a cost, fee, tax, penalty, or regulatory burden on individuals, families, healthcare providers, health insurers, patients, recipients of healthcare services, purchasers of health insurance, or makers of medical devices, products, or medications.”
I agree that they should mean something, but look at the waivers attached to them. One of the waivers states that the signature is "irrelevant when questioned in court or when in contradiction with congress". Whoops. Missed the memo. Another one states that the clause is irrelevant if other laws "supersede" it or are passed before the signing. Whoops. No matter, we still like the guy. Another one actually reads "the language herein shall not be taken for determining the law or have any bearing on any laws passed by the legislature". What does that mean? It means that his signature means nothing other than an intention for what the us might do. Possibly. We are working on it. Like the health care stuff. We really don't care, just please like us.
Edit: I was wrong to say something about his wife's artificially smiling face. Ignore that bit. She isn't bothered by it so why should we be?
That was during a prayer, when Trumpesto turned from her she went to her 'serious payer face'.
However, memes from that episode are hysterical.
I actually wasn't thinking anything or specifically about it. I just thought she is a human with boobs and a vagina. She must be really salty after listening to her man. Her face tells me that? Yup I am right.
Gordon Shumway wrote: Fair enough. I would hope, however, that people posting here have thought about what they are actually thinking and can defend their thoughts. The fact that they choose not to suggests that there is not defense for their thoughts or that they haven't thought of a defense. People do lead busy lives, that is fair. If they are going to engage with a discussion about politics online, they have the free time to do so. If you do not want a long drawn out discussion, don't post your tweets in the discussion forum. It's sort of a place to discuss stuff.
TBF I would rather people do that then continue to defend a position based on faulty logic that was already debunked a half-dozen times.
While tiresome, it is necessary to strike down those undead arguments every time they are raised from the grave. There are different people lurking in here all the time, and the silent reader is who we are arguing for, not the other side's foot soldiers.
To badly paraphrase someone or other, the price of sensible policy is eternal discourse.
I actually never thought about it that way. Honestly that is quite enlightening for me, thanks.
Gordon Shumway wrote: Fair enough. I would hope, however, that people posting here have thought about what they are actually thinking and can defend their thoughts. The fact that they choose not to suggests that there is not defense for their thoughts or that they haven't thought of a defense. People do lead busy lives, that is fair. If they are going to engage with a discussion about politics online, they have the free time to do so. If you do not want a long drawn out discussion, don't post your tweets in the discussion forum. It's sort of a place to discuss stuff.
TBF I would rather people do that then continue to defend a position based on faulty logic that was already debunked a half-dozen times.
A shot across the bow at whembly. It makes no dent. At least he attempts to defend his claims. If asked for sources, he tries to oblige. If caught in a completely nutty spiral, he either ducks out or will admit his fault if pushed hard enough. The Trump one off posters attempt none of that. Time goes by, they just post some other stupid "alternate fact". Set off a discussion of how dumb Trump is, time goes by, new stupid Trump "fact". Is this the modern discussion of politics?
If it were just Whembly I wouldn't have mentioned it. If anything Whembly is the most reasonable for reasons you mentioned.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: ...Trump is no better or worse than Obama, Bush, or Bill Clinton in many respects.
You don't half talk some rubbish sometimes, especially when you go onto say...
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: Back to Trump. As somebody who followed Trump for years, due to his involvement with golf courses in Scotland, I draw one conclusion about Trump: if things are going well, he seems a good guy. If things go against him, avoid him like the plague.
That duality will cause problems in the next 4 years. No President, from Washington to Trump can control fate or predict the future.
Something will go wrong. Not if, but when. And I think Trump is ill suited to handle this.
Obama, Bush and Clinton all had things go wrong, and handled them without having an online meltdown over trivia. How can you say hes no better or worse when you then go onto say that he is ill suited? Trump can't even handle criticism of the size of a crowd. He's not even a tenth of the president of any of these you mentioned, the man is a fething joke.
I stand by my claim that Trump is no better or worse than Clinton/Bush/Obama and is ill-suited to the job of POTUS, because Clinton, Bush, and Obama weren't up to the job either, IMO.
Bill Clinton was nearly impeached, and failed to reign in Federal power in the wake of the Waco debacle. His sanctions against Iraq were also a disaster. Yeah, he was charming but his penchant for liberal intervention abroad laid the foundations for Bush.
George W Bush wrecked the Middle East, and we're still living with the consequnces of that debacle, so no more to say.
Obama promised a lot, but caved in to the usual suspects on Wall Street. I could mention blanket drone attacks, war on whistleblowers, war against the 4th Amendment and his naive approach to foreign affairs, especially his red line in Syria.
Trump is not a good President, but he's not unique in that respect, as the 3 men before him were hardly modern day FDRs.
It should be noted that the impeachment wasn't really legitimate. The "crime" was a joke compared to things presidents regularly do, and the whole process was a straight party-line vote. All that happened was the republican party noticed that they had enough votes to impeach their political opponent (but not to remove him from office) and did it for propaganda purposes. There was no "nearly" about it, everyone knew from the beginning that the senate vote was going to fail and Clinton was going to remain in office.
Trump is not a good President, but he's not unique in that respect, as the 3 men before him were hardly modern day FDRs.
There's a difference between "not a modern FDR" and "completely and utterly unqualified for the job". Clinton, Bush, and Obama were at least legitimate presidents, despite their flaws. Trump is a clown and a narcissist, stumbling from one debacle to the next so quickly that it's hard to keep up. The only real question is if he will go too far and his own party will discard him in favor of Pence.
It should be noted that the impeachment wasn't really legitimate. The "crime" was a joke compared to things presidents regularly do, and the whole process was a straight party-line vote. All that happened was the republican party noticed that they had enough votes to impeach their political opponent (but not to remove him from office) and did it for propaganda purposes. There was no "nearly" about it, everyone knew from the beginning that the senate vote was going to fail and Clinton was going to remain in office.
Trump is not a good President, but he's not unique in that respect, as the 3 men before him were hardly modern day FDRs.
There's a difference between "not a modern FDR" and "completely and utterly unqualified for the job". Clinton, Bush, and Obama were at least legitimate presidents, despite their flaws. Trump is a clown and a narcissist, stumbling from one debacle to the next so quickly that it's hard to keep up. The only real question is if he will go too far and his own party will discard him in favor of Pence.
like him or not, trump is legitimate, he won the election. IMO its not if, its when they "coup" in favor of pence. Trump has a lot of flaws, many of them exaggerated by lies and bias, but if you are truly supportive of any liberal cause you should hope to God almighty that he stays and pence never touches power, ever.
It should be noted that the impeachment wasn't really legitimate. The "crime" was a joke compared to things presidents regularly do, and the whole process was a straight party-line vote. All that happened was the republican party noticed that they had enough votes to impeach their political opponent (but not to remove him from office) and did it for propaganda purposes. There was no "nearly" about it, everyone knew from the beginning that the senate vote was going to fail and Clinton was going to remain in office.
Trump is not a good President, but he's not unique in that respect, as the 3 men before him were hardly modern day FDRs.
There's a difference between "not a modern FDR" and "completely and utterly unqualified for the job". Clinton, Bush, and Obama were at least legitimate presidents, despite their flaws. Trump is a clown and a narcissist, stumbling from one debacle to the next so quickly that it's hard to keep up. The only real question is if he will go too far and his own party will discard him in favor of Pence.
like him or not, trump is legitimate, he won the election. IMO its not if, its when they "coup" in favor of pence. Trump has a lot of flaws, many of them exaggerated by lies and bias, but if you are truly supportive of any liberal cause you should hope to God almighty that he stays and pence never touches power, ever.
