WrentheFaceless wrote: So is this another one of the cons? Make outrage by banning Muslims so they could slip Bannon in to the Security Council, which scares me a hell of a lot more than anyone escaping the Middle East?
Talking of Bannon, here's an interesting line from Bannon that took place last year, that just resurfaced.
“When two-thirds or three-quarters of the CEOs in Silicon Valley are from South Asia or from Asia, I think... A country is more than an economy. We’re a civic society.”
Because apparently you can only be a civil society when your companies are run by white people, or something.
Anyway, I guess it isn't exactly breaking news that the racist said a racist thing, but goddamn.
I'm seeing a lot of bs semantic word play in this thread, for nothing more than partisan foolishness, by individuals trying to polish this turd stain of an EO. Here's what's actually happening on the front line and it's nothing but shameful behavior on behalf of this administration. Can't you can smell the "greatness"?!
How very in keeping with all those proclaimed and venerated Christian values the conservatives love to hold up as their guiding light...the hypocrisy truly does stink to high heaven and I can only hope that if there is indeed, a God, then some of these fethers are going to have some serious explaining to do before the Man.
Just Tony wrote: And you don't bother with the drastic difference between medically necessary proceedures, "quality of life" proceedures like where they tried to convince my wife to abort our Down Syndrome son (Who has recovered from heart surgery and is developing much faster than average for a child with his condition), or a woman who can't be inconvenienced by a pregnancy? Don't act like every single abortion is some epic lifesaving event, well over half are post-conception contraception. Wrap your head around that.
Liberals. Now that they're safe, they're pro choice.
It's precisely because they aren't all same there needs to be choice. Only ones who think they are all same would remove choise.
Fact: You ban abortion. Women die. Simple as that. Also many of the kids and women who would carry out would end up life of poverty and quite likely short one. Also leads to child abuse like being forced to prostitution just to eek out living.
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Sentinel1 wrote: Firstly your opinion about ISIS getting many recruits because of Trump is Negligible because they will never be able to recover from their recent losses. By the end of the year we will definitely see the fall of Mosul in Iraq and subsequently IS retreat back to the Syrian border. Hopefully by the end of the year we will hear that Raqqa is under siege. ISIS is loosing badly on all fronts and it is the beginning of the end for them. It is also ludicrous to think a genuine Refugee who wants to escape war and extremism would join said factions.
And you think that's going to stop them? Al qaida never had anything resembling country and they are still active. ISIS will simply go under ground and keep doing terrorism attacks after that as well. You don't kill idea with bombs. Any dimwitted idiot by now has learned it. Too bad Trump hasn't.
People get radicalized when they get detached from society. Lack of work, lack of social contacts, lack of feeling of being welcome. That's been common point with pretty much every terrorist so far. Trump's action will just increase that.
Trump is ISIS's best friend evah. Well okay not quite. He could be even better if he gave order to shoot all suspected muslims on sight. Even better if people would actually do that. THAT would be even better ISIS dares to hope.
One thing I noticed, he successfully convinced Ford Motor Co to produce their new range of cars in US factories, when originally they were going to build cars in Mexican factories and then import them back to the USA.
Was that the "we say we move 2000 into mexico but instead only 1000 and get bloody lot of money in return" case?-) Trump got fooled there up. Unlikely they even had plans to move 2000 in the first place. More like 1000. Free money.
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AndrewC wrote: or at least not defending an EO that she feels is unconstitutional and very probably illegal.
Well certainly America decided international agreements don't concern them. Including UN ones. Can USA be member of UN without following their agreements or can they cherry pick what they follow and what not?
BigWaaagh wrote: I'm seeing a lot of bs semantic word play in this thread, for nothing more than partisan foolishness, by individuals trying to polish this turd stain of an EO. Here's what's actually happening on the front line and it's nothing but shameful behavior on behalf of this administration. Can't you can smell the "greatness"?!
How very in keeping with all those proclaimed and venerated Christian values the conservatives love to hold up as their guiding light...the hypocrisy truly does stink to high heaven and I can only hope that if there is indeed, a God, then some of these fethers are going to have some serious explaining to do before the Man.
Heres another case of sour grapes! People around the world will just have to deal with Trump for the next 4 years, rather than bicker about 'oohs Trump worse than ooh' we should be trying to all get on with life. Another case of witch-hunt-on-Trump was last night in the UK where thousands of people in London and another major cities and pointlessly protested so that the government had to waste one entire debate on whether it was legal to invite Trump for tea! Needless to say those said people achieved nothing and Trump has been invited by Buckingham Palace to meet the Queen.
As I have said before you will have to live with his impact, but at least give the man a full year before condemning him as the worst human being ever. If you want to look for worse leaders, look no further than Saudi Arabia; a country where women have no rights, where a Christian man was nearly whipped to death because he had brought a bottle of wine into the country, a country which openly does not follow human rights laws, and a country where the rich don't even recognise the poor, as they are a different clan.
Now before this thread gets derailed, lets go back onto a clean topic without so much Trump bashing rhetoric...
BigWaaagh wrote: I'm seeing a lot of bs semantic word play in this thread, for nothing more than partisan foolishness, by individuals trying to polish this turd stain of an EO. Here's what's actually happening on the front line and it's nothing but shameful behavior on behalf of this administration. Can't you can smell the "greatness"?!
How very in keeping with all those proclaimed and venerated Christian values the conservatives love to hold up as their guiding light...the hypocrisy truly does stink to high heaven and I can only hope that if there is indeed, a God, then some of these fethers are going to have some serious explaining to do before the Man.
Heres another case of sour grapes! People around the world will just have to deal with Trump for the next 4 years, rather than bicker about 'oohs Trump worse than ooh' we should be trying to all get on with life. Another case of witch-hunt-on-Trump was last night in the UK where thousands of people in London and another major cities and pointlessly protested so that the government had to waste one entire debate on whether it was legal to invite Trump for tea! Needless to say those said people achieved nothing and Trump has been invited by Buckingham Palace to meet the Queen.
As I have said before you will have to live with his impact, but at least give the man a full year before condemning him as the worst human being ever. If you want to look for worse leaders, look no further than Saudi Arabia; a country where women have no rights, where a Christian man was nearly whipped to death because he had brought a bottle of wine into the country, a country which openly does not follow human rights laws, and a country where the rich don't even recognise the poor, as they are a different clan.
Now before this thread gets derailed, lets go back onto a clean topic without so much Trump bashing rhetoric...
...no.
He's already actively making people's lives worse. If he wasn't governing the United States like a spiteful, bigoted toddler, we wouldn't be complaining about him. But he is, and we are.
This is, after all, the US Politics thread, and the topic is US Politics. Unfortunately, Donald Trump is a pretty significant figure in US Politics at the moment. If you'd like to start a thread on Saudi Arabian politics, perhaps we can discuss all that there (although Trump seems quite friendly with them, doesn't he? Friendly enough not to ban them from the country, anyway.)
The real sour grapes I see are the people who are upset that the rest of the world isn't just rolling over and accepting Trump's (or Pence's, or Bannon's, or Pu...er, whoever)'s policies and actions. If he does something I like, I'll say it's something I like.
Sentinel1 wrote: Heres another case of sour grapes! People around the world will just have to deal with Trump for the next 4 years, rather than bicker about 'oohs Trump worse than ooh' we should be trying to all get on with life. Another case of witch-hunt-on-Trump was last night in the UK where thousands of people in London and another major cities and pointlessly protested so that the government had to waste one entire debate on whether it was legal to invite Trump for tea! Needless to say those said people achieved nothing and Trump has been invited by Buckingham Palace to meet the Queen.
As I have said before you will have to live with his impact, but at least give the man a full year before condemning him as the worst human being ever. If you want to look for worse leaders, look no further than Saudi Arabia; a country where women have no rights, where a Christian man was nearly whipped to death because he had brought a bottle of wine into the country, a country which openly does not follow human rights laws, and a country where the rich don't even recognise the poor, as they are a different clan.
Now before this thread gets derailed, lets go back onto a clean topic without so much Trump bashing rhetoric...
Pointless protesting? So people should just shut up and take whatever crap goverments give without doing anything?
"Maximum wage reduced to 1€/h!" Citizens should just shut up and accept it? Trump is already costing people's LIVES with his decisions. People are going to DIE because of his desire to boost his own ego. And you think people should just shut up and accept it? Sorry but I don't have such a lack of humanity to do that.
Trump is also throwing agreements US has signed into trashbin. What does that say about US? Why should other countries make any kind of deal when they know president will happily break them at will?
Sorry but people have no requirement to be loyal puppies that accept whatever crap is given. Goverments should be working for people and not the other way around.
And full year? He has already shown himself to be bad president. What more the next 350 days or so would do? You don't need to shoot yourself to head to know it's bad idea. Neither do you need to wait a year to know Trump is bad when he has already shown himself to be bad. He has already shown what kind of president he is. Why people should give him year time to do even more damage without protesting?
At least in Finland protesting is allowed and funny that they actually have had an effect before removing bad laws or preventing ones being assigned. Not always but letting your voice heard is allowed and should be encouraged.
You do know that's part of democracy right? But then again. Trump & his fanboys don't believe in democracy.
Sentinel1 wrote: Heres another case of sour grapes! People around the world will just have to deal with Trump for the next 4 years, rather than bicker about 'oohs Trump worse than ooh' we should be trying to all get on with life.
Part of getting on with life is moving from "make sure Trump doesn't get elected" to "make sure everyone knows how bad Trump is so that the republicans lose congress in 2018 and Trump is thrown out in 2020".
As I have said before you will have to live with his impact, but at least give the man a full year before condemning him as the worst human being ever.
Candidate Trump: "Once I'm elected I'm going to do awful things."
President Trump: *does awful things*
Sentinel1: "But we need to give him more time before criticizing him!"
If you want to look for worse leaders, look no further than Saudi Arabia; a country where women have no rights, where a Christian man was nearly whipped to death because he had brought a bottle of wine into the country, a country which openly does not follow human rights laws, and a country where the rich don't even recognise the poor, as they are a different clan.
I'd like to think that the US has higher standards for itself than "well, at least we're not Saudi Arabia".
Now before this thread gets derailed, lets go back onto a clean topic without so much Trump bashing rhetoric...
This will happen whenever Trump stops doing things that he deserves to get "bashed" for. Don't hold your breath.
BigWaaagh wrote: I'm seeing a lot of bs semantic word play in this thread, for nothing more than partisan foolishness, by individuals trying to polish this turd stain of an EO. Here's what's actually happening on the front line and it's nothing but shameful behavior on behalf of this administration. Can't you can smell the "greatness"?!
How very in keeping with all those proclaimed and venerated Christian values the conservatives love to hold up as their guiding light...the hypocrisy truly does stink to high heaven and I can only hope that if there is indeed, a God, then some of these fethers are going to have some serious explaining to do before the Man.
Heres another case of sour grapes! People around the world will just have to deal with Trump for the next 4 years, rather than bicker about 'oohs Trump worse than ooh' we should be trying to all get on with life. Another case of witch-hunt-on-Trump was last night in the UK where thousands of people in London and another major cities and pointlessly protested so that the government had to waste one entire debate on whether it was legal to invite Trump for tea! Needless to say those said people achieved nothing and Trump has been invited by Buckingham Palace to meet the Queen.
As I have said before you will have to live with his impact, but at least give the man a full year before condemning him as the worst human being ever. If you want to look for worse leaders, look no further than Saudi Arabia; a country where women have no rights, where a Christian man was nearly whipped to death because he had brought a bottle of wine into the country, a country which openly does not follow human rights laws, and a country where the rich don't even recognise the poor, as they are a different clan.
Now before this thread gets derailed, lets go back onto a clean topic without so much Trump bashing rhetoric...
You should read the last post in the UK thread, the Queen is not amused with Trump.
And if Saudi is so bad, why aren't they banned from entering the US.
He has activitly put people in awful positions.
What if you were born in Somilia, and have lived in the USA for decades but still have family back in Africa, your grandmother is dying.
But you can't see her because you can't come home.
Look at Mo Farrah, half Brit half Somilian Gold Medalist and all round nice guy, there is a chance he can't go home.
Though it does baffle me that a President can just appoint whomever.
Here in the UK, the PM's cabinet is made up of elected MPs - which means we the public have at least some say, including recalling particularly abhorrent MPs, forcing them out of a job.
Though it does baffle me that a President can just appoint whomever.
Here in the UK, the PM's cabinet is made up of elected MPs - which means we the public have at least some say, including recalling particularly abhorrent MPs, forcing them out of a job.
It's more like the Queen making people into Lords, except these Lords can actually get government jobs.