They're both bad.
Whatever happens, the next four years are gonna suck, just in potentially different ways. Trump's not exactly a shining bastion of support for liberal causes. And, since he's hilariously suggestible and doesn't seem to particularly care about actual policy, I'd say the time for hoping Pence never touches power is a bit past.
like him or not, trump is legitimate, he won the election.
Well legitimate, yes. Unsuitable, oh god yes.
IMO its not if, its when they "coup" in favor of pence. Trump has a lot of flaws, many of them exaggerated by lies and bias, but if you are truly supportive of any liberal cause you should hope to God almighty that he stays and pence never touches power, ever.
This is true for everyone who isn't Pence's brand of rabid born again jeebus freak, not just liberals.
IMO its not if, its when they "coup" in favor of pence. Trump has a lot of flaws, many of them exaggerated by lies and bias, but if you are truly supportive of any liberal cause you should hope to God almighty that he stays and pence never touches power, ever.
This is true for everyone who isn't Pence's brand of rabid born again jeebus freak, not just liberals.
Indiana seemed quite fine with him, they are not all rabid by any means. he wont attack the center, likely ever. but he will likely go after "sinners"
What's that, an article about non-existent steelworkers?
Layoffs.
They laid off every single steel worker in the UK?
Just admit that you talked out of your ass, again.
To be fair, the UK had to lay off a load of steel workers in the mid-2000s because after loyally supporting the Coalition of the Willing in GW Bush's unnecessary and disastrous war in Iraq, our reward was GW Bush imposing big tariffs on UK steel imports into the US.
Thanks, Obama!
What steeler workers in the UK are equivalent to steel workers in the states?
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Co'tor Shas wrote: I know we are weird (because we say "June 4th, 1985", whereas you say, "The 4th of June, 1985), but even I know that the brits use DD/MM/YYYY. Although this is why I think all forms with dates should specify.
It is basically logical to go from smallest to largest, or vice versa, when looking at dates, addresses, currency, and probably lots of things (weights, for instance.)
1st June 2007.
30 Shepherds Market, London, W1.
Pounds, Shillings, Pence.
Etc.
As an interesting aside, did you know that Saudi Arabian ID cards show dates in non-Arabic numerals?
It should be noted that the impeachment wasn't really legitimate. The "crime" was a joke compared to things presidents regularly do, and the whole process was a straight party-line vote. All that happened was the republican party noticed that they had enough votes to impeach their political opponent (but not to remove him from office) and did it for propaganda purposes. There was no "nearly" about it, everyone knew from the beginning that the senate vote was going to fail and Clinton was going to remain in office.
Trump is not a good President, but he's not unique in that respect, as the 3 men before him were hardly modern day FDRs.
There's a difference between "not a modern FDR" and "completely and utterly unqualified for the job". Clinton, Bush, and Obama were at least legitimate presidents, despite their flaws. Trump is a clown and a narcissist, stumbling from one debacle to the next so quickly that it's hard to keep up. The only real question is if he will go too far and his own party will discard him in favor of Pence.
like him or not, trump is legitimate, he won the election. IMO its not if, its when they "coup" in favor of pence. Trump has a lot of flaws, many of them exaggerated by lies and bias, but if you are truly supportive of any liberal cause you should hope to God almighty that he stays and pence never touches power, ever.
GayPatriot @GayPatriot 19h19 hours ago
More
Trump Administration, Day 7: Still not in a gay concentration camp or electrocuted by Mike Pence.
#LGBT #thankyoutrump
Symbols are important because they motivate people.
The Trump "brand" is based largely on symbolism. He isn't a successful businessman but he plasters his name over loads of stuff and people think he built it. He bangs on about his massive business empire and refuses to release the tax returns that would prove it to be a massive success or a paper tiger. Becoming President doesn't make people think he is a politician, but all his political Twitter "rhetoric" and politcal "Executive Orders" change people's thoughts and therefore their actions about political concerns.
Take the Executive Order to publish weekly updates on crimes committed by immigrants. An obvious move from the authoritarian playbook: Stalin blamed the kulaks, Hitler blamed the Jews, the Chinese and Koreans blame the Japanese, Trump blames "immigrants" (ignoring that his mother was one...) The symbolism provides an outsider that it's OK to hate. Bonus points for them having brown skin and a different religion.
We don't even need to posit that this behaviour might be followed by a wave of hate crime against muslims, sikhs or whoever, because it has happened before in the USA and other countries.
IMO its not if, its when they "coup" in favor of pence. Trump has a lot of flaws, many of them exaggerated by lies and bias, but if you are truly supportive of any liberal cause you should hope to God almighty that he stays and pence never touches power, ever.
This is true for everyone who isn't Pence's brand of rabid born again jeebus freak, not just liberals.
Indiana seemed quite fine with him, they are not all rabid by any means. he wont attack the center, likely ever. but he will likely go after "sinners"
The problem is the LGBTQAI (I apologize if I missed any of the letters recently added, I believe I got them all) community can't see past the erroneous "Queers can't buy pizza ever" shpiel to all the positive things the man has done with Indiana. Even the positives get talked down by the liberal crowd, it happend in this thread earlier when I mentioned the budget surplus.
GayPatriot @GayPatriot 19h19 hours ago
More
Trump Administration, Day 7: Still not in a gay concentration camp or electrocuted by Mike Pence.
#LGBT #thankyoutrump
So, more straw man arguments and cheap laughs instead of addressing the substance of any issues...
IMO its not if, its when they "coup" in favor of pence. Trump has a lot of flaws, many of them exaggerated by lies and bias, but if you are truly supportive of any liberal cause you should hope to God almighty that he stays and pence never touches power, ever.
This is true for everyone who isn't Pence's brand of rabid born again jeebus freak, not just liberals.
Indiana seemed quite fine with him, they are not all rabid by any means. he wont attack the center, likely ever. but he will likely go after "sinners"
The problem is the LGBTQAI (I apologize if I missed any of the letters recently added, I believe I got them all) community can't see past the erroneous "Queers can't buy pizza ever" shpiel to all the positive things the man has done with Indiana. Even the positives get talked down by the liberal crowd, it happend in this thread earlier when I mentioned the budget surplus.
Maybe it got shocked out of them before they could think to ask
IMO its not if, its when they "coup" in favor of pence. Trump has a lot of flaws, many of them exaggerated by lies and bias, but if you are truly supportive of any liberal cause you should hope to God almighty that he stays and pence never touches power, ever.
This is true for everyone who isn't Pence's brand of rabid born again jeebus freak, not just liberals.
Indiana seemed quite fine with him, they are not all rabid by any means. he wont attack the center, likely ever. but he will likely go after "sinners"
The problem is the LGBTQAI (I apologize if I missed any of the letters recently added, I believe I got them all) community can't see past the erroneous "Queers can't buy pizza ever" shpiel to all the positive things the man has done with Indiana. Even the positives get talked down by the liberal crowd, it happend in this thread earlier when I mentioned the budget surplus.
Maybe it got shocked out of them before they could think to ask
Indiana is a fairly conservative state to begin with, I could not imagine it has near the same LGBTQ crowd as here in Colorado, but from living in both, red Indiana treats them a hell of a lot better than blue Colorado.
thekingofkings wrote: red Indiana treats them a hell of a lot better than blue Colorado.
As someone who knows gay activists in Indiana and has worked with them I'm willing to bet that isn't an accurate statement.[/quo
meet some in Colorado, you will change your tune fast. And this is supposed to be the second best state to be gay in. This is from personal experience not rhetoric.
Again still doubtful. You are saying that A is better than B but I'm not saying B is better than A. What I am saying is that the premise and assumption are flawed to begin with.
Again still doubtful. You are saying that A is better than B but I'm not saying B is better than A. What I am saying is that the premise and assumption are flawed to begin with.
Again still doubtful. You are saying that A is better than B but I'm not saying B is better than A. What I am saying is that the premise and assumption are flawed to begin with.
no be honest, you are saying that exactly.
Well I explicitly said that I don't agree so yes, I am saying 'exactly' that I don't agree. I even specifically said what I don't agree with.
GayPatriot @GayPatriot 19h19 hours ago
More
Trump Administration, Day 7: Still not in a gay concentration camp or electrocuted by Mike Pence.
#LGBT #thankyoutrump
So, more straw man arguments and cheap laughs instead of addressing the substance of any issues...
So... a gay man on twittah mocking the idea that Trumpesto will be this anti-gay President... a... straw man?
I think this is going to be what Obama was regarding gun control...
IMO its not if, its when they "coup" in favor of pence. Trump has a lot of flaws, many of them exaggerated by lies and bias, but if you are truly supportive of any liberal cause you should hope to God almighty that he stays and pence never touches power, ever.
This is true for everyone who isn't Pence's brand of rabid born again jeebus freak, not just liberals.
Indiana seemed quite fine with him, they are not all rabid by any means. he wont attack the center, likely ever. but he will likely go after "sinners"
The problem is the LGBTQAI (I apologize if I missed any of the letters recently added, I believe I got them all) community can't see past the erroneous "Queers can't buy pizza ever" shpiel to all the positive things the man has done with Indiana. Even the positives get talked down by the liberal crowd, it happend in this thread earlier when I mentioned the budget surplus.
See, right there Just Tony, in your intro you apologized which wasn't really an apology at all, if it were, why say something in the intro that would need an apology? That is just being a just ass, not a Just Tony. The rest of what you said is ignored because of how you framed the debate.--which is too bad because you might have said something intelligent. Say what you have to say, and defend it if asked or challenged about it. Don't start with an apology because you know you are doing something stupid. Twitter comment made, Twitter comment ignored. Also, calling people "sheeple" is a bit out of date by five years, which is twelve Internet years. Or thirty seven dog internet years. Learn how to Internet.
whembly wrote: So... a gay man on twittah mocking the idea that Trumpesto will be this anti-gay President... a... straw man?
No, "we aren't in concentration camps and electrocuted" is a straw man. It is possible to have an anti-gay president (and, more accurately, an anti-gay vice president, Pence is a much bigger concern than Trump) without things getting to the level of rounding up all the gay people and throwing them in prison. The fact that Trump hasn't immediately done that isn't a counter to concerns over anti-LGBT policies, at all.
GayPatriot @GayPatriot 19h19 hours ago
More
Trump Administration, Day 7: Still not in a gay concentration camp or electrocuted by Mike Pence.
#LGBT #thankyoutrump
So, more straw man arguments and cheap laughs instead of addressing the substance of any issues...
So... a gay man on twittah mocking the idea that Trumpesto will be this anti-gay President... a... straw man?
I think this is going to be what Obama was regarding gun control...
On the whole thing, anti-gay thing:
Trump does not seem to be vehemently anti-gay. He's not pro-gay either, however, and has said some less than nice things about gay people. He has shown that he basically repeats and does anything his people tell him too, so that's not a great start. Add to that the fact that Pence in anti-gay, and the Republican constabulary as a whole also lean that way, and it's not a great sign. Any laws they pass will get shot down by SCOTUS at this point, but should one of the five (Kennedy, Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan) die/retire, considering that anti-gay marriage has been a bit of a theme for the potential Trump picks, that is not a good sign. Plus the gak like bathroom bills and alike. It's definitely an issue, and pretending it isn't is just ignoring reality. Until you, and the other non-anti-gay republican, get the point across that laws that infringe apon people's rights, no matter what rights and who is effected, are not to be tolerated.
whembly wrote: So... a gay man on twittah mocking the idea that Trumpesto will be this anti-gay President... a... straw man?
No, "we aren't in concentration camps and electrocuted" is a straw man. It is possible to have an anti-gay president (and, more accurately, an anti-gay vice president, Pence is a much bigger concern than Trump) without things getting to the level of rounding up all the gay people and throwing them in prison. The fact that Trump hasn't immediately done that isn't a counter to concerns over anti-LGBT policies, at all.
Also, Jesus Christ, it's been a week. Congress hasn't had time to pass anything. Any of Trump's polices can't really go into full effect yet. Saying gak like "he hasn't done it yet" is the stupidest thing you can do at this point. You can't credit (or blame) really anything on him at this point, as he hasn't had enough time to put much policy into action. The only things that have really been effect are very short term things.
Breotan wrote: Okay, President Trump is carrying things a little too far with these executive orders.
The heck are you talking about? the Jedi are more content smoking their Force bongs and meditating, rather than doing anything productive, not to mention trying to kill the Chancellor on trumped-up charges of treason!
Getting on-topic...
I think the next Justice to leave will be Ginsburg. Once she goes, it'll leave Trump and Congress a window to swing the Supreme Court to 5-4 Republican's favor for all party-aligned cases.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
AndrewC wrote: So Yahoo has just flashed up a story about California setting in motion to secede
Yes I know about reputable news sources, but could this be the shape of the future US?
Andrew
Oh, sure, secede from the US, the only reason why you aren't up to your eyeballs in debt, and be easy prey for the Cartels.
As a Californian, this ticks me off. If anyone had an inkling of knowledge about their surroundings, they'd realize that this is a terrible, terrible idea.
Yes I know about reputable news sources, but could this be the shape of the future US?
Andrew
I don't really doubt the reputability. It's not easy to get something on ballot in CA, but it's also not very hard. It's possible such a measure could end up on vote in 2018, but I'm highly skeptical it would ever pass. I'm skeptical it'll even gather the necessary signatures to get on the ballot in the first place. Measures like this go up in CA all the time but only a handful end up on ballot.
Oh, sure, secede from the US, the only reason why you aren't up to your eyeballs in debt, and be easy prey for the Cartels.
California is one of the few states that pays more to the US Federal Government than it receives from the US Federal Government (it's actually the second largest net contributor to the US government, second only to Illinois). The frank reality is that the US needs CA financially more than CA needs the US. By some kind of irony, all those red states constantly complaining about government hand outs are the largest beneficiaries of the Federal Government, while those blue lazy liberal states are the keeping the rest of the country economically afloat
I also doubt CA would be prey for Cartels cause those hippies in San Fran ad LA would probably legalizes most drugs and the Cartels would find themselves with a legal market to compete with. CA would open new routes to get drugs into the US however, but it's hard to argue that corruption would rise when it's probably already present in that regard.
Once again, may we all place praise upon the Great Uniter who prioritizes his own ego and the punishment of his perceived enemies over any sense of tact or decorum And of course this will almost certainly amount to nothing. Even if it manages to go to ballot it'll be voted down so fast it'll be done. At least until it goes up to vote again because like I said it's not that monumentally hard to get something on ballot in CA. They're one of the most referendum active states.
AndrewC wrote: Yes I know about reputable news sources, but could this be the shape of the future US?
No. Fringe groups putting up secession proposals is just business as usual. It's probably never going to go beyond fringe groups saying stupid stuff, and the federal government is certainly not going to allow it to happen even if it does.
I just got the feeling that this was coming from a more central bloc rather than the fringe groups, and no offence, but the EU rather thought that the UK wasn't going to leave either.
Whether or not it may happen (probably not) could it happen?