Sentinel1 wrote: Never trust government statistics, it never counts the millions or so people 'off the grid' on unemployment, or those on 0 hour contracts, or those in part time, or those not seeking work but on state funding.
There are efforts to measure underemployment, job security and the like. They aren't included in the headline unemployment rate because they are subjective and unreliable. There's also debate whether they'll actually add any information, because they tend to move with headline unemployment (when unemployment is high then you get more underemployment, more casual jobs, more people giving up looking for work). It's largely enough to know when unemployment is at 10% then things are gak and stuff needs to be done, and when it's at 5% then you're unlikely to get much more improvement without pushing a wage price spiral.
But you need to look at what you're doing there. You're basically saying because an official measure doesn't capture everything perfectly, then you should basically ignore it. And go with what? How you feel unemployment is?
One thing I noticed, he successfully convinced Ford Motor Co to produce their new range of cars in US factories, when originally they were going to build cars in Mexican factories and then import them back to the USA.
You got played for a sucker. Ford announced they were scrapping a new plant in Mexico that would produce the Focus, but the piece they didn't advertise is that now Ford is going to produce the Focus at an existing plant... in Mexico. The actual business decision for cancelling the existing plant was that with the decline in Ford small car sales the $1.6b investment in a new plant was no longer justified. But Ford knows its politics and knows it is good to ingratiate itself with the new president. And the new president would know that this deal has produced no new jobs in the US... but he doesn't care, he just knows people like you buy in to it.
Sentinel1 wrote: Another case of witch-hunt-on-Trump was last night in the UK where thousands of people in London and another major cities and pointlessly protested
No... a protest and a witch hunt are different things. Words have meanings, please use them.
Gale Sheehan, director of Christian International Apostolic Network, shared a new word from the Lord on Monday with readers of The Elijah List.
In it, he proclaims, America is moving into a year of "Trumpification," a word he has coined to represent President Donald Trump's "effect on the affairs of men." He said this is a time where Christians—regardless of their political affiliations—must "desire for revival to impact our nation with a shift for righteousness and morality."
if these people weren't so influential in the new administration it'd be funny.
Gale Sheehan, director of Christian International Apostolic Network, shared a new word from the Lord on Monday with readers of The Elijah List.
In it, he proclaims, America is moving into a year of "Trumpification," a word he has coined to represent President Donald Trump's "effect on the affairs of men." He said this is a time where Christians—regardless of their political affiliations—must "desire for revival to impact our nation with a shift for righteousness and morality."
if these people weren't so influential in the new administration it'd be funny.
... Weird thing is you don't even have to be that old to remember a time that someone as vulgar as Trump, who is divorced twice, married to a model who has done some clothes free work , friends with all those EVUL entertainment types and involved with things like Miss World -- not to mention such a big fan of Russia who have banned Xtian evangelism -- wouldn't be viewed as an appropriate person to run for office let alone hold the office of POTUS.
reds8n wrote: ... Weird thing is you don't even have to be that old to remember a time that someone as vulgar as Trump, who is divorced twice, married to a model who has done some clothes free work , friends with all those EVUL entertainment types and involved with things like Miss World -- not to mention such a big fan of Russia who have banned Xtian evangelism -- wouldn't be viewed as an appropriate person to run for office let alone hold the office of POTUS.
reds8n wrote: ... Weird thing is you don't even have to be that old to remember a time that someone as vulgar as Trump, who is divorced twice, married to a model who has done some clothes free work , friends with all those EVUL entertainment types and involved with things like Miss World -- not to mention such a big fan of Russia who have banned Xtian evangelism -- wouldn't be viewed as an appropriate person to run for office let alone hold the office of POTUS.
Well, I suppose Trump preached the popular ideals for change in the election. I think whoever the Republican candidate was they would win, as I believe the US public had had enough of 8 years of Democrat stalemate. Don't get me wrong Obama was a good President, but he had his hands tied, back in 2012 I spoke to one of his colleagues whilst on tour of the Capitol building, he openly admitted anything radical would get vetoed by his party and anything that needed further controls wouldn't get passed the Republicans, so in the end Obama technically achieved most of his goals, but they were so watered down they don't make much of an impact.
I also think there is a huge US rift between the Liberal populists and traditional America at the moment. Going back to his E.O - Now don't call me a racist- but technically I don't think its that big a deal, it affects relatively few people on a temporary basis. I also think that those 'Refugees' shouldn't be classed as such. E.g. a Somalian choices to leave for X reasons, has plently of African neighbour countries to stay in, but chooses the U.S.A as he/she can make money there. Now I have nothing against people getting a better quality of life, but from the moment they chose that route they are an economic migrant. Of course family ties in said country may make it more lenient on them, but none the less I believe such choice forfeits said status.
Personally I think if a real Liberal open border character was President there would be no current protests but down the line their actions would divide the U.S.A even further. Trump is the lesser of two evils.
Please stick to topic, I know every man and his dog on here doesn't agree with me, but I am the counterbalance to your arguments, so please be civil not 'Facist Fantasying whatever from a previous post' Thank you.
Has anyone explained to these apparent Christians that whilst The Old Testament is part of the Bible, Jesus made a new convenant, thus rendering the Old Testament moot for Christians?
Or have they actually sat down and read their Bible outside of sinister sounding 'Bible Studies', which from what I can make out is simply indoctrination used to ensure certain viewpoints are hammered home from a book full of contradictions and inconsistencies?
No, it's definitely racism. It's banning people based on being from a certain country, not a certain religion. Saudi Islamists are still welcome, Persians Liberals are not.
whembly wrote: This EO targets the 7 nations that are hotbeds of sharia-supremacism (aka, Radical Islamism).
Oh no. Saudi Arabia is much, much more of a hotbed of “sharia-supremacism (aka, Radical Islamism)” (WTF dude, do you have even basic notion of what you are talking about? What's that “sharia-supremacism” you are talking about even?) than Iran. They are not impacted by the ban. Let me quote my previous message on Iran:
Sentinel1 wrote: All the countries involved with his E.O are yes Muslim, but each country is a complete and utter mess of political extremist opposites and government coups. The problem is you let one family in, they need a home, social security, language lessons, education lessons, school places etc and then said family want their 50 other relatives to join them in the same area. That makes a huge logistical nightmare through paper work and public funding.
That's very ignorant. Not ignorant as in “You are a filthy racist and you should feel bad about yourself”, no, I really mean that this is very ill-informed and far from the facts. Iran (it's the country I know best, I can't answer for others) has a pretty stable (unfriendly and unlikable as it is) regime, opposition that is mostly very moderate and friendly to the US, as a fairly good education system, and Iranian in the US (mostly concentrated around Los Angeles) are described as follow by Wikipedia:
Iranian Americans are among the highest educated people in the United States. They have historically excelled in business, academia, the sciences, arts, and entertainment – but have traditionally shied away from participating in American politics and other civic activities.
Quite recently, an Iranian-born woman working at Standford University, Maryam Mirzakhani, won the Fields medal (i.e. basically the Nobel Price in Mathematics). Now I guess she may have to move away from the US, but I'm sure she won't have too much trouble to get a position in the EU. It's all good for Europe really if the US decide to make such stupid, knee-jerk decision to satisfy the bigotry of it's uneducated masses. I'm still sad about this because being basically forced out of a country must be a quite traumatic experience, but I'll really reveal in schadenfreude when Trump's elector will see the new Apple, Google and co come out of Europe rather than the US.
As much as I hate the IRI, banning Iranians from entering the US was the dumbest move ever. If anything, it actually strengthen the regime, as Iranian Americans won't be able to visit their families in Iran anymore and bring outer news and ideas. And really, look up for the number of Iranian terrorists in the US to see how many terror attack this will prevent, but it's basically none at all.
This message will likely get me a new temporary ban but it was 100% worth it . This kind of information needs to be spread as far and wide as possible imo. Though some people will NEVER accept it, on purely ideological grounds.
The Iranian Islamists stay in Iran because they already have the Islamist government they want at home, and they work there to keep it Islamist despite popular pressure. Because they can do so without risk. Most Iranian emigrants are “liberal educated elite”. That's why you will have a hard time finding Iranian terrorists in the US. Those guys can't push for their government to be less Islamist without risk, they don't want to end up in Evin. But hey, who cares about facts that are not “alternate” these days?
tneva82 wrote: People get radicalized when they get detached from society. Lack of work, lack of social contacts, lack of feeling of being welcome. That's been common point with pretty much every terrorist so far.
That's plain out false. Trump will definitely feed the radical Islamist narrative that there is a war between infidels and muslims, sure, but that part I quoted is “alternate fact”, as in entirely, absolutely not true.
Just like cult don't need that. See how many rich people are part of scientology…
The White House has said a five-year-old boy was detained for more than four hours and reportedly handcuffed at an airport because he posed a “security risk”.
The boy, reportedly a US citizen with an Iranian mother, was one of more than 100 people detained following President Donald Trump’s immigration order.
In a press briefing, Mr Trump’s press secretary Sean Spicer was unrepentant about the incident.
He said: “To assume that just because of someone’s age and gender that they don’t pose a threat would be misguided and wrong.”
Footage shows the boy's mother waiting anxiously at Dulles International airport in Washington DC before being reunited with her son, who was reportedly flown into the airport with another family.
The White House has said a five-year-old boy was detained for more than four hours and reportedly handcuffed at an airport because he posed a “security risk”.
Five years old.
Five.
Hey he might remind people even people from Iran&other muslim countries are humans! That's HUGE issue right there! They need to be painted out as a daemons from hell obviously so we can't have kids coming to US!
The conditions that produced Fascism in the 1920s and 1930s are so unique, that they are unlikely to be seen on this Earth ever again, and thank God for that.
Trump is a lot of things, but talk of Fascism is miles off the mark.
For example. Have we:
Just came out of a world war that killed millions of people and shattered countries, thus destabilising and destroying the established social order?
Are we worried about the newly created Soviet Union and its threats to spread Communism across the globe, thus encouraging support for Fascism?
Is there a centuries long acceptance of anti-Semitism driving government policy in Europe?
Are there hundreds of thousands of embittered ex-Soldiers in Germany and Italy?
Fascism takes many forms, but I feel a lot of newspapers are wildly out of control.
By all means criticise Trump - he deserves it, but I think we're in danger of diluting the term Fascism, and that is a tragedy.
Ask your grand-parents or your great-grandparents about what REAL Fascism looks like.
Ask your grand-parents or your great-grandparents about what REAL Fascism looks like.
They will tell you that, at first, it didn't look as bad as it sounded. For the people who put the fascist people in power, I mean.
What most people forget about Fascism is that it didn't suddenly pop up one day. It was carefully (and gradually) prepared, so that the people behind it were finally in charge.
What happens now in America is just the first step. True, it's not Fascism right now...but there are many signs pointing that it may become something very similar, and as much destructive.
And I thought Alex Jones was just a low-rent TV host on the One Show - the TV show that brings Daytime to the Prime Time, to remind us why we go to work.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: The conditions that produced Fascism in the 1920s and 1930s are so unique, that they are unlikely to be seen on this Earth ever again, and thank God for that.
Trump is a lot of things, but talk of Fascism is miles off the mark.
For example. Have we:
Just came out of a world war that killed millions of people and shattered countries, thus destabilising and destroying the established social order?
Are we worried about the newly created Soviet Union and its threats to spread Communism across the globe, thus encouraging support for Fascism?
Is there a centuries long acceptance of anti-Semitism driving government policy in Europe?
Are there hundreds of thousands of embittered ex-Soldiers in Germany and Italy?
Fascism takes many forms, but I feel a lot of newspapers are wildly out of control.
By all means criticise Trump - he deserves it, but I think we're in danger of diluting the term Fascism, and that is a tragedy.
Ask your grand-parents or your great-grandparents about what REAL Fascism looks like.
This sound familiar?
Just came out of a middle east war that killed millions of people and shattered countries, thus destabilising and destroying the established social order?
Are we worried about the newly created ISIS and its threats to spread Sharia Law across the globe, thus encouraging support for Fascism?
Is there a centuries long acceptance of anti-Islamic driving government policy in ths USA?
Are there hundreds of thousands of embittered ex-Soldiers in the USA?
Fascism takes many forms, but I feel a lot of newspapers are wildly out of control.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: The conditions that produced Fascism in the 1920s and 1930s are so unique, that they are unlikely to be seen on this Earth ever again, and thank God for that.
What about the various totalitarianism that happened after the 30's? Are you ignoring those or just telling us it can't happen in the US because they have some form of immunity?
Ask your grand-parents or your great-grandparents about what REAL Fascism looks like.
They will tell you that, at first, it didn't look as bad as it sounded. For the people who put the fascist people in power, I mean.