AndrewC wrote: I just got the feeling that this was coming from a more central bloc rather than the fringe groups, and no offence, but the EU rather thought that the UK wasn't going to leave either.
Whether or not it may happen (probably not) could it happen?
No, it can't happen. The difference between California and the UK is that the UK had a mechanism to leave the EU if they wanted, if a member state votes "leave" the EU has no power to keep them. California, on the other hand, has no ability to leave without fighting a civil war (which they would inevitably lose). They can vote all they like, but we already settled the question of "can states vote to leave the US".
It can happen. It can't happen in 2018. Something like that isn't going to suddenly get going from its puny support base in 2 years. However we are in a shifting political environment that has become increasingly vindicitive and increasingly delusional about reality. Those conditions concerning slavery gave rise to the American Civil War. That's not to say it will happen, but it's not that farfetched that in my lifetime, if politics continue as they are, we could see a sectional divide in the US that sparks strong secession movements.
LordofHats wrote: It can happen. It can't happen in 2018. Something like that isn't going to suddenly get going from its puny support base in 2 years. However we are in a shifting political environment that has become increasingly vindicitive and increasingly delusional about reality. Those conditions concerning slavery gave rise to the American Civil War. That's not to say it will happen, but it's not that farfetched that in my lifetime, if politics continue as they are, we could see a sectional divide in the US that sparks strong secession movements.
I think the main thing standing in the way of that happening is that the current divisions are more urban vs. rural than regional. The civil war happened because the secessionist groups were all concentrated in the south, and could say "this is the border of our new nation". Now there just isn't that geographical unity. Everything is all mixed up, with pockets of high-density left-wing areas evenly distributed across vast areas of low-density right-wing areas. So where do you draw a border around the seceding nation?
AndrewC wrote: I just got the feeling that this was coming from a more central bloc rather than the fringe groups, and no offence, but the EU rather thought that the UK wasn't going to leave either.
Whether or not it may happen (probably not) could it happen?
No, it can't happen. The difference between California and the UK is that the UK had a mechanism to leave the EU if they wanted, if a member state votes "leave" the EU has no power to keep them. California, on the other hand, has no ability to leave without fighting a civil war (which they would inevitably lose). They can vote all they like, but we already settled the question of "can states vote to leave the US".
I assume that you're talking Texas V White? As I understand what I can find out about it that only addresses unilateral declaration of independence, but doesn't address a formal request and diplomatic negotiation of a retraction of membership.
LordofHats wrote: It can happen. It can't happen in 2018. Something like that isn't going to suddenly get going from its puny support base in 2 years. However we are in a shifting political environment that has become increasingly vindicitive and increasingly delusional about reality. Those conditions concerning slavery gave rise to the American Civil War. That's not to say it will happen, but it's not that farfetched that in my lifetime, if politics continue as they are, we could see a sectional divide in the US that sparks strong secession movements.
I think the main thing standing in the way of that happening is that the current divisions are more urban vs. rural than regional. The civil war happened because the secessionist groups were all concentrated in the south, and could say "this is the border of our new nation". Now there just isn't that geographical unity. Everything is all mixed up, with pockets of high-density left-wing areas evenly distributed across vast areas of low-density right-wing areas. So where do you draw a border around the seceding nation?
Which is a very good question. You may note my home nation is going through such a heart searching moment as well. How do the independence movement and the unionist movement reconcile over the removal of Citizenship. (Though this may be better in the UK thread, so I'll drop it now)
I think the main thing standing in the way of that happening is that the current divisions are more urban vs. rural than regional.
This is true, but that was a divide in the North and South in the 1850s as well. Rural PA didn't even get behind supporting the Union until after Gettysburg, and that's because the rural folk of PA didn't see any dog in the fight for them.
To be clear there's always been urban and rural divides. Right now they're in a state of escalation, but they're not new. Like the rural Pennsylvanians who saw little reason to support the effort of reunification, there were rural Mississippians who saw little reason to support a war for the preservation of the wealth and power of slave owners (they had a film about them recently... it kind of sucked...). As you can see in CA politics, the large cities are able to dictate terms to the rest of the state. It's not inconceivable to see such an eventuality, just as it's not inconceivable that should such an eventuality occur we could find ourselves with a North California/South California play ala Virginia
However I doubt any one state will succeed alone, and that's the bigger issue. There's a urban - rural divide, but we don't have much hard regionalism outside the American South and Northeast.
I assume that you're talking Texas V White? As I understand what I can find out about it that only addresses unilateral declaration of independence, but doesn't address a formal request and diplomatic negotiation of a retraction of membership.
This is accurate. The case was specifically about an issue concerning bonds, and the court ruled that legally there existed no right to secede from the Union and that legally Texas was always part of the United States of America, no matter what the state thought during its "rebellion."
I don't think anyone has ever addressed whether or not Congress has the power to negotiate an exit from the Union. The Founders never thought such a thing would happen, so they built nothing to that effect in.
Ok, so if a state can't leave on its own, is there any mechanism whereby we can just kick them out? I mean their BBQ is good and all, but really, their hats are just making us all look bad. Plus, they really are a drain on the economy.
Gordon Shumway wrote: Ok, so if a state can't leave on its own, is there any mechanism whereby we can just kick them out?
Nothing in the Constitution speaks of any means by which a state may leave. Congress could always pass a law for such provision but a law to "kick someone out" would be... Well things would be pretty fethed if we actually did that. Negotiating an exit maybe, but the Court might have to rule on whether or not that is legal. It's something that could end up requiring an Amendment legally, but then again we have ignoring certain aspects of the Constitution for the sake of pragmatism throughout our history.
Gordon Shumway wrote: Ok, so if a state can't leave on its own, is there any mechanism whereby we can just kick them out?
Nothing in the Constitution speaks of any means by which a state may leave. Congress could always pass a law for such provision but a law to "kick someone out" would be... Well things would be pretty fethed if we actually did that. Negotiating an exit maybe, but the Court might have to rule on whether or not that is legal. It's something that could end up requiring an Amendment legally, but then again we have ignoring certain aspects of the Constitution for the sake of pragmatism throughout our history.
Maybe "kick out" is too strong. "Gently show them the door that they have looked at longingly" might be better. Trump could even call it a buffer zone.
AndrewC wrote: I just got the feeling that this was coming from a more central bloc rather than the fringe groups, and no offence, but the EU rather thought that the UK wasn't going to leave either.
Whether or not it may happen (probably not) could it happen?
This is the only reason I don't write off the Calexit as 'not happening'. Given the state of things now and what we've seen in the last decade... yeah, it could happen. Still highly unlikely though.
AndrewC wrote: Yes I know about reputable news sources, but could this be the shape of the future US?
No. Fringe groups putting up secession proposals is just business as usual. It's probably never going to go beyond fringe groups saying stupid stuff, and the federal government is certainly not going to allow it to happen even if it does.
Agreed. It appears the people championing secession missed out on the Civil War in history class.
When push comes to shove, nobody's going anywhere. Texas wasn't going to leave and neither is California. This is fringe headline grabbing nonsense.
That said, I'd keep my eye on Maine. Governor up there is flying rodent gak crazy. I got it! Lose the flying rodent gak crazy governor and keep the lobsters and Stephen King.
That press conference went WAY, WAY better than I expected. Trump behaved himself, even acted like an adult, overall.
I will admit, I kinda might have p**-ed myself a little bit when Laura Kuenssberg asked her question but after only a little awkwardness, it kinda worked out ok.
I'm not gonna say it was the best press conference on the face of the planet but, well, considering what it could very well have been, I'd call it a win.
If we're lucky, May (and, apparently, General Mattis), might be able to keep an eye on Trump, rein him in a little.
The way Trump speaks is very unprecise. What does "fantastic" mean to him. I hate it.
President Trump has signed an executive order that bans citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East from entering the United States for 90 days, according to the White House. His proposed list doesn’t include Muslim-majority countries where his Trump Organization has done business or pursued potential deals. Properties include golf courses in the United Arab Emirates and two luxury towers operating in Turkey.
AndrewC wrote: I assume that you're talking Texas V White?
I'm talking about the civil war where it was rather thoroughly established that states are not permitted to leave.
I disagree, the Civil War established that to the victor the spoils.
You are right in that the Constitution doesn't contain any system by which members can leave, not that they cant. (A fine legal distinction I know, but there nonetheless)
AndrewC wrote: I disagree, the Civil War established that to the victor the spoils.
You are right in that the Constitution doesn't contain any system by which members can leave, not that they cant. (A fine legal distinction I know, but there nonetheless)
And my point is what the law says is irrelevant. States are not permitted to leave, and the federal government will use force to crush any attempt at secession. The secessionists can quote whatever law they want, it won't change anything when the US military arrives to execute the traitors and restore order.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) recently filed complaints against U.S Customs and Border Protection (CBP) for, in part, demanding social media information from Muslim American citizens returning home from traveling abroad. According to CAIR, CBP accessed public posts by demanding social media handles, and potentially accessed private posts by demanding cell phone passcodes and perusing social media apps. And border agents allegedly physically abused one man who refused to hand over his unlocked phone.
CBP recently began asking foreign visitors to the U.S. from Visa Waiver Countries for their social media identifiers. Last fall we filed our own comments opposing the policy, and joined two sets of coalition comments, one by the Center for Democracy & Technology and the other by the Brennan Center for Justice. Notably, CBP explained that it was only seeking publicly available social media data, “consistent with the privacy settings the applicant has set on the platforms.”
We raised concerns that the policy would be extended to cover Americans and private data. It appears our fears have come true far faster than we expected. Specifically, we wrote:
It would be a series of small steps for CBP to require all those seeking to enter the U.S.—both foreign visitors and U.S. citizens and residents returning home—to disclose their social media handles to investigate whether they might have become a threat to homeland security while abroad. Or CBP could subject both foreign visitors and U.S. persons to invasive device searches at ports of entry with the intent of easily accessing any and all cloud data; CBP could then access both public and private online data—not just social media content and contacts that may or may not be public (e.g., by perusing a smartphone’s Facebook app), but also other private communications and sensitive information such as health or financial status.
We believe that the CBP practices against U.S. citizens alleged by CAIR violate the Constitution. Searching through Americans’ social media data and personal devices intrudes upon both First and Fourth Amendment rights.
CBP’s 2009 policy on border searches of electronic devices is woefully out of date. It does not contemplate how accessing social media posts and other communications—whether public or private—creates chilling effects on freedom of speech, including the First Amendment right to speak anonymously, and the freedom of association.
Nor does the policy recognize the significant privacy invasions of accessing private social media data and other cloud content that is not publicly viewable. In claiming that its program of screening the social media accounts of Visa Waiver Program visitors does not bypass privacy settings, CBP is paying more heed to the rights of foreigners than American citizens.
Finally, the CBP policy does not address recent court decisions that limit the border search exception, which permits border agents to conduct “routine” searches without a warrant or individualized suspicion (contrary to the general Fourth Amendment rule requiring a warrant based on probable cause for government searches and seizures). These new legal rulings place greater Fourth Amendment restrictions on border searches of digital devices that contain highly personal information.
As we recently explained:
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in U.S. v. Cotterman (2013) held that border agents needed to have reasonable suspicion—somewhere between no suspicion and probable cause—before they could conduct a “forensic” search, aided by sophisticated software, of the defendant’s laptop….
The Supreme Court held in Riley v. California (2014) that the police may not invoke another exception to the warrant requirement, the search-incident-to-arrest exception, to search a cell phone possessed by an arrestee—instead, the government needs a probable cause warrant. The Court stated, “Our holding, of course, is not that the information on a cell phone is immune from search; it is instead that a warrant is generally required before such a search, even when a cell phone is seized incident to arrest.”
Although Riley was not a border search case, the Riley rule should apply at the border, too. Thus, CBP agents should be required to obtain a probable cause warrant before searching a cell phone or similar digital device.
Both Riley and Cotterman recognized that the weighty privacy interests in digital devices are even weightier when law enforcement officials use these devices to search cloud content. A digital device is not an ordinary “effect” akin to a piece of luggage or wallet, but rather is a portal into an individual’s entire life, much of which is online.
The Ninth Circuit wrote:
With the ubiquity of cloud computing, the government’s reach into private data becomes even more problematic. In the “cloud,” a user’s data, including the same kind of highly sensitive data one would have in “papers” at home, is held on remote servers rather than on the device itself. The digital device is a conduit to retrieving information from the cloud, akin to the key to a safe deposit box. Notably, although the virtual “safe deposit box” does not itself cross the border, it may appear as a seamless part of the digital device when presented at the border.
And the Supreme Court wrote:
To further complicate the scope of the privacy interests at stake, the data a user views on many modern cell phones may not in fact be stored on the device itself. Treating a cell phone as a container whose contents may be searched incident to an arrest is a bit strained as an initial matter…. But the analogy crumbles entirely when a cell phone is used to access data located elsewhere, at the tap of a screen. That is what cell phones, with increasing frequency, are designed to do by taking advantage of “cloud computing.” Cloud computing is the capacity of Internet-connected devices to display data stored on remote servers rather than on the device itself. Cell phone users often may not know whether particular information is stored on the device or in the cloud, and it generally makes little difference.
The Riley Court went on to state:
The United States concedes that the search incident to arrest exception may not be stretched to cover a search of files accessed remotely—that is, a search of files stored in the cloud…. Such a search would be like finding a key in a suspect’s pocket and arguing that it allowed law enforcement to unlock and search a house.
Thus, the border search exception also should not be “stretched to cover” social media or other cloud data, particularly that which is protected by privacy settings and thus not publicly viewable. In other words, a border search of a traveler’s cloud content is not “routine” and thus should not be allowed in the absence of individualized suspicion. Indeed, border agents should heed the final words of the unanimous Riley decision: “get a warrant.”
We hope CBP will fully and fairly investigate CAIR’s grave allegations and provide a public explanation. We also urge the agency to change its outdated policy on border searches of electronic devices to comport with recent developments in case law. Americans should not fear having their entire digital lives unreasonably exposed to the scrutiny of the federal government simply because they travel abroad.
The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects Americans from random and arbitrary stops and searches.
According to the government, however, these basic constitutional principles do not apply fully at our borders. For example, at border crossings (also called "ports of entry"), federal authorities do not need a warrant or even suspicion of wrongdoing to justify conducting what courts have called a "routine search," such as searching luggage or a vehicle.
Even in places far removed from the border, deep into the interior of the country, immigration officials enjoy broad—though not limitless—powers. Specifically, federal regulations give U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) authority to operate within 100 miles of any U.S. "external boundary."
In this 100-mile zone, Border Patrol agents have certain extra-Constitutional powers. For instance, Border Patrol can operate immigration checkpoints.
Border Patrol, nevertheless, cannot pull anyone over without "reasonable suspicion" of an immigration violation or crime (reasonable suspicion is more than just a "hunch"). Similarly, Border Patrol cannot search vehicles in the 100-mile zone without a warrant or "probable cause" (a reasonable belief, based on the circumstances, that an immigration violation or crime has likely occurred).