What most people forget about Fascism is that it didn't suddenly pop up one day. It was carefully (and gradually) prepared, so that the people behind it were finally in charge.
What happens now in America is just the first step. True, it's not Fascism right now...but there are many signs pointing that it may become something very similar, and as much destructive.
I think that is a little far fetched, countries aren't going to allow their leaders to ditch democracy. Take the U.S.A for example, Trump can implement certain changes but he still has to pass through the rigours of law and judgement. There is a limit imposed to what a President can do, and he is no dictator. It would take a complete political revolution to create a dictatorship, even if someone tried they would be quickly put down by everyone striking and protesting and with a military response to restore order. Fascism came about because of immense political change, many new countries were formed with mixed ethnics who didn't get on, there was alienation as to whose flag they were under and in many places it was the first time Democracy was introduced. People were sceptical and didn't like it, combine that with economic depression, hyperinflation and national shame -people were desperate and looked to leaders with answers. What do we have today? None of these things, so it won't happen.
In other news Austria is considering banning Muslim head wear like France, Donald Trump hasn't suggested anything like this, but because he is an easy target to blame people go crazy. No one has protested about Muslims not being allowed to wear head scarfs elsewhere e.g. France and yet I would say that is a more serious topic on racism for all would-be-do-everything-gooders.
Just came out of a world war that killed millions of people and shattered countries, thus destabilising and destroying the established social order?
No, but we are in the 15th year of a series of conflicts, including the War on Terror and various civil wars, that have killed millions of people, shattered countries, and destabilized the region (and Europe).
Are we worried about the newly created Soviet Union and its threats to spread Communism across the globe, thus encouraging support for Fascism?
People are worried about the newly created Islamic State and their threats to spread terror across the globe.
Is there a centuries long acceptance of anti-Semitism driving government policy in Europe?
There is decades long acceptance of anti-"different than us"isms driving government policy in some European countries, as well in the USA.
Are there hundreds of thousands of embittered ex-Soldiers in Germany and Italy?
There are millions and millions of veterans in the US, growing at a very fast rate. Some of them are probably embittered.
Or do they only count if they are in Germany and Italy?
Fascism takes many forms, but I feel a lot of newspapers are wildly out of control.
In other news Austria is considering banning Muslim head wear like France, Donald Trump hasn't suggested anything like this, but because he is an easy target to blame people go crazy. No one has protested about Muslims not being allowed to wear head scarfs elsewhere e.g. France and yet I would say that is a more serious topic on racism for all would-be-do-everything-gooders.
SECRET FBI RULES allow agents to obtain journalists’ phone records with approval from two internal officials — far less oversight than under normal judicial procedures.
The classified rules, obtained by The Intercept and dating from 2013, govern the FBI’s use of national security letters, which allow the bureau to obtain information about journalists’ calls without going to a judge or informing the news organization being targeted. They have previously been released only in heavily redacted form.
Media advocates said the documents show that the FBI imposes few constraints on itself when it bypasses the requirement to go to court and obtain subpoenas or search warrants before accessing journalists’ information.
The rules stipulate that obtaining a journalist’s records with a national security letter requires the signoff of the FBI’s general counsel and the executive assistant director of the bureau’s National Security Branch, in addition to the regular chain of approval. Generally speaking, there are a variety of FBI officials, including the agents in charge of field offices, who can sign off that an NSL is “relevant” to a national security investigation.
There is an extra step under the rules if the NSL targets a journalist in order “to identify confidential news media sources.” In that case, the general counsel and the executive assistant director must first consult with the assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s National Security Division.
But if the NSL is trying to identify a leaker by targeting the records of the potential source, and not the journalist, the Justice Department doesn’t need to be involved.
The guidelines also specify that the extra oversight layers do not apply if the journalist is believed to be a spy or is part of a news organization “associated with a foreign intelligence service” or “otherwise acting on behalf of a foreign power.” Unless, again, the purpose is to identify a leak, in which case the general counsel and executive assistant director must approve the request.
“These supposed rules are incredibly weak and almost nonexistent — as long as they have that second signoff, they’re basically good to go,” said Trevor Timm, executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, which has sued the Justice Department for the release of these rules. “The FBI is entirely able to go after journalists and with only one extra hoop they have to jump through.”
A spokesperson for the FBI, Christopher Allen, declined to comment on the rules or say if they had been changed since 2013, except to say that they are “very clear” that “the FBI cannot predicate investigative activity solely on the exercise of First Amendment rights.”
The Obama administration has come under criticism for bringing a record number of leak prosecutions and aggressively targeting journalists in the process. In 2013, after it came out that the Justice Department had secretly seized records from phone lines at the Associated Press and surveilled Fox News reporter James Rosen, then-Attorney General Eric Holder tightened the rules for when prosecutors could go after journalists. The new policies emphasized that reporters would not be prosecuted for “newsgathering activities,” and that the government would “seek evidence from or involving the news media” as a “last resort” and an “extraordinary measure.” The FBI could not label reporters as co-conspirators in order to try to identify their sources — as had happened with Rosen — and it became more difficult to get journalists’ phone records without notifying the news organization first.
Yet these changes did not apply to NSLs. Those are governed by a separate set of rules, laid out in a classified annex to the FBI’s operating manual, known as the Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide, or DIOG. The full version of that guide, including the classified annex, was last made public in redacted form in 2011.
The section of the annex on NSLs obtained by The Intercept dates from October 2013 and is marked “last updated October 2011.” It is classified as secret with an additional restriction against distribution to any non-U.S. citizens.
Emails from FBI lawyers in 2015, which were released earlier this year to the Freedom of the Press Foundation, reference an update to this portion of the DIOG, but it is not clear from the heavily redacted emails what changes were actually made.
In a January 2015 email to a number of FBI employee lists, James Baker, the general counsel of the FBI, attached the new attorney general’s policy and wrote that “with the increased focus on media issues,” the FBI and Justice Department would “continue to review the DIOG and other internal policy guides to determine if additional changes or requirements are necessary.”
“Please be mindful of these media issues,” he continued, and advised consulting with the general counsel’s office “prior to implementing any techniques targeting the media.” But the email also explicitly notes that the new guidelines do not apply to “national security tools.”
Allen, the FBI spokesperson, told The Intercept in an emailed statement that “the FBI periodically reviews and updates the DIOG as needed” and that “certainly the FBI’s DIOG remains consistent with all [attorney general] guidelines.”
Bruce Brown, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said that the “use of NSLs as a way around the protections in the guidelines is a serious concern for news organizations.”
Last week, the Reporters Committee filed a brief in support of the Freedom of the Press Foundation’s lawsuit for the FBI’s NSL rules and other documents on behalf of 37 news organizations, including The Intercept’s publisher, First Look Media. (First Look also provides funding to both the Reporters Committee and the Freedom of the Press Foundation, and several Intercept staffers serve on the foundation’s board.)
Seeing the rules in their uncensored form, Timm, of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said that the FBI should not have kept them classified.
“Redacting the fact that they need a little extra signoff from supervisors doesn’t come close to protecting state secrets,” he said.
The FBI issues thousands of NSLs each year, including nearly 13,000 in 2015. Over the years, a series of inspector general reports found significant problems with their use, yet the FBI is currently pushing to expand the types of information it can demand with an NSL. The scope of NSLs has long been limited to basic subscriber information and toll billing information — which number called which, when, and for how long — as well as some financial and banking records. But the FBI had made a habit of asking companies to hand over more revealing data on internet usage, which could include email header information (though not the subject lines or content of emails) and browsing history. The 2013 NSL rules for the media only mention telephone toll records.
Another controversial aspect of NSLs is that they come with a gag order preventing companies from disclosing even the fact that they’ve received one. Court challenges and legislative changes have loosened that restriction a bit, allowing companies to disclose how many NSLs they receive, in broad ranges, and in a few cases, to describe the materials the FBI had demanded of them in more detail. Earlier this month, Yahoo became the first company to release three NSLs it had received in recent years.
It’s unclear how often the FBI has used NSLs to get journalists’ records. Barton Gellman, of the Washington Post, has said that he was told his phone records had been obtained via an NSL.
The FBI could also potentially demand journalists’ information through an application to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (or FISA court), which, like NSLs, would also not be covered by the Justice Department policy. The rules for that process are still obscure. The emails about revisions to the FBI guidelines reference a “FISA portion,” but most of the discussion is redacted.
For Brown, of the Reporters Committee, the disclosure of the rules “only confirms that we need information about the actual frequency and context of NSL practice relating to newsgathering and journalists’ records to assess the effectiveness of the new guidelines.”
A man who President Donald Trump has promoted as an authority on voter fraud was registered to vote in multiple states during the 2016 presidential election, the Associated Press has learned.
Gregg Phillips, whose unsubstantiated claim that the election was marred by 3 million illegal votes was tweeted by the president, was listed on the rolls in Alabama, Texas and Mississippi, according to voting records and election officials in those states. He voted only in Alabama in November, records show.
In a post earlier this month, Phillips described "an amazing effort" by volunteers tied to True the Vote, an organization whose board he sits on, who he said found "thousands of duplicate records and registrations of dead people."
Trump has made an issue of people who are registered to vote in more than one state, using it as one of the bedrocks of his overall contention that voter fraud is rampant in the U.S. and that voting by 3 to 5 million immigrants illegally in the country cost him the popular vote in November.
The AP found that Phillips was registered in Alabama and Texas under the name Gregg Allen Phillips, with the identical Social Security number. Mississippi records list him under the name Gregg A. Phillips, and that record includes the final four digits of Phillips' Social Security number, his correct date of birth and a prior address matching one once attached to Gregg Allen Phillips. He has lived in all three states.
In some ways it's the incredible incompetence of the new administration that is so frustrating.
And just because it's easy to bandwagon on Trump, and with full acknowledgement that conducting a raid in the heat of battle is hard, here are some reminders of the words of our POTUS as we talk about "could we ever become fascists" a couple days after the 8 year old daughter of a US born cleric was killed:
"You have to take out their families. When you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families." - Donald Trump, 12/2/2015
"What I'd do, I'm going to leave that to your imagination. But I will tell you, I'm going to be very tough on families." - 12/6/2015
"I would be very, very firm with families. Frankly, that would make people think. They may not care much about their lives, but they do care, believe it or not, about their families' lives." - 12/15/2015
"They care more about their families than they do about themselves. Something has to be done... I would do pretty severe stuff." - 12/31/2015
"They [the troops] won’t refuse. They’re not gonna refuse me. Believe me... If I say do it, they’re going to do it." - 3/3/2016
"They have no laws, they have no rules, they have no regulations and chop off heads... We have to be able fight on somewhat of an equal footing." - 3/10/2016
BigWaaagh wrote: I'm seeing a lot of bs semantic word play in this thread, for nothing more than partisan foolishness, by individuals trying to polish this turd stain of an EO. Here's what's actually happening on the front line and it's nothing but shameful behavior on behalf of this administration. Can't you can smell the "greatness"?!
How very in keeping with all those proclaimed and venerated Christian values the conservatives love to hold up as their guiding light...the hypocrisy truly does stink to high heaven and I can only hope that if there is indeed, a God, then some of these fethers are going to have some serious explaining to do before the Man.
Heres another case of sour grapes! People around the world will just have to deal with Trump for the next 4 years, rather than bicker about 'oohs Trump worse than ooh' we should be trying to all get on with life. Another case of witch-hunt-on-Trump was last night in the UK where thousands of people in London and another major cities and pointlessly protested so that the government had to waste one entire debate on whether it was legal to invite Trump for tea! Needless to say those said people achieved nothing and Trump has been invited by Buckingham Palace to meet the Queen.
As I have said before you will have to live with his impact, but at least give the man a full year before condemning him as the worst human being ever. If you want to look for worse leaders, look no further than Saudi Arabia; a country where women have no rights, where a Christian man was nearly whipped to death because he had brought a bottle of wine into the country, a country which openly does not follow human rights laws, and a country where the rich don't even recognise the poor, as they are a different clan.
Now before this thread gets derailed, lets go back onto a clean topic without so much Trump bashing rhetoric...
NOPE! Sorry, Neville Chamberlain, appeasement is not in my bag and other leaders don't govern my country.
In other news Austria is considering banning Muslim head wear like France, Donald Trump hasn't suggested anything like this, but because he is an easy target to blame people go crazy. No one has protested about Muslims not being allowed to wear head scarfs elsewhere e.g. France and yet I would say that is a more serious topic on racism for all would-be-do-everything-gooders.