In practice, Border Patrol agents routinely ignore or misunderstand the limits of their legal authority in the course of individual stops, resulting in violations of the constitutional rights of innocent people. These problems are compounded by inadequate training for Border Patrol agents, a lack of oversight by CBP and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the consistent failure of CBP to hold agents accountable for abuse. Thus, although the 100-mile border zone is not literally "Constitution free," the U.S. government frequently acts like it is.
Much of U.S. Population Affected
Many people think that border-related policies only impact people living in border towns like El Paso or San Diego. The reality is that Border Patrol's interior enforcement operations encroach deep into and across the United States, affecting the majority of Americans.
Roughly two-thirds of the United States' population lives within the 100-mile zone—that is, within 100 miles of a U.S. land or coastal border. That's about 200 million people.
Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont lie entirely or almost entirely within this area.
Nine of the ten largest U.S. metropolitan areas, as determined by the 2010 Census, also fall within this zone: New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Antonio, San Diego and San Jose.
Outdated Legal Authority and Lack of Oversight
The regulations establishing the 100-mile border zone were adopted by the U.S. Department of Justice in 1953—without any public comments or debate. At the time, there were fewer than 1,100 Border Patrol agents nationwide; today, there are over 21,000.
The Border Patrol often ignores this regulation and rejects any geographic limitation on agents' authority. At least two federal circuit courts condone Border Patrol operations outside the 100-mile zone, federal regulations and Supreme Court precedent notwithstanding.
Federal border agents are stopping, interrogating, and searching Americans on an everyday basis with absolutely no suspicion of wrongdoing, and often in ways that our Constitution does not permit.
For example, Border Patrol, according to news reports, operates approximately 170 interior checkpoints throughout the country (the actual number in operation at any given time is not publicly known). The ACLU believes that these checkpoints amount to dragnet, suspicionless stops that cannot be reconciled with Fourth Amendment protections. The Supreme Court has upheld the use of immigration checkpoints, but only insofar as the stops consist only of a brief and limited inquiry into residence status. Checkpoints cannot be primarily used for drug-search or general law enforcement efforts. In practice, however, Border Patrol agents often do not limit themselves to brief immigration inquiries and regularly conduct criminal investigations and illegal searches at checkpoints. The Border Patrol also frequently pulls over motorists in "roving patrol" stops, often without any suspicion that an immigration violation has occurred.
The ACLU has documented numerous cases of abuse by Border Patrol and filed lawsuits to obtain more information about the agency's practices. Given Border Patrol's lack of transparency, and in the absence of any meaningful oversight, there is still much that we don't know about the full extent and impact of these interior "border enforcement" operations.
Part of a Broader Problem
The spread of border-related powers inland is inseparable from the broader expansion of government intrusion in the lives of ordinary Americans. For example, CBP claims the authority to conduct suspicionless searches of travelers' electronic devices—such as laptops and cell phones—at ports of entry, including international arrivals at airports. These searches are particularly invasive as a result of the wealth of personal information stored on such devices. At least one circuit court has held that federal officers must have at least "reasonable suspicion" prior to conducting such searches and recent Supreme Court precedent seems to support that view.
These practices also coincide with the spread of numerous border technologies, including watch list and database systems (such as the Automated Targeting System traveler risk assessment program), advanced identification and tracking systems (including electronic passports), and intrusive technological schemes such as the "virtual border fence" and unmanned aerial vehicles (aka "drone aircraft"). With many of these technologies in the hands of private companies, there are powerful financial incentives for the continued "militarization" of the border zone.
The expansion of government power both at and near the border is part of a trend toward expanding police and national security powers without regard to the effect of such expansion on our most fundamental and treasured Constitutional rights. The federal government's dragnet approach to law enforcement and national security is one that is increasingly turning us all into suspects. If Americans do not continue to challenge the expansion of federal power over the individual, we risk forfeiting the fundamental rights and freedoms that we inherited—including the right to simply go about our business free from government interference, harassment and abuse.
We've had this debate before, and people have made very good points about legality, the Civil War, and so on and so on...
I don't believe that California or Texas will break away, but consider this:
If say 70% of people, and I'm talking mass support from ordinary Californians all the way to politicians and judges, overwhelmingly support Calexit, and they have a peaceful and democratic referendum, and the whole movement is peaceful and democratic, what is Washington going to do?
Yes, legally, it would be illegal to break away, but there's a political and moral dimension here.
If California offers mass, peaceful resistance, refuses to co-operate, is the Federal government really going to use force to crush a peaceful, democratic movement with mass support?
They couldn't. It would be a betrayal of every American democratic principal.
It's way more complicated than simply saying this is illegal.
And my point is what the law says is irrelevant. States are not permitted to leave, and the federal government will use force to crush any attempt at secession. The secessionists can quote whatever law they want, it won't change anything when the US military arrives to execute the traitors and restore order.
And my point is what the law says is irrelevant. States are not permitted to leave, and the federal government will use force to crush any attempt at secession. The secessionists can quote whatever law they want, it won't change anything when the US military arrives to execute the traitors and restore order.
The worlds 'foremost democracy' in action.
I didn't realize 'democracy' meant anything goes as long as you have a majority vote. As long as a majority says that redheads must be put to death it is ok to do so it would seem. Normally it would seem like a poor argument but with Great Leader in charge even silly 'alternative' arguments are suddenly fine.
"Together, we will make love and tolerance prevalent throughout the world.”
How did this lefty, liberal nonsense find its way into his speech?
I genuinely wonder how he managed to keep a solemn face whilst saying these words, I imagine they must have physically wrenched his throat as they came out.
And my point is what the law says is irrelevant. States are not permitted to leave, and the federal government will use force to crush any attempt at secession. The secessionists can quote whatever law they want, it won't change anything when the US military arrives to execute the traitors and restore order.
The worlds 'foremost democracy' in action.
I didn't realize 'democracy' meant anything goes as long as you have a majority vote. As long as a majority says that redheads must be put to death it is ok to do so it would seem. Normally it would seem like a poor argument but with Great Leader in charge even silly 'alternative' arguments are suddenly fine.
In Britain, a giant act of economic self harm was justified by democracy. Just because the idea is stupid, hateful or ridiculous doesn't mean you should ignore it if more people vote for it than anything else, apparently.
I didn't realize 'democracy' meant anything goes as long as you have a majority vote.
In essence that's exactly what democracy means.
Which is why most countries aren't purely democratic, including the USA, which is why making the argument is silly. The 'tyranny of the masses' is not a new concept and existed long before anyone here was even a thought. Balancing it against the desires of the majority is where the fun is.
Which is why most countries aren't purely democratic, including the USA, which is why making the argument is silly.
If 2016 has shown us anything is that politics are extremely mutable. 'Calexit' looks like an impossibility at the moment for all kinds of reasons but that's not to say that it will never happen.
President Trump has signed an executive order that bans citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East from entering the United States for 90 days, according to the White House. His proposed list doesn’t include Muslim-majority countries where his Trump Organization has done business or pursued potential deals. Properties include golf courses in the United Arab Emirates and two luxury towers operating in Turkey.
His golf course also raised their membership fee. But that's just a coincidence as well.
I swear to god, this is just making the republicans more and more villified.
This is horrible, in terms of short term the amount of money is quite considerable, but over the long term this not only cripples their chances of dealing with other companies but makes many other companies fall out of line.
I do not know why any company would want to deal with the dying Oil Barons, or any of the other major companies.
Wait. They did this on Holocaust Remembrance Day? The one day every year when you hear that story of the boat full of refugees that was sent back to the nazis who killed them all?
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Wait. They did this on Holocaust Remembrance Day? The one day every year when you hear that story of the boat full of refugees that was sent back to the nazis who killed them all?
Yep! The same Holocaust Remembrance Day where Trump just "failed" to mention the actual word Jews or Jewish people by name in his comments on the day. Not that they'd bear any special mention with regards to the Holocaust... him.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Wait. They did this on Holocaust Remembrance Day? The one day every year when you hear that story of the boat full of refugees that was sent back to the nazis who killed them all?
Yep! The same Holocaust Remembrance Day where Trump just "failed" to mention the actual word Jews or Jewish people by name in his comments on the day. Not that they'd bear any special mention with regards to the Holocaust... him.
I hope this wakes the sleeping giant that is the american people.
Yep! The same Holocaust Remembrance Day where Trump just "failed" to mention the actual word Jews or Jewish people by name in his comments on the day. Not that they'd bear any special mention with regards to the Holocaust... him.
Whereas most people just don't mention the other people exterimated by the Nazi's. Or say Jews and other people... Why is the killing of Jews of so much more import? Simply due to numbers?
Yep! The same Holocaust Remembrance Day where Trump just "failed" to mention the actual word Jews or Jewish people by name in his comments on the day. Not that they'd bear any special mention with regards to the Holocaust... him.
Whereas most people just don't mention the other people exterimated by the Nazi's. Or say Jews and other people... Why is the killing of Jews of so much more import? Simply due to numbers?
Yep! The same Holocaust Remembrance Day where Trump just "failed" to mention the actual word Jews or Jewish people by name in his comments on the day. Not that they'd bear any special mention with regards to the Holocaust... him.
Whereas most people just don't mention the other people exterimated by the Nazi's. Or say Jews and other people... Why is the killing of Jews of so much more import? Simply due to numbers?
.........................
Because what culture was the most hurt by the holocaust? Which dehumanized them so extremely? Really? REALLY?
No doubt the other groups suffered as well, and they all suffered together, but because of the implications of how many were killed simply for being jewish. Millions died, the problem is that they should of mentioned each race effected, each person, each individual, everything the nazi's did to each group of people....
I think you should reread your statement and see how offensive people could take that.
Yep! The same Holocaust Remembrance Day where Trump just "failed" to mention the actual word Jews or Jewish people by name in his comments on the day. Not that they'd bear any special mention with regards to the Holocaust... him.
Whereas most people just don't mention the other people exterimated by the Nazi's. Or say Jews and other people... Why is the killing of Jews of so much more import? Simply due to numbers?
Say what...
Roma, homosexuals, Slavs, handicapped people, plain political dissidents etc etc were also targeted. Lotta people were killed in Eastern Europe without the Nazis bothering about putting them in camps. They wanted to depopulate Eastern Europe to make room for the German farmers they were gonna ship in, after all.
Jews were the largest single group killed in the actual camps, however, and were particularly the target of persecution so not mentioning them at all is cause to wonder.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Wait. They did this on Holocaust Remembrance Day? The one day every year when you hear that story of the boat full of refugees that was sent back to the nazis who killed them all?
Technically after the US and a few other countries told them to feth off for racist reasons, they were taken in by gracious countries like the Netherlands, France, and Holland etc. And then Germany invaded and killed a good chunk of them XD More than half survived the war but that's not really the fething point now is it?
Yep! The same Holocaust Remembrance Day where Trump just "failed" to mention the actual word Jews or Jewish people by name in his comments on the day. Not that they'd bear any special mention with regards to the Holocaust... him.
Whereas most people just don't mention the other people exterimated by the Nazi's. Or say Jews and other people... Why is the killing of Jews of so much more import? Simply due to numbers?
Say what...
Roma, homosexuals, Slavs, handicapped people, plain political dissidents etc etc were also targeted. Lotta people were killed in Eastern Europe without the Nazis bothering about putting them in camps. They wanted to depopulate Eastern Europe to make room for the German farmers they were gonna ship in, after all.
Jews were the largest single group killed in the actual camps, however, and were particularly the target of persecution so not mentioning them at all is cause to wonder.
Yeah, I got the reference and I know the history and the numbers. But someone seriously...I think...asking "Why is the killing of Jews of so much more import?" just kind of left me stunned. It's not designed to lessen the horrors visited upon the other victims of the Third Reich, but to understand the planned, purposeful and genocidal insidiousness of the Shoah, or Holocaust, with relation to Hitler's "Final Solution", places it in a unique position in history with regards to mass murder on an industrialized level. This is the reason for International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the date, in 1945, was when the Soviets liberated Auschwitz.
Yep! The same Holocaust Remembrance Day where Trump just "failed" to mention the actual word Jews or Jewish people by name in his comments on the day. Not that they'd bear any special mention with regards to the Holocaust... him.
Whereas most people just don't mention the other people exterimated by the Nazi's. Or say Jews and other people... Why is the killing of Jews of so much more import? Simply due to numbers?
Honestly, and I say this as a Jew, a certain often-killed minority has to keep reminding people that it is a crime and tragedy to kill them, for self preservation. We know homosexuals, Poles, Communists, the disabled, and others were targeted and killed. We are quick to spread that information in solidarity with other minorities, especially when civil rights issues come up. But we also have to keep hammering on the don't kill Jews part in case people forget. And they do forget. It's just so easy to accidentally advocate genocide sometimes that people really appreciate the reminders.
Guys... it's a temp ban (for 90 days) for only those 7 countries... (there are 57-ish majority countries)... to give this administration time to come up with their "extreme vetting" process.
This includes green card holders (permanent residents)... which seems overkill to include them, but they are reviewed in case-by-base basis. I think the discrepencies we're seeing on the news, is that these departments (DHS / Border Security / Immigration / ??? ) aren't talking to each other very well.
Also, a fun topic, even permanent US citizens don't have full 4th Amendment rights whilst at the port of entries.
To me, focus on what this "extreme vetting" would entail...
Spinner wrote: Probably another indefinite ban, because, frankly, our refugee vetting process is already pretty extensive.
The whole thing probably need review... in some cases, it's probably too extensive.
"This thing I talked about in the middle of the election isn't ready yet because I have no idea what I'm doing" is also hardly an encouraging excuse.
The really big problem here, imo, is with Trump's EOs is that he appears to be issuing them without consultation from the Depts and agencies that must implement.
Most of these agencies and depts still have temporary leadership, since Trump's nominees/political appointees haven't been confirmed yet.
Then, these agencies are left to guess at what the EOs mean, which is the very definition of arbitrary and capricious government action.
It's kinda of a FUBAR situation all over.
The courts won't do anything about this... Congress has long ago delegated the power to deny entry to the executive long ago... If the public want this changed, then Congress must get involved.
Spinner wrote: Probably another indefinite ban, because, frankly, our refugee vetting process is already pretty extensive.
"This thing I talked about in the middle of the election isn't ready yet because I have no idea what I'm doing" is also hardly an encouraging excuse.
The reality is that this is a exercise in capriciousness that serves no other purpose. How does a temporary ban make anyone safer? Truth is it doesn't. 90 days isn't enough time to do anything more than a superficial review of procedure, and certainly not enough time to really examine the effects and necessity of current policy. Nothing has happened in any of those countries lately to suggest they're anymore dangerous than they were before the ban, and there is no logic that supports the ban as a necessary in the short term.
It does allow Trump to say he fulfilled a campaign promise, and the idiotic end of the base to pat themselves on the back on a pointless job well done.
The executive order against refugees is not a bad thing.
Enclaves for refugees close to their homes would be the better thing, close or in Syria or Liberya. Obama was against such enclaves.