I didn't know that, but reading the article some of that bill does make sense such as not wearing a full face mask dress for I.D photos as anyone could claim to be that I.D when a face isn't shown. Also to a lesser extent I could understand the reasons for not wearing them whilst driving as it must restrict visibility. Personally I don't understand why women still wear such an outdated piece of clothing. It was just another rule used to control women by men, women unfortunately are still a mans property in some Islamic countries and being forced to wear such a thing takes away everything that makes a person an individual.
Also going back to the article, interestingly enough a terrorist escaped police in the U.K for a while; he was un-surveillance to be apprehended and went to a Mosque. Police clocked him going in with a description. He put on a ladies Burkha full cover dress and casually walked out. The police had no idea it was him, he didn't get very far but it shows you anyone can exploit it.
SECRET FBI RULES allow agents to obtain journalists’ phone records with approval from two internal officials — far less oversight than under normal judicial procedures.
The classified rules, obtained by The Intercept and dating from 2013, govern the FBI’s use of national security letters, which allow the bureau to obtain information about journalists’ calls without going to a judge or informing the news organization being targeted. They have previously been released only in heavily redacted form.
Media advocates said the documents show that the FBI imposes few constraints on itself when it bypasses the requirement to go to court and obtain subpoenas or search warrants before accessing journalists’ information.
The rules stipulate that obtaining a journalist’s records with a national security letter requires the signoff of the FBI’s general counsel and the executive assistant director of the bureau’s National Security Branch, in addition to the regular chain of approval. Generally speaking, there are a variety of FBI officials, including the agents in charge of field offices, who can sign off that an NSL is “relevant” to a national security investigation.
There is an extra step under the rules if the NSL targets a journalist in order “to identify confidential news media sources.” In that case, the general counsel and the executive assistant director must first consult with the assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s National Security Division.
But if the NSL is trying to identify a leaker by targeting the records of the potential source, and not the journalist, the Justice Department doesn’t need to be involved.
The guidelines also specify that the extra oversight layers do not apply if the journalist is believed to be a spy or is part of a news organization “associated with a foreign intelligence service” or “otherwise acting on behalf of a foreign power.” Unless, again, the purpose is to identify a leak, in which case the general counsel and executive assistant director must approve the request.
“These supposed rules are incredibly weak and almost nonexistent — as long as they have that second signoff, they’re basically good to go,” said Trevor Timm, executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, which has sued the Justice Department for the release of these rules. “The FBI is entirely able to go after journalists and with only one extra hoop they have to jump through.”
A spokesperson for the FBI, Christopher Allen, declined to comment on the rules or say if they had been changed since 2013, except to say that they are “very clear” that “the FBI cannot predicate investigative activity solely on the exercise of First Amendment rights.”
The Obama administration has come under criticism for bringing a record number of leak prosecutions and aggressively targeting journalists in the process. In 2013, after it came out that the Justice Department had secretly seized records from phone lines at the Associated Press and surveilled Fox News reporter James Rosen, then-Attorney General Eric Holder tightened the rules for when prosecutors could go after journalists. The new policies emphasized that reporters would not be prosecuted for “newsgathering activities,” and that the government would “seek evidence from or involving the news media” as a “last resort” and an “extraordinary measure.” The FBI could not label reporters as co-conspirators in order to try to identify their sources — as had happened with Rosen — and it became more difficult to get journalists’ phone records without notifying the news organization first.
Yet these changes did not apply to NSLs. Those are governed by a separate set of rules, laid out in a classified annex to the FBI’s operating manual, known as the Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide, or DIOG. The full version of that guide, including the classified annex, was last made public in redacted form in 2011.
The section of the annex on NSLs obtained by The Intercept dates from October 2013 and is marked “last updated October 2011.” It is classified as secret with an additional restriction against distribution to any non-U.S. citizens.
Emails from FBI lawyers in 2015, which were released earlier this year to the Freedom of the Press Foundation, reference an update to this portion of the DIOG, but it is not clear from the heavily redacted emails what changes were actually made.
In a January 2015 email to a number of FBI employee lists, James Baker, the general counsel of the FBI, attached the new attorney general’s policy and wrote that “with the increased focus on media issues,” the FBI and Justice Department would “continue to review the DIOG and other internal policy guides to determine if additional changes or requirements are necessary.”
“Please be mindful of these media issues,” he continued, and advised consulting with the general counsel’s office “prior to implementing any techniques targeting the media.” But the email also explicitly notes that the new guidelines do not apply to “national security tools.”
Allen, the FBI spokesperson, told The Intercept in an emailed statement that “the FBI periodically reviews and updates the DIOG as needed” and that “certainly the FBI’s DIOG remains consistent with all [attorney general] guidelines.”
Bruce Brown, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said that the “use of NSLs as a way around the protections in the guidelines is a serious concern for news organizations.”
Last week, the Reporters Committee filed a brief in support of the Freedom of the Press Foundation’s lawsuit for the FBI’s NSL rules and other documents on behalf of 37 news organizations, including The Intercept’s publisher, First Look Media. (First Look also provides funding to both the Reporters Committee and the Freedom of the Press Foundation, and several Intercept staffers serve on the foundation’s board.)
Seeing the rules in their uncensored form, Timm, of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said that the FBI should not have kept them classified.
“Redacting the fact that they need a little extra signoff from supervisors doesn’t come close to protecting state secrets,” he said.
The FBI issues thousands of NSLs each year, including nearly 13,000 in 2015. Over the years, a series of inspector general reports found significant problems with their use, yet the FBI is currently pushing to expand the types of information it can demand with an NSL. The scope of NSLs has long been limited to basic subscriber information and toll billing information — which number called which, when, and for how long — as well as some financial and banking records. But the FBI had made a habit of asking companies to hand over more revealing data on internet usage, which could include email header information (though not the subject lines or content of emails) and browsing history. The 2013 NSL rules for the media only mention telephone toll records.
Another controversial aspect of NSLs is that they come with a gag order preventing companies from disclosing even the fact that they’ve received one. Court challenges and legislative changes have loosened that restriction a bit, allowing companies to disclose how many NSLs they receive, in broad ranges, and in a few cases, to describe the materials the FBI had demanded of them in more detail. Earlier this month, Yahoo became the first company to release three NSLs it had received in recent years.
It’s unclear how often the FBI has used NSLs to get journalists’ records. Barton Gellman, of the Washington Post, has said that he was told his phone records had been obtained via an NSL.
The FBI could also potentially demand journalists’ information through an application to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (or FISA court), which, like NSLs, would also not be covered by the Justice Department policy. The rules for that process are still obscure. The emails about revisions to the FBI guidelines reference a “FISA portion,” but most of the discussion is redacted.
For Brown, of the Reporters Committee, the disclosure of the rules “only confirms that we need information about the actual frequency and context of NSL practice relating to newsgathering and journalists’ records to assess the effectiveness of the new guidelines.”
A man who President Donald Trump has promoted as an authority on voter fraud was registered to vote in multiple states during the 2016 presidential election, the Associated Press has learned.
Gregg Phillips, whose unsubstantiated claim that the election was marred by 3 million illegal votes was tweeted by the president, was listed on the rolls in Alabama, Texas and Mississippi, according to voting records and election officials in those states. He voted only in Alabama in November, records show.
In a post earlier this month, Phillips described "an amazing effort" by volunteers tied to True the Vote, an organization whose board he sits on, who he said found "thousands of duplicate records and registrations of dead people."
Trump has made an issue of people who are registered to vote in more than one state, using it as one of the bedrocks of his overall contention that voter fraud is rampant in the U.S. and that voting by 3 to 5 million immigrants illegally in the country cost him the popular vote in November.
The AP found that Phillips was registered in Alabama and Texas under the name Gregg Allen Phillips, with the identical Social Security number. Mississippi records list him under the name Gregg A. Phillips, and that record includes the final four digits of Phillips' Social Security number, his correct date of birth and a prior address matching one once attached to Gregg Allen Phillips. He has lived in all three states.
In some ways it's the incredible incompetence of the new administration that is so frustrating.
nearly.
Mmm Trump fascism oh wait that was deep in the Obama Administration?
"Why do you insist on dragging in our Glroious Leader to your fascist conspiracies?"
-Enemies at the Gate.
To the point, they should be required to have warrants, not internal signoff. That would fit with the actual Constitutional Law. But you know the Bill of Rights is for Chumps.
In other news Austria is considering banning Muslim head wear like France, Donald Trump hasn't suggested anything like this, but because he is an easy target to blame people go crazy. No one has protested about Muslims not being allowed to wear head scarfs elsewhere e.g. France and yet I would say that is a more serious topic on racism for all would-be-do-everything-gooders.
I didn't know that, but reading the article some of that bill does make sense such as not wearing a full face mask dress for I.D photos as anyone could claim to be that I.D when a face isn't shown. Also to a lesser extent I could understand the reasons for not wearing them whilst driving as it must restrict visibility. Personally I don't understand why women still wear such an outdated piece of clothing. It was just another rule used to control women by men, women unfortunately are still a mans property in some Islamic countries and being forced to wear such a thing takes away everything that makes a person an individual.
Also going back to the article, interestingly enough a terrorist escaped police in the U.K for a while; he was un-surveillance to be apprehended and went to a Mosque. Police clocked him going in with a description. He put on a ladies Burkha full cover dress and casually walked out. The police had no idea it was him, he didn't get very far but it shows you anyone can exploit it.
EHMAHGERD SINGLE PERSON DID SOMETHING!
Better ban the lot, yeah?
Whilst we're at it, how about we also ban replica football strips? I mean, it could be a hooligan wearing it! And tracksuits - don't care if you're an athelete, doesn't mean you're not still a poor person that may or may not attempt to happy slap me!
Oh god those suits! Literally some murderers wore suits whilst killing their victim. BAN SUITS NOW! THEY'RE THE HALLMARK OF LITERALLY SOME MURDERS!
In other news Austria is considering banning Muslim head wear like France, Donald Trump hasn't suggested anything like this, but because he is an easy target to blame people go crazy. No one has protested about Muslims not being allowed to wear head scarfs elsewhere e.g. France and yet I would say that is a more serious topic on racism for all would-be-do-everything-gooders.
I didn't know that, but reading the article some of that bill does make sense such as not wearing a full face mask dress for I.D photos as anyone could claim to be that I.D when a face isn't shown. Also to a lesser extent I could understand the reasons for not wearing them whilst driving as it must restrict visibility. Personally I don't understand why women still wear such an outdated piece of clothing. It was just another rule used to control women by men, women unfortunately are still a mans property in some Islamic countries and being forced to wear such a thing takes away everything that makes a person an individual.
Also going back to the article, interestingly enough a terrorist escaped police in the U.K for a while; he was un-surveillance to be apprehended and went to a Mosque. Police clocked him going in with a description. He put on a ladies Burkha full cover dress and casually walked out. The police had no idea it was him, he didn't get very far but it shows you anyone can exploit it.
From "a ban would never happen here, so just relax" to "I think it's a good idea and I see why people want a ban" in less than 5 minutes.
In other news Austria is considering banning Muslim head wear like France, Donald Trump hasn't suggested anything like this, but because he is an easy target to blame people go crazy. No one has protested about Muslims not being allowed to wear head scarfs elsewhere e.g. France and yet I would say that is a more serious topic on racism for all would-be-do-everything-gooders.
I didn't know that, but reading the article some of that bill does make sense such as not wearing a full face mask dress for I.D photos as anyone could claim to be that I.D when a face isn't shown. Also to a lesser extent I could understand the reasons for not wearing them whilst driving as it must restrict visibility. Personally I don't understand why women still wear such an outdated piece of clothing. It was just another rule used to control women by men, women unfortunately are still a mans property in some Islamic countries and being forced to wear such a thing takes away everything that makes a person an individual.
Also going back to the article, interestingly enough a terrorist escaped police in the U.K for a while; he was un-surveillance to be apprehended and went to a Mosque. Police clocked him going in with a description. He put on a ladies Burkha full cover dress and casually walked out. The police had no idea it was him, he didn't get very far but it shows you anyone can exploit it.
Be careful there before you go where you think. many southern states have law against hoods and face coverings as another very deadly terrorist group used them extensively: the Klan.
BigWaaagh wrote: I'm seeing a lot of bs semantic word play in this thread, for nothing more than partisan foolishness, by individuals trying to polish this turd stain of an EO. Here's what's actually happening on the front line and it's nothing but shameful behavior on behalf of this administration. Can't you can smell the "greatness"?!
How very in keeping with all those proclaimed and venerated Christian values the conservatives love to hold up as their guiding light...the hypocrisy truly does stink to high heaven and I can only hope that if there is indeed, a God, then some of these fethers are going to have some serious explaining to do before the Man.
Heres another case of sour grapes! People around the world will just have to deal with Trump for the next 4 years, rather than bicker about 'oohs Trump worse than ooh' we should be trying to all get on with life. Another case of witch-hunt-on-Trump was last night in the UK where thousands of people in London and another major cities and pointlessly protested so that the government had to waste one entire debate on whether it was legal to invite Trump for tea! Needless to say those said people achieved nothing and Trump has been invited by Buckingham Palace to meet the Queen.
As I have said before you will have to live with his impact, but at least give the man a full year before condemning him as the worst human being ever. If you want to look for worse leaders, look no further than Saudi Arabia; a country where women have no rights, where a Christian man was nearly whipped to death because he had brought a bottle of wine into the country, a country which openly does not follow human rights laws, and a country where the rich don't even recognise the poor, as they are a different clan.
Now before this thread gets derailed, lets go back onto a clean topic without so much Trump bashing rhetoric...
NOPE! Sorry, Neville Chamberlain, appeasement is not in my bag and other leaders don't govern my country.
Very funny, I was only trying to be civil. If you are interested to know there is still a British Neville Chamberlain out there - The leader of the U.K opposition Labour wishy-washy-Liberal party Jeremy Corbyn, buts that's another topic completely. Back to topic, has Trump started the Mexico wall building project or is that yet to be given the seal of approval? I know certain stretches have some form of barrier already in place by previous authorities.
What is it called when the guy crying 'Wolf' is flagrantly guilty himself...but let's just give Trump "a few more years" to work things out. NOPE.
"Trump has made an issue of people who are registered to vote in more than one state, using it is one of the bedrocks of his overall contention that voter fraud is rampant in the U.S. and that improper votes by 3 to 5 million "illegals" cost him the popular vote in November."
***On a lighter note, people in the DC-Richmond corridor have been advised to stay inside their homes and not let their pets out in their yards as Trump's hairpiece has gotten loose.
BigWaaagh wrote: What is it called when the guy crying 'Wolf' is flagrantly guilty himself...but let's just give Trump "a few more years" to work things out. NOPE.
"Trump has made an issue of people who are registered to vote in more than one state, using it is one of the bedrocks of his overall contention that voter fraud is rampant in the U.S. and that improper votes by 3 to 5 million "illegals" cost him the popular vote in November."
Interesting sound clip on the radio this morning, from Yates' confirmation hearing a few years back:
Sen. Sessions: "If the President issues an illegal order, should the AG or Deputy AG follow that order?"
Yates: "No, the AG or Deputy AG should follow the law and act as independent advisor to the POTUS."
A man who President Donald Trump has promoted as an authority on voter fraud was registered to vote in multiple states during the 2016 presidential election, the Associated Press has learned.
Gregg Phillips, whose unsubstantiated claim that the election was marred by 3 million illegal votes was tweeted by the president, was listed on the rolls in Alabama, Texas and Mississippi, according to voting records and election officials in those states. He voted only in Alabama in November, records show.
In a post earlier this month, Phillips described "an amazing effort" by volunteers tied to True the Vote, an organization whose board he sits on, who he said found "thousands of duplicate records and registrations of dead people."
Trump has made an issue of people who are registered to vote in more than one state, using it as one of the bedrocks of his overall contention that voter fraud is rampant in the U.S. and that voting by 3 to 5 million immigrants illegally in the country cost him the popular vote in November.
The AP found that Phillips was registered in Alabama and Texas under the name Gregg Allen Phillips, with the identical Social Security number. Mississippi records list him under the name Gregg A. Phillips, and that record includes the final four digits of Phillips' Social Security number, his correct date of birth and a prior address matching one once attached to Gregg Allen Phillips. He has lived in all three states.
In some ways it's the incredible incompetence of the new administration that is so frustrating.
nearly.
It honestly probably just goes to show how stupid a measure for fraud "registered in multiple states" is. I was probably registered in at least three states in 2016, simply because I didn't exactly call up the Election Boards in Kansas or Virginia that I had moved to Pennsylvania. Rolls are not purged frequently in many states, so once you're registered you can end up on their rolls for a long time. Hell for all I know I'm still registered in North Carolina from oh so many years ago. There are hordes of dead people on the rolls in many states because the rolls are never checked against obituaries so the people maintaining them don't know when someone dies unless you call them up and tell them which is not part of the usual "my dad died" procedures.
There are likely hordes of Americans registered in multiple states, but it's a piss poor indication of where they voted and it's terrible evidence of voter fraud.
BigWaaagh wrote: What is it called when the guy crying 'Wolf' is flagrantly guilty himself...but let's just give Trump "a few more years" to work things out. NOPE.
"Trump has made an issue of people who are registered to vote in more than one state, using it is one of the bedrocks of his overall contention that voter fraud is rampant in the U.S. and that improper votes by 3 to 5 million "illegals" cost him the popular vote in November."
I imagine there is widespread voter fraud on both sides, this thing about multi-state voting has probably been used in the Obama elections too. For right or wrong reasons, you can't argue that Trump is bringing light on topics that haven't been widely discussed -ones that hinder and ones that help him. The problem is both the Republicans and Democrats get so up themselves fact becomes blurred to fiction and little if anything is actually done.
A man who President Donald Trump has promoted as an authority on voter fraud was registered to vote in multiple states during the 2016 presidential election, the Associated Press has learned.
Gregg Phillips, whose unsubstantiated claim that the election was marred by 3 million illegal votes was tweeted by the president, was listed on the rolls in Alabama, Texas and Mississippi, according to voting records and election officials in those states. He voted only in Alabama in November, records show.
In a post earlier this month, Phillips described "an amazing effort" by volunteers tied to True the Vote, an organization whose board he sits on, who he said found "thousands of duplicate records and registrations of dead people."
Trump has made an issue of people who are registered to vote in more than one state, using it as one of the bedrocks of his overall contention that voter fraud is rampant in the U.S. and that voting by 3 to 5 million immigrants illegally in the country cost him the popular vote in November.
The AP found that Phillips was registered in Alabama and Texas under the name Gregg Allen Phillips, with the identical Social Security number. Mississippi records list him under the name Gregg A. Phillips, and that record includes the final four digits of Phillips' Social Security number, his correct date of birth and a prior address matching one once attached to Gregg Allen Phillips. He has lived in all three states.
In some ways it's the incredible incompetence of the new administration that is so frustrating.
nearly.
It honestly probably just goes to show how stupid a measure for fraud "registered in multiple states" is. I was probably registered in at least three states in 2016, simply because I didn't exactly call up the Election Boards in Kansas or Virginia that I had moved to Pennsylvania. Rolls are not purged frequently in many states, so once you're registered you can end up on their rolls for a long time. Hell for all I know I'm still registered in North Carolina from oh so many years ago. There are hordes of dead people on the rolls in many states because the rolls are never checked against obituaries so the people maintaining them don't know when someone dies unless you call them up and tell them which is not part of the usual "my dad died" procedures.
There are likely hordes of Americans registered in multiple states, but it's a piss poor indication of where they voted and it's terrible evidence of voter fraud.
Sounds like the foundations of 40ks Administratum!
A general reply to those who replied to my earlier post about what Fascism is.
I'll try to avoid going OT.
ISIL is a threat, but to compare this to powerful nation states such as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, states that had coherent ideologies and powerful militaries, is risible nonsense in my book.
The post-WW2 Soviet Union was a clear and present danger to the West, as it had 300 Divisions ready to roll across Europe, and a powerful nuclear arsenal to back them up...which could have wiped out humanity a dozen times over.
ISIL, though a regional problem, with the odd inspired terrorist attack here and there, is not even in the same ball park, the same city, as the Soviet Union.
The USA was nearly strangled at birth, could have been snuffed out during the war of 1812, and was almost destroyed by its civil war. If Lee had won at Antietam, and the British had come over on the South's side, then the Union was finished, and we're looking at the CSA. That's how close it was...
The USA has survived many threats and challenges in its 250+ years, but it's still here because of the strength of those institutions, the foundations are strong, and its love of liberty will never die.
Yes, the war on terror was and has been a disaster IMO, but the best comparison I can make is Vietnam.
The War on Terror is Vietnam 2.0, and Trump is approaching Richard Nixon territory,
but the USA came through Vietnam and Nixon, and it will survive Trump, because the foundations are strong, very strong...
Well, I wasnt a supporter of Trump during the campaign.
But I think now the media go a bit too far. Trump's EO about immigrants from seven muslim countries is not the end of the world.
BigWaaagh wrote: What is it called when the guy crying 'Wolf' is flagrantly guilty himself...but let's just give Trump "a few more years" to work things out. NOPE.
"Trump has made an issue of people who are registered to vote in more than one state, using it is one of the bedrocks of his overall contention that voter fraud is rampant in the U.S. and that improper votes by 3 to 5 million "illegals" cost him the popular vote in November."
I imagine there is widespread voter fraud on both sides, this thing about multi-state voting has probably been used in the Obama elections too. For right or wrong reasons, you can't argue that Trump is bringing light on topics that haven't been widely discussed -ones that hinder and ones that help him. The problem is both the Republicans and Democrats get so up themselves fact becomes blurred to fiction and little if anything is actually done.
A man who President Donald Trump has promoted as an authority on voter fraud was registered to vote in multiple states during the 2016 presidential election, the Associated Press has learned.
Gregg Phillips, whose unsubstantiated claim that the election was marred by 3 million illegal votes was tweeted by the president, was listed on the rolls in Alabama, Texas and Mississippi, according to voting records and election officials in those states. He voted only in Alabama in November, records show.
In a post earlier this month, Phillips described "an amazing effort" by volunteers tied to True the Vote, an organization whose board he sits on, who he said found "thousands of duplicate records and registrations of dead people."
Trump has made an issue of people who are registered to vote in more than one state, using it as one of the bedrocks of his overall contention that voter fraud is rampant in the U.S. and that voting by 3 to 5 million immigrants illegally in the country cost him the popular vote in November.
The AP found that Phillips was registered in Alabama and Texas under the name Gregg Allen Phillips, with the identical Social Security number. Mississippi records list him under the name Gregg A. Phillips, and that record includes the final four digits of Phillips' Social Security number, his correct date of birth and a prior address matching one once attached to Gregg Allen Phillips. He has lived in all three states.
In some ways it's the incredible incompetence of the new administration that is so frustrating.
nearly.
It honestly probably just goes to show how stupid a measure for fraud "registered in multiple states" is. I was probably registered in at least three states in 2016, simply because I didn't exactly call up the Election Boards in Kansas or Virginia that I had moved to Pennsylvania. Rolls are not purged frequently in many states, so once you're registered you can end up on their rolls for a long time. Hell for all I know I'm still registered in North Carolina from oh so many years ago. There are hordes of dead people on the rolls in many states because the rolls are never checked against obituaries so the people maintaining them don't know when someone dies unless you call them up and tell them which is not part of the usual "my dad died" procedures.
There are likely hordes of Americans registered in multiple states, but it's a piss poor indication of where they voted and it's terrible evidence of voter fraud.
Sounds like the foundations of 40ks Administratum!
No, actually, there isn't widespread fraud at all. It's a canard thrown around by the right to justify implementing voter suppression measures, or in this case, placate a man-child egomaniac's inability to process that he lost the popular vote, doesn't have a mandate and has the lowest recorded approval rating at this point in a Presidency, ever.
Remember that you can have tyranny without fascism- fascism is just a modern spin on it. One of the concerns that those who value individual liberties have is that the erosion of the protection of liberties has steadily accelerated over the last few decades. Trump is just doubling down on the bets made by Obama and GWB. It has been a steady march and the political cheerleaders are the ones enabling it. Ironically, both conservatives and liberals *have* decried this trend, criticizing the Patriot Act, warrantless taps and searches, indefinite detentions, drone strikes, etc. but the larger media and populace glosses over the issues in favor of team based politics and horse race elections.
This country elected a man who openly embraced totalitarian tactics, supports torture, and surrounds himself with crypto (and sometimes open) racists. It is hardly shocking that he is doing what he promised, enabled by his predecessors. Worse, his authoritarian style has a lot of open support. The question will be how far it goes.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: A general reply to those who replied to my earlier post about what Fascism is.
I'll try to avoid going OT.
ISIL is a threat, but to compare this to powerful nation states such as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, states that had coherent ideologies and powerful militaries, is risible nonsense in my book.
The post-WW2 Soviet Union was a clear and present danger to the West, as it had 300 Divisions ready to roll across Europe, and a powerful nuclear arsenal to back them up...which could have wiped out humanity a dozen times over.
ISIL, though a regional problem, with the odd inspired terrorist attack here and there, is not even in the same ball park, the same city, as the Soviet Union.