We have more than a million refugees from Syria and whatnot since 2015/16, and about 10% is able to get a job so far. Not a good prospect. Those people must go back to their countries after the war.
No mention that Shia muslims are pretty much kill/enslave on sight targets for ISIS, but...
It isn't like Sunni DaIsh are the only killers, the Hez brigades backing Assad do their fair share too. There are Shia safe havens in Iran and Iraq as well (in theater) if they are not comfortable in the areas of Syria secured by Hez and the Russians. The Christian refugees have been consistently treated like gak everywhere in the region they go.
No mention that Shia muslims are pretty much kill/enslave on sight targets for ISIS, but...
It isn't like Sunni DaIsh are the only killers, the Hez brigades backing Assad do their fair share too. There are Shia safe havens in Iran and Iraq as well (in theater) if they are not comfortable in the areas of Syria secured by Hez and the Russians. The Christian refugees have been consistently treated like gak everywhere in the region they go.
So... Trump just signed an EO instructing the DoD to develop plans to defeat ISIS...
I gotta admit... I like how Trump & Mattis are talking about destroying the gak out of ISIS, not merely 'containing' the threat or 'degrading' it.
My only ask, is what do we do with the vacuum once ISIS is obliterated???
wuestenfux wrote: The executive order against refugees is not a bad thing.
Enclaves for refugees close to their homes would be the better thing, close or in Syria or Liberya. Obama was against such enclaves.
We have more than a million refugees from Syria and whatnot since 2015/16, and about 10% is able to get a job so far. Not a good prospect. Those people must go back to their countries after the war.
I'm going to go out a limb and guess that you haven't got a clue about how such "enclaves" usually end up rather gakky.
No mention that Shia muslims are pretty much kill/enslave on sight targets for ISIS, but...
It isn't like Sunni DaIsh are the only killers, the Hez brigades backing Assad do their fair share too. There are Shia safe havens in Iran and Iraq as well (in theater) if they are not comfortable in the areas of Syria secured by Hez and the Russians. The Christian refugees have been consistently treated like gak everywhere in the region they go.
My intent wasn't to diminish the threat these people face, but that lots of people face this threat and singling out one feels...odd. I didn't see any particular priority exception for the similarly treated Yazidi's, and many Shia's have little or no escape even if "safe" areas exist in theater, they may be unreachable or simply unable to properly help as many people as they're getting. Same for Sunni's under some areas.
I can't believe nobody in our government tried to come up with a plan, thank God we have Trump!
Of course ISIS has been getting their ass handed to them for a while now. Their battlefield defeats and loss of territory is the main reason why they stopped focusing on nationbuilding and started to embrace AQ style attacks on foreign soils.
whembly wrote: Guys... it's a temp ban (for 90 days) for only those 7 countries... (there are 57-ish majority countries)... to give this administration time to come up with their "extreme vetting" process.
This includes green card holders (permanent residents)... which seems overkill to include them, but they are reviewed in case-by-base basis. I think the discrepencies we're seeing on the news, is that these departments (DHS / Border Security / Immigration / ??? ) aren't talking to each other very well.
Also, a fun topic, even permanent US citizens don't have full 4th Amendment rights whilst at the port of entries.
To me, focus on what this "extreme vetting" would entail...
If you post on this thread they can just use you for their punching bag. Stop and let them have their private time together.
whembly wrote: Guys... it's a temp ban (for 90 days) for only those 7 countries... (there are 57-ish majority countries)... to give this administration time to come up with their "extreme vetting" process.
This includes green card holders (permanent residents)... which seems overkill to include them, but they are reviewed in case-by-base basis. I think the discrepencies we're seeing on the news, is that these departments (DHS / Border Security / Immigration / ??? ) aren't talking to each other very well.
Also, a fun topic, even permanent US citizens don't have full 4th Amendment rights whilst at the port of entries.
To me, focus on what this "extreme vetting" would entail...
If you post on this thread they can just use you for their punching bag. Stop and let them have their private time together.
If someone posts something that does not line up with the established evidence then being corrected does not mean they are a punching bag. There is a great deal of evidence referenced for the arguments people are making, if the 'punching bag' cannot provide evidence in turn it's hardly a mark against those who disagreed.
Almost half of them elected him. To do precisely that. This is America. Be careful what you wish for. I mean, there ain't lynching for now…
On the other hand, it likely means an end to the US brain drain. Which is certainly a good thing for Europe. If the US economy suffer enough that they lose their position of leadership, and if Europe manage to finally united themselves and take it, I will be very happy. Friendly reminder than without brain drain, Germany would have got the atomic bomb, not the US. Something something “Evil always contains the seeds of its own destruction” something.
wuestenfux wrote: The executive order against refugees is not a bad thing. Enclaves for refugees close to their homes would be the better thing, close or in Syria or Liberya. Obama was against such enclaves. We have more than a million refugees from Syria and whatnot since 2015/16, and about 10% is able to get a job so far. Not a good prospect. Those people must go back to their countries after the war.
I'm sure you know better than us about this than us or them. I am pretty sure all countries surrounding Syria are in pristine condition to take care of refugee and that they currently don't do it at all.
Technically less than 1/5 of America elected him. A little over 1/5 voted for someone else, and more than 3/5 didn't vote at all.
Friendly reminder than without brain drain, Germany would have got the atomic bomb, not the US.
No amount of wishiful thinking or know how would have allowed Germany to make a weapon they didn't have the raw materials to build. It has nothing to do with brains. Germany would have probably figured out how to build a bomb, but knowing how and having the means are separate issues.
LordofHats wrote: No amount of wishiful thinking or know how would have allowed Germany to make a weapon they didn't have the raw materials to build.
If Germany had knowledge of how to build a bomb while the Allies didn't believe it possible, I'm sure Germany could have managed to get those raw materials. Similarly, while Britain's treatment of Alan Turing definitely sucks big time, if they had been even worse and had sent him into a concentration camp, it's quite likely they couldn't have broken Enigma…
If Germany had knowledge of how to build a bomb while the Allies didn't believe it possible, I'm sure Germany could have managed to get those raw materials.
Finding Uranium in the 1940s, let alone the kind physicists of the time were looking to for fissile material, wasn't as easy as taking a stroll. Germany had no access to the right Uranium in the right amounts to even start isotope separation, plutonium generation, or even to start a basic experimental reactor. Even without allied sabotage efforts the amount of pure heavy water being made by Nazi Germany couldn't have sustained a reactor even if they had the material to fuel it.
This isn't a question of will or ability. It's a frank matter of capacity. Germany had none of the means to create a practical bomb project. They didn't even have enough scientists between the politicization of academics and trying to figure out physics without using "Jewish Physics" Nazi Germany had far too many obstacles in their path to ever realize the bomb. If America didn't build it, Russia would have, or maybe Britain but Nazi Germany wasn't getting there second by any measure.
One of the reasons the US was able to do it at the time was because we sat in the unusual position of having both the knowledge and the materials to build a practical program. Many European countries had the knowledge but not the materials. The USSR had the materials, unexploited but present and known, but not the knowledge. Of course Stalin solved that with one of the best covert operations of the 20th century.
Similarly, while Britain's treatment of Alan Turing definitely sucks big time, if they had been even worse and had sent him into a concentration camp, it's quite likely they couldn't have broken Enigma…
I'm not really sure what that has to do with anything previously mentioned?
Serves them right.
My point was merely that there's a lot more people over here than 60,000,000 and it really isn't that hard to look up "Population of the United States of America" before posting.
ing stupid. The current republican party seems to be the rare exception.
Lose the flying rodent gak crazy governor and keep the lobsters and Stephen King. 