The USA was nearly strangled at birth, could have been snuffed out during the war of 1812, and was almost destroyed by its civil war. If Lee had won at Antietam, and the British had come over on the South's side, then the Union was finished, and we're looking at the CSA. That's how close it was...
The USA has survived many threats and challenges in its 250+ years, but it's still here because of the strength of those institutions, the foundations are strong, and its love of liberty will never die.
Yes, the war on terror was and has been a disaster IMO, but the best comparison I can make is Vietnam.
The War on Terror is Vietnam 2.0, and Trump is approaching Richard Nixon territory,
but the USA came through Vietnam and Nixon, and it will survive Trump, because the foundations are strong, very strong...
That's my take.
Lot's of good points and observations there. I find perspective to be the medicine to get through this Presidency, but then I look at the fact it's only been barely a week of Trump and, well, gak! Can't wait to see the SCOTUS choice..."shudder"!
BigWaaagh wrote: What is it called when the guy crying 'Wolf' is flagrantly guilty himself...but let's just give Trump "a few more years" to work things out. NOPE.
I imagine there is widespread voter fraud on both sides, this thing about multi-state voting has probably been used in the Obama elections too. For right or wrong reasons, you can't argue that Trump is bringing light on topics that haven't been widely discussed -ones that hinder and ones that help him. The problem is both the Republicans and Democrats get so up themselves fact becomes blurred to fiction and little if anything is actually done.
A man who President Donald Trump has promoted as an authority on voter fraud was registered to vote in multiple states during the 2016 presidential election, the Associated Press has learned.
Gregg Phillips, whose unsubstantiated claim that the election was marred by 3 million illegal votes was tweeted by the president, was listed on the rolls in Alabama, Texas and Mississippi, according to voting records and election officials in those states. He voted only in Alabama in November, records show.
In a post earlier this month, Phillips described "an amazing effort" by volunteers tied to True the Vote, an organization whose board he sits on, who he said found "thousands of duplicate records and registrations of dead people."
Trump has made an issue of people who are registered to vote in more than one state, using it as one of the bedrocks of his overall contention that voter fraud is rampant in the U.S. and that voting by 3 to 5 million immigrants illegally in the country cost him the popular vote in November.
The AP found that Phillips was registered in Alabama and Texas under the name Gregg Allen Phillips, with the identical Social Security number. Mississippi records list him under the name Gregg A. Phillips, and that record includes the final four digits of Phillips' Social Security number, his correct date of birth and a prior address matching one once attached to Gregg Allen Phillips. He has lived in all three states.
In some ways it's the incredible incompetence of the new administration that is so frustrating.
nearly.
It honestly probably just goes to show how stupid a measure for fraud "registered in multiple states" is. I was probably registered in at least three states in 2016, simply because I didn't exactly call up the Election Boards in Kansas or Virginia that I had moved to Pennsylvania. Rolls are not purged frequently in many states, so once you're registered you can end up on their rolls for a long time. Hell for all I know I'm still registered in North Carolina from oh so many years ago. There are hordes of dead people on the rolls in many states because the rolls are never checked against obituaries so the people maintaining them don't know when someone dies unless you call them up and tell them which is not part of the usual "my dad died" procedures.
There are likely hordes of Americans registered in multiple states, but it's a piss poor indication of where they voted and it's terrible evidence of voter fraud.
Sounds like the foundations of 40ks Administratum!
No, actually, there isn't widespread fraud at all. It's a canard thrown around by the right to justify implementing voter suppression measures, or in this case, placate a man-child egomaniac's inability to process that he lost the popular vote, doesn't have a mandate and has the lowest recorded approval rating at this point in a Presidency, ever.
Although Trump likes to make a big thing about this, I honestly don't think it bothers him, he is a man throughout life has never taken no for an answer, particularly now at the start of his political career he will be focusing on decisive action. I recon that when these topics cool off and he focuses on implementing policies to help Americans at home, the opinion pols will warm up to him. Particularly all the Social Justice Warriors on protest at the minute will eventually loose steam and public interest. When they give up it will be plain sailing for him.
wuestenfux wrote: Well, I wasnt a supporter of Trump during the campaign. But I think now the media go a bit too far. Trump's EO about immigrants from seven muslim countries is not the end of the world.
The problem with the EO (barring the fact that it's stupidly discriminatory and does nothing to stop home-grown radicals who this EO only inflames, and who are the only real terrorist threats at the moment for the US) is that Trump and his cronies passed multiple legal processes in order to do create it. So if Trump is willing to do this, when does the EO that removes vast swathes of voting rights (targeting, strangely enough, minorities and others that didn't vote for Trump/vote for Republicans) come through in order to stop "voting fraud"?
No Sentinel1, it will not be plain sailing because it is not just Social Justice Warriors who are dissatisfied with Trump. Your dismissal is almost petulant and that statement is insulting. I'm sorry but this is a man who has built his house on lies, backstabbing, and petty revenge, he is not going to turn around and magically be a good leader no matter how much you think we should shut up and accept him.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: A general reply to those who replied to my earlier post about what Fascism is.
I'll try to avoid going OT.
ISIL is a threat, but to compare this to powerful nation states such as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, states that had coherent ideologies and powerful militaries, is risible nonsense in my book.
The post-WW2 Soviet Union was a clear and present danger to the West, as it had 300 Divisions ready to roll across Europe, and a powerful nuclear arsenal to back them up...which could have wiped out humanity a dozen times over.
ISIL, though a regional problem, with the odd inspired terrorist attack here and there, is not even in the same ball park, the same city, as the Soviet Union.
The USA was nearly strangled at birth, could have been snuffed out during the war of 1812, and was almost destroyed by its civil war. If Lee had won at Antietam, and the British had come over on the South's side, then the Union was finished, and we're looking at the CSA. That's how close it was...
The USA has survived many threats and challenges in its 250+ years, but it's still here because of the strength of those institutions, the foundations are strong, and its love of liberty will never die.
Yes, the war on terror was and has been a disaster IMO, but the best comparison I can make is Vietnam.
The War on Terror is Vietnam 2.0, and Trump is approaching Richard Nixon territory,
but the USA came through Vietnam and Nixon, and it will survive Trump, because the foundations are strong, very strong...
That's my take.
Lot's of good points and observations there. I find perspective to be the medicine to get through this Presidency, but then I look at the fact it's only been barely a week of Trump and, well, gak! Can't wait to see the SCOTUS choice..."shudder"!
Its funny how history parallels and repeats itself, I mean right now there is a parallel to the 80s Ronald Reagan/Margaret Thatcher - Donald Trump/Theresa May (Special relationship in the making), Eurosceptics, cold war Russia etc. Also history tells us that a man doesn't have to be liked or have a good track record to become a great leader. Not the best comparison admittedly but Trump is following in the footsteps of arguably the best Briton who ever lived, Winston Churhchill. Both were upper class and rich, both hated foreign nationals, both were called biggots/racists, both arguably made terrible decisions, both ignored public opinion, both took to power when everything were against them, then for Churchill world events gave him glory. Now Im not saying there will be another world war but if lady luck plays right for Trump his stance could change dramatically on world events.
I still believe you can't judge him yet, after the first year then so. He may change his plans, but what he will keep on doing is pumping them out. Trump is the chance for a breathe of fresh air and no one can disagree that we all want him to make a success of the U.S.A to help the rest of the world.
lonestarr777 wrote: No Sentinel1, it will not be plain sailing because it is not just Social Justice Warriors who are dissatisfied with Trump. Your dismissal is almost petulant and that statement is insulting. I'm sorry but this is a man who has built his house on lies, backstabbing, and petty revenge, he is not going to turn around and magically be a good leader no matter how much you think we should shut up and accept him.
Not to mentioned stiffing people with the check in his own business.
d-usa wrote: Interesting sound clip on the radio this morning, from Yates' confirmation hearing a few years back:
Sen. Sessions: "If the President issues an illegal order, should the AG or Deputy AG follow that order?"
Yates: "No, the AG or Deputy AG should follow the law and act as independent advisor to the POTUS."
So what was illegal about Trump's EO?
Spoiler:
Even she couldn't articulate that...
Automatically Appended Next Post:
wuestenfux wrote: Well, I wasnt a supporter of Trump during the campaign.
But I think now the media go a bit too far. Trump's EO about immigrants from seven muslim countries is not the end of the world.
Although Trump likes to make a big thing about this, I honestly don't think it bothers him, he is a man throughout life has never taken no for an answer, .
But lately I get the feeling that Trump’s critics have evolved from expecting Trump to be Hitler to preferring it. Obviously they don’t prefer it in a conscious way. But the alternative to Trump becoming Hitler is that they have to live out the rest of their lives as confirmed morons. No one wants to be a confirmed moron. And certainly not after announcing their Trump opinions in public and demonstrating in the streets. It would be a total embarrassment for the anti-Trumpers to learn that Trump is just trying to do a good job for America. It’s a threat to their egos. A big one.
And this gets me to my point. When millions of Americans want the same thing, and they want it badly, the odds of it happening go way up. You can call it the power of positive thinking. It is also the principle behind affirmations. When humans focus on a desired future, events start to conspire to make it happen.
I’m not talking about any new-age magic. I’m talking about ordinary people doing ordinary things to turn Trump into an actual Hitler. For example, if protesters start getting violent, you could expect forceful reactions eventually. And that makes Trump look more like Hitler. I can think of dozens of ways the protesters could cause the thing they are trying to prevent. In other words, they can wish it into reality even though it is the very thing they are protesting.
No, actually, there isn't widespread fraud at all. It's a canard thrown around by the right to justify implementing voter suppression measures, or in this case, placate a man-child egomaniac's inability to process that he lost the popular vote, doesn't have a mandate and has the lowest recorded approval rating at this point in a Presidency, ever.
Frankly having people registered in multiple states and dead people registered isn't actually a problem we should concern ourselves with. That someone is on more than one rolls isn't a huge problem since you have to be in state to actually cast your vote, or apply for an absentee ballot which can only be issued if you meet certain requirements. We can confirm that someone only voted once with a simple multi-state cross checking system which already exists and is how they caught two people in 2016 who tried to vote twice in early voting.
As for voting as the dead, One you have to know that someone is dead and have access to all the information needed to vote, which is really something only family members or election officials would likely be able to do, and two because voting as a dead person is a super easy way to get caught. It is literally the worst plan for voter fraud you can come up with because it's not that hard to check to see if someone is dead and upon finding out they are it's not that hard to hunt down who did it. Between the SSA's "Death List" and all the things you'd have to do to actually impersonate the deceased to vote in their name, you'd never be able to get away with it (in fact this is the most commonly found example of voter fraud in the US and it accounts for most prosecutions of fraud schemes). A simple spot check can notice that it's happened which actually goes to show why people generally don't do it and why we shouldn't really be overtly concerned about it.
So really, while we could afford to tighten up rolls across the country, they don't actually present the grand risk of fraud that some people want to pretend they do. Human error to this day remains the most common cause of "fraudulent voting" and human error isn't particularly malicious or common enough to constitute a threat to the electoral process.
d-usa wrote: Interesting sound clip on the radio this morning, from Yates' confirmation hearing a few years back:
Sen. Sessions: "If the President issues an illegal order, should the AG or Deputy AG follow that order?"
Yates: "No, the AG or Deputy AG should follow the law and act as independent advisor to the POTUS."
So what was illegal about Trump's EO?
Spoiler:
Even she couldn't articulate that...
Automatically Appended Next Post:
wuestenfux wrote: Well, I wasnt a supporter of Trump during the campaign.
But I think now the media go a bit too far. Trump's EO about immigrants from seven muslim countries is not the end of the world.
When Obama does it... <crickets>
When Trump does it... people lose their minds.
See the pattern?
Exactly people are losing focus blaming the man for being the man, rather than remembering it isn't a new trick at all. In fact Obama drew up the plan but never implemented it. Trump took over shop and thought he'd make use of what was left of Obama's stock.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: The conditions that produced Fascism in the 1920s and 1930s are so unique, that they are unlikely to be seen on this Earth ever again, and thank God for that.
Trump is a lot of things, but talk of Fascism is miles off the mark.
For example. Have we:
Just came out of a world war that killed millions of people and shattered countries, thus destabilising and destroying the established social order?
Are we worried about the newly created Soviet Union and its threats to spread Communism across the globe, thus encouraging support for Fascism?
Is there a centuries long acceptance of anti-Semitism driving government policy in Europe?
Are there hundreds of thousands of embittered ex-Soldiers in Germany and Italy?
Fascism takes many forms, but I feel a lot of newspapers are wildly out of control.
By all means criticise Trump - he deserves it, but I think we're in danger of diluting the term Fascism, and that is a tragedy.
Ask your grand-parents or your great-grandparents about what REAL Fascism looks like.
I wouldn't go dismissing the notion that certain people are pushing for the US to go in that direction and things are somewhat fertile for that seed to sprout (if it hasn't already).
We have a lot of people in the US who believe that their way of life is under attack from various different groups. Hearing people talk along with a bit of reading between the lines these are the sorts of messages that get danced around (its politically incorrect to directly come out and say you believe this).
- Fear of illegals causing crime, taking jobs, leech tax money, etc
- Fear of Muslims around the world threatening the US and Christianity in general.
- Fear of Liberals pushing atheism, abortions, and in general attacking Christian values/morality
- Belief that Liberals are going to bankrupt the country with excess spending
- Belief that the "Poor" (hint that is minorities in their mind) are going to get a free ride by leeching off welfare and the liberals are just giving hand outs instead of making them actually work for a living.
- Fear that big government will stand in the way of the American dream so hard working Americans won't be able to get real jobs.
- Belief that labor unions have ruined American industry by keeping incompetent people employed instead of the hard working people who deserve the jobs and making business too costly to operate in the US.
- Mistrust of gays and gay culture being a corrupting influence on people (again attacking Christian values/morality).
- A general belief that we have fallen from the "Golden Age" of America such as the 50s where everything was great and the status quo was how it should of been (Think "Leave it to Beaver" Americana).
As much as I hate to say it there is a lot of deep seated racism in the US still and while its not socially acceptable to be directly racist, a fair amount of people seem to harbor those feelings to varying degrees (from subtle grumblings to outright anger). Also we have constant media bombardment about all the woes and overblown issues in the world that make people think the world is a lot worse than it is. With so much "information" being thrown at people through 24/7 news networks it all becomes a deafening white noise that makes it hard to hear all the nuance and instead people cling to easy to digest tag lines which they repeat. Its shocking how much garbage gets repeated with things like "Crime is at an all time high" when a simple google search on crime statistics show a decrease in crime in across the country. As a white male living in the (sorta) South this is some of the stuff I overhear and some of the vibes I pick up on from being around more conservative minded people. Again its not being shouted from the rooftops but its those occasional comments or responses that you hear which clue you into what they are thinking.
What is the point of this post? Not exactly sure to be honest but the US population has a bit of a paranoia problem and lately rhetoric has been more about "us vs them" and less about diplomacy and working together to fix issues. Thinking that certain groups in your own country are the enemy is what opens the door to potentially accepting strong arm tactics to suppress those groups and erode the freedoms and liberties granted to all citizens of our nation. Call it projecting my own worries if you want but its the picture that gets painted and when these same people who claim moral high ground vote for something as morally bankrupt as Trump then you start to dismiss claims of them being of high morality and see signs of their perceived superiority.
but the USA came through Vietnam and Nixon, and it will survive Trump, because the foundations are strong, very strong...
We have never had an administration before that, at every turn, is actively attempting to weaken and destroy the foundations of this nation.
For the last 8 years the Republicans and their pundits said the very same thing about Obama and his goal to "fundamentally transform America." It was literally a daily topic on talk radio.
“My policy is similar to what President Obama did in 2011 when he banned visas for refugees from Iraq for six months. The seven countries named in the Executive Order are the same countries previously identified by the Obama administration as sources of terror.”
Leaving aside the unusual nature of team Trump looking to his predecessors’ policies for cover, it seems worth pointing out this statement obscures at least five enormous differences between the executive order the White House issued on Friday and what the Obama administration did.
1. Much narrower focus: The Obama administration conducted a review in 2011 of the vetting procedures applied to citizens of a single country (Iraq) and then only to refugees and applicants for Special Immigrant Visas (SIVs), created by Congress to help Iraqis (and later Afghans) who supported the United States in those conflicts. The Trump executive order, on the other hand, applies to seven countries with total population more than 130 million, and to virtually every category of immigrant other than diplomats, including tourists and business travelers.
2. Not a ban: Contrary to Trump’s Sunday statement and the repeated claims of his defenders, the Obama administration did not “ban visas for refugees from Iraq for six months.” For one thing, refugees don’t travel on visas. More importantly, while the flow of Iraqi refugees slowed significantly during the Obama administration’s review, refugees continued to be admitted to the United States during that time, and there was not a single month in which no Iraqis arrived here. In other words, while there were delays in processing, there was no outright ban.
3. Grounded in specific threat: The Obama administration’s 2011 review came in response to specific threat information, including the arrest in Kentucky of two Iraqi refugees, still the only terrorism-related arrests out of about 130,000 Iraqi refugees and SIV holders admitted to the United States. Thus far, the Trump administration has provided no evidence, nor even asserted, that any specific information or intelligence has led to its draconian order.
4. Orderly, organized process: The Obama administration’s review was conducted over roughly a dozen deputies and principals committee meetings, involving Cabinet and deputy Cabinet-level officials from all of the relevant departments and agencies — including the State, Homeland Security and Justice Departments — and the intelligence community. The Trump executive order was reportedly drafted by White House political officials and then presented to the implementing agencies a fait accompli. This is not just bad policymaking practice, it led directly to the confusion, bordering on chaos, that has attended implementation of the order by agencies that could only start asking questions (such as: “does this apply to green card holders?”) once the train had left the station.
5. Far stronger vetting today: Much has been made of Trump’s call for “extreme vetting” for citizens of certain countries. The entire purpose of the Obama administration’s 2011 review was to enhance the already stringent vetting to which refugees and SIV applicants were subjected. While many of the details are classified, those rigorous procedures, which lead to waiting times of 18-24 months for many Iraqi and Syrian refugees, remain in place today and are continually reviewed by interagency officials. The Trump administration is, therefore, taking on a problem that has already been (and is continually being) addressed.
*Bonus: Obama’s “seven countries” taken out of context: Trump’s claim that the seven countries listed in the executive order came from the Obama administration is conveniently left unexplained. A bit of background: soon after the December 2015 terror attack in San Bernadino, President Obama signed an amendment to the Visa Waiver Program, a law that allows citizens of 38 countries to travel to the United States without obtaining visas (and gives Americans reciprocal privileges in those countries). The amendment removed from the Visa Waiver Program dual nationals who were citizens of four countries (Iraq, Iran, Sudan, and Syria), or anyone who had recently traveled to those countries. The Obama administration added three more to the list (Libya, Somalia, and Yemen), bringing the total to seven. But this law did not bar anyone from coming to the United States. It only required a relatively small percentage of people to obtain a visa first. And to avoid punishing people who clearly had good reasons to travel to the relevant countries, the Obama administration used a waiver provided by Congress for certain travelers, including journalists, aid workers, and officials from international organizations like the United Nations.
Bottom line: No immigration vetting system is perfect, no matter how “extreme.” President Obama often said that his highest priority was keeping Americans safe. In keeping with America’s tradition and ideals, he also worked to establish a vetting system that worked more fairly and efficiently, particularly for refugees who are, by definition, in harm’s way. President Trump should defend his approach on the merits, if he can. He should not compare it to his predecessor’s.
Still if one repeats a lie often enough I'm sure one can persuade one's own self to believe it too.
but the USA came through Vietnam and Nixon, and it will survive Trump, because the foundations are strong, very strong...
We have never had an administration before that, at every turn, is actively attempting to weaken and destroy the foundations of this nation.
For the last 8 years the Republicans and their pundits said the very same thing about Obama and his goal to "fundamentally transform America." It was literally a daily topic on talk radio.
Which was a bunch of bs that Republicans used to get their base frothing at the mouth (and then backfired when the base didn't stop frothing when the primaries came around and chose Trump instead of some cookie-cutter Republican nominee). Seriously, right wing talk radio is a collection of some of the vilest and most reprehensible examples of American Conservatism. Remember when Obama was going to take everyone's guns and use the military to take over the country? Or when he was the literal Antichrist?
Unless you can point out an instance where Obama did something comparable to Trump's installation of various Cabinet members who are utterly and vehemently opposed to everything those departments stand for?
d-usa wrote: Interesting sound clip on the radio this morning, from Yates' confirmation hearing a few years back:
Sen. Sessions: "If the President issues an illegal order, should the AG or Deputy AG follow that order?"
Yates: "No, the AG or Deputy AG should follow the law and act as independent advisor to the POTUS."
So what was illegal about Trump's EO?
Spoiler:
Even she couldn't articulate that...
Automatically Appended Next Post:
wuestenfux wrote: Well, I wasnt a supporter of Trump during the campaign.
But I think now the media go a bit too far. Trump's EO about immigrants from seven muslim countries is not the end of the world.
When Obama does it... <crickets>
When Trump does it... people lose their minds.
See the pattern?
What I see is your typical..."erm, Obama", pattern of typical false-equivelancy. Just quit pedaling this garbage already. Here's the facts...
d-usa wrote: Interesting sound clip on the radio this morning, from Yates' confirmation hearing a few years back:
Sen. Sessions: "If the President issues an illegal order, should the AG or Deputy AG follow that order?"
Yates: "No, the AG or Deputy AG should follow the law and act as independent advisor to the POTUS."
So what was illegal about Trump's EO?
Spoiler:
Even she couldn't articulate that...
Automatically Appended Next Post:
wuestenfux wrote: Well, I wasnt a supporter of Trump during the campaign.
But I think now the media go a bit too far. Trump's EO about immigrants from seven muslim countries is not the end of the world.
When Obama does it... <crickets>
When Trump does it... people lose their minds.
See the pattern?
Exactly people are losing focus blaming the man for being the man, rather than remembering it isn't a new trick at all. In fact Obama drew up the plan but never implemented it. Trump took over shop and thought he'd make use of what was left of Obama's stock.
I forgot because Obama did it, it automatically makes it A-OKAY! Pack it up guys we got out played.
“My policy is similar to what President Obama did in 2011 when he banned visas for refugees from Iraq for six months. The seven countries named in the Executive Order are the same countries previously identified by the Obama administration as sources of terror.”
Leaving aside the unusual nature of team Trump looking to his predecessors’ policies for cover, it seems worth pointing out this statement obscures at least five enormous differences between the executive order the White House issued on Friday and what the Obama administration did.
1. Much narrower focus: The Obama administration conducted a review in 2011 of the vetting procedures applied to citizens of a single country (Iraq) and then only to refugees and applicants for Special Immigrant Visas (SIVs), created by Congress to help Iraqis (and later Afghans) who supported the United States in those conflicts. The Trump executive order, on the other hand, applies to seven countries with total population more than 130 million, and to virtually every category of immigrant other than diplomats, including tourists and business travelers.
2. Not a ban: Contrary to Trump’s Sunday statement and the repeated claims of his defenders, the Obama administration did not “ban visas for refugees from Iraq for six months.” For one thing, refugees don’t travel on visas. More importantly, while the flow of Iraqi refugees slowed significantly during the Obama administration’s review, refugees continued to be admitted to the United States during that time, and there was not a single month in which no Iraqis arrived here. In other words, while there were delays in processing, there was no outright ban.
3. Grounded in specific threat: The Obama administration’s 2011 review came in response to specific threat information, including the arrest in Kentucky of two Iraqi refugees, still the only terrorism-related arrests out of about 130,000 Iraqi refugees and SIV holders admitted to the United States. Thus far, the Trump administration has provided no evidence, nor even asserted, that any specific information or intelligence has led to its draconian order.
4. Orderly, organized process: The Obama administration’s review was conducted over roughly a dozen deputies and principals committee meetings, involving Cabinet and deputy Cabinet-level officials from all of the relevant departments and agencies — including the State, Homeland Security and Justice Departments — and the intelligence community. The Trump executive order was reportedly drafted by White House political officials and then presented to the implementing agencies a fait accompli. This is not just bad policymaking practice, it led directly to the confusion, bordering on chaos, that has attended implementation of the order by agencies that could only start asking questions (such as: “does this apply to green card holders?”) once the train had left the station.
5. Far stronger vetting today: Much has been made of Trump’s call for “extreme vetting” for citizens of certain countries. The entire purpose of the Obama administration’s 2011 review was to enhance the already stringent vetting to which refugees and SIV applicants were subjected. While many of the details are classified, those rigorous procedures, which lead to waiting times of 18-24 months for many Iraqi and Syrian refugees, remain in place today and are continually reviewed by interagency officials. The Trump administration is, therefore, taking on a problem that has already been (and is continually being) addressed.
*Bonus: Obama’s “seven countries” taken out of context: Trump’s claim that the seven countries listed in the executive order came from the Obama administration is conveniently left unexplained. A bit of background: soon after the December 2015 terror attack in San Bernadino, President Obama signed an amendment to the Visa Waiver Program, a law that allows citizens of 38 countries to travel to the United States without obtaining visas (and gives Americans reciprocal privileges in those countries). The amendment removed from the Visa Waiver Program dual nationals who were citizens of four countries (Iraq, Iran, Sudan, and Syria), or anyone who had recently traveled to those countries. The Obama administration added three more to the list (Libya, Somalia, and Yemen), bringing the total to seven. But this law did not bar anyone from coming to the United States. It only required a relatively small percentage of people to obtain a visa first. And to avoid punishing people who clearly had good reasons to travel to the relevant countries, the Obama administration used a waiver provided by Congress for certain travelers, including journalists, aid workers, and officials from international organizations like the United Nations.
Bottom line: No immigration vetting system is perfect, no matter how “extreme.” President Obama often said that his highest priority was keeping Americans safe. In keeping with America’s tradition and ideals, he also worked to establish a vetting system that worked more fairly and efficiently, particularly for refugees who are, by definition, in harm’s way. President Trump should defend his approach on the merits, if he can. He should not compare it to his predecessor’s.
Still if one repeats a lie often enough I'm sure one can persuade one's own self to believe it too.
Now thats being pedantic... it's the same mechanism and legal justification.
However, the author is right in that Trumpesto need to do a better job explaining the merits of these actions, rather than saying 'he did it too!'.
Unless you can point out an instance where Obama did something comparable to Trump's installation of various Cabinet members who are utterly and vehemently opposed to everything those departments stand for?
Yeah... he appointed his own people to these departments.
The holdovers from Obama administrations are likely going to lose their job because Trump is going to want his own peeps there...
...
As someone wisely said... elections has consequences.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: The conditions that produced Fascism in the 1920s and 1930s are so unique, that they are unlikely to be seen on this Earth ever again, and thank God for that.
Trump is a lot of things, but talk of Fascism is miles off the mark.
For example. Have we:
Just came out of a world war that killed millions of people and shattered countries, thus destabilising and destroying the established social order?
Are we worried about the newly created Soviet Union and its threats to spread Communism across the globe, thus encouraging support for Fascism?
Is there a centuries long acceptance of anti-Semitism driving government policy in Europe?
Are there hundreds of thousands of embittered ex-Soldiers in Germany and Italy?
Fascism takes many forms, but I feel a lot of newspapers are wildly out of control.
By all means criticise Trump - he deserves it, but I think we're in danger of diluting the term Fascism, and that is a tragedy.
Ask your grand-parents or your great-grandparents about what REAL Fascism looks like.
I wouldn't go dismissing the notion that certain people are pushing for the US to go in that direction and things are somewhat fertile for that seed to sprout (if it hasn't already).
We have a lot of people in the US who believe that their way of life is under attack from various different groups. Hearing people talk along with a bit of reading between the lines these are the sorts of messages that get danced around (its politically incorrect to directly come out and say you believe this).
- Fear of illegals causing crime, taking jobs, leech tax money, etc
- Fear of Muslims around the world threatening the US and Christianity in general.
- Fear of Liberals pushing atheism, abortions, and in general attacking Christian values/morality
- Belief that Liberals are going to bankrupt the country with excess spending
- Belief that the "Poor" (hint that is minorities in their mind) are going to get a free ride by leeching off welfare and the liberals are just giving hand outs instead of making them actually work for a living.
- Fear that big government will stand in the way of the American dream so hard working Americans won't be able to get real jobs.
- Belief that labor unions have ruined American industry by keeping incompetent people employed instead of the hard working people who deserve the jobs and making business too costly to operate in the US.
- Mistrust of gays and gay culture being a corrupting influence on people (again attacking Christian values/morality).
- A general belief that we have fallen from the "Golden Age" of America such as the 50s where everything was great and the status quo was how it should of been (Think "Leave it to Beaver" Americana).
As much as I hate to say it there is a lot of deep seated racism in the US still and while its not socially acceptable to be directly racist, a fair amount of people seem to harbor those feelings to varying degrees (from subtle grumblings to outright anger). Also we have constant media bombardment about all the woes and overblown issues in the world that make people think the world is a lot worse than it is. With so much "information" being thrown at people through 24/7 news networks it all becomes a deafening white noise that makes it hard to hear all the nuance and instead people cling to easy to digest tag lines which they repeat. Its shocking how much garbage gets repeated with things like "Crime is at an all time high" when a simple google search on crime statistics show a decrease in crime in across the country. As a white male living in the (sorta) South this is some of the stuff I overhear and some of the vibes I pick up on from being around more conservative minded people. Again its not being shouted from the rooftops but its those occasional comments or responses that you hear which clue you into what they are thinking.
What is the point of this post? Not exactly sure to be honest but the US population has a bit of a paranoia problem and lately rhetoric has been more about "us vs them" and less about diplomacy and working together to fix issues. Thinking that certain groups in your own country are the enemy is what opens the door to potentially accepting strong arm tactics to suppress those groups and erode the freedoms and liberties granted to all citizens of our nation. Call it projecting my own worries if you want but its the picture that gets painted and when these same people who claim moral high ground vote for something as morally bankrupt as Trump then you start to dismiss claims of them being of high morality and see signs of their perceived superiority.
Im sure allot of these worries will be eased by Trumps policies over the next 4 years. Tighter border controls, the great-wall-against-Mexico etc will ease security fears, when ISIS has gone the way of the Dodo Muslim fears will decline to 0, mistrust of gays etc will over time become more widely accepted as it is in the public face more. As for trade unions, they always ruin industries in most developed countries unless the governments put a tight hold on them. I think if Trump does anything beneficial to the U.S.A we can all agree on, it is he should be able to keep the economy in check.
Trump’s tough talk on immigration spells huge profit for private prisons
With ICE positioned to expand, prison company growth is not far behind
Written by Beryl Lipton
Edited by Michael Morisy, JPat Brown
President Donald Trump’s tough-on-immigration agenda has been a boon for the for-profit detention industry, which months ago was facing lost government contracts and waves of negative press. This administration’s insistence on a zero-tolerance illegal immigrant policy, which aspires to undo some, if not all, of President Obama’s Executive Orders, has helped prison stocks return to levels comparable with prices of mid-August, when the DOJ announced it would move to phase out its use of private prisons at the Bureau of Prisons.
Now he’s poised to help them grow.
“We are going to triple the number of ICE deportation officers,” Trump told a crowd in Phoenix, Ariz. at the end of August. “Within ICE, I am going to create a new special Deportation Task Force, focused on identifying and removing quickly the most dangerous criminal illegal immigrants in America who have evaded justice.”
ICE currently holds nearly two-thirds of its 34,000 person detainee population in facilities owned and/or managed by CoreCivic (formerly Corrections Corporation of America), GEO Group, and other private prison companies. The rest are held in a network of locations, over 600 in total, through similar, temporary agreements with local and state law enforcement, like AirBnB for prison cells, meaning there’s incentive smeared throughout the detention system. With an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S., a full crackdown would mean a lot of funding for the agency. By the end of September, the union of ICE employees had endorsed Trump.
The population of immigrant detainees may be more heterogeneous than typical offender populations, and each individual carries a higher price tag in an ICE facility, with per diem detention rates approaching $100 a person a day.
Arizona, a state that shares a 370-mile long border with Mexico, is one of the toughest on those living within the country without legal permission. It’s long pushed laws tough on criminals, citizen and otherwise, implementing legislation like House Bill 2451, requiring unauthorized aliens to serve 85 percent of their time for crimes before deportation and Senate Bill 1070, a controversial law requiring constant documentation of legal status, penned by Kris Kobach, now with the Trump administration.
Arizona - like its fellow border states California, Texas, and New Mexico - also actively employs privately-run facilities, and sometimes stand to receive a kickback, even when the facility isn’t in that state.
“[I]gnore short-term noise. With the political uncertainty, Brexit, contentious elections, things going on in some Western democracies, the temptation to act on that is great. But our experience is: Don’t,” Vanguard CEO Bill McNabb recently cautioned in an interview. “Short-term timing and trading (with mutual funds) around issues does not work. It’s important to tune out the noise and stick with your long-term investment plan.”
His investment firm, which specializes in index funds, owns a majority of both CoreCivic and GEO Group. If private prisons do well, so will they. Three months later the panic of that announcement is receding in the rear view mirror.
Even action like Trump’s federal hiring freeze could bypass ICE and other agencies like CBP, USCIS, and US Marshals under an exemption for national security and public safety, leaving very little to suggest that private prison companies won’t stand to make something off of any quick mass detention and deportations efforts.
The same elements that make prisons appealing have always been at play are there - quick turnaround, jobs for local residents, kickbacks to the host town.
Though not everyone is buying in, with federal-level calls to lock up members of the local immigrant community, ICE enforcement working in all fifty states means local law enforcement across the nation could get a monied boost.
With a lot of money swirling around detention, MuckRock will keep following the paper trail of for-profit detention.
Corporate cronyism it is then
.. TBF I've seen people on here argue strongly against the private prison industry.
jmurph wrote: Remember that you can have tyranny without fascism- fascism is just a modern spin on it. One of the concerns that those who value individual liberties have is that the erosion of the protection of liberties has steadily accelerated over the last few decades. Trump is just doubling down on the bets made by Obama and GWB. It has been a steady march and the political cheerleaders are the ones enabling it. Ironically, both conservatives and liberals *have* decried this trend, criticizing the Patriot Act, warrantless taps and searches, indefinite detentions, drone strikes, etc. but the larger media and populace glosses over the issues in favor of team based politics and horse race elections.
This country elected a man who openly embraced totalitarian tactics, supports torture, and surrounds himself with crypto (and sometimes open) racists. It is hardly shocking that he is doing what he promised, enabled by his predecessors. Worse, his authoritarian style has a lot of open support. The question will be how far it goes.
You're forgetting your history. Andrew Jackson was elected on a ticket of "I killed lots of British soldiers during the war of 1812, so I'll make a good president."
Jackson later expressed regret at not being able to hang his Vice-President!
It’s up against some stiff competition, but there’s a runaway front-runner in the “wrongest idea of 2016” derby. It’s the aphorism, once fashionable on the morning-talk show circuit, that the media mistakenly took Donald Trump “literally but not seriously,” when they should have taken him “seriously but not literally,” as Trump’s supporters did.
If the idea is that the media should have taken Trump more seriously, then I’d emphatically agree. But it turns out that they probably ought to have taken him literally too. It’s been an exceptionally busy first 10 days in office for President Trump, culminating in an executive order on Friday that banned immigrants from seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States for 90 days and banned all new refugees from entering the U.S. for 120 days. (Over the weekend, several courts issued rulings temporarily blocking parts of Trump’s order.)
Almost all of the actions that Trump has undertaken, however, are consistent with statements and policy positions he issued repeatedly on the campaign trail and during the presidential transition. It was more than a year ago that Trump called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,” for instance. (Friday’s executive order stops short of that, but Trump allies such as Rudy Giuliani have spoken of the order as a legal workaround that seeks to accomplish the same objectives as a Muslim immigration ban.) Another executive order called for building a border wall with Mexico, which was perhaps the signature policy position of Trump’s campaign. And Trump might even try to “make Mexico pay for it” by imposing a tariff on Mexican imports — although most economists argue such a tariff would really make American consumers pay for the wall, via higher prices.
Trump and Congress have taken initial steps toward dismantling Obamacare. He promised that too, although he also promised to replace the Affordable Care Act with “something terrific,” which should give pause to Republicans hoping to repeal the plan without a replacement in place. Investigating (highly dubious accounts of) voter fraud? Trump talked about that plenty of times on the campaign trail.
There’s been no “pivot,” and there have been no half-measures. Trump is doing pretty much what he said he’d do. Literally.
Why, then, does Trump’s first week and a half in office seem so surprising, even to those of us who weren’t expecting a kindler, gentler Trump? One could wryly remark that it’s a surprise whenever presidents actually keep their promises. But a longstanding body of research from political scientists suggests that this shouldn’t be a surprise. Presidents actually do make a good-faith effort to keep most of their promises.
Instead, the sense of surprise may reflect the dissonance between the sweeping nature of the changes Trump has brought about so far and his narrow and tenuous mandate from American voters. Trump lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton, of course, in what turned out to be the biggest discrepancy between the popular vote and the Electoral College since 1876. The 46 percent of the popular vote he received was on the low end also, ranking 23rd of the past 25 election winners, ahead of only Richard Nixon in 1968 and Bill Clinton in 1992. His electoral vote total was slightly more impressive, but also well below average for a winning candidate, ranking 20th out of the past 25 elections. So by pretty much any measure, Trump entered office with one of the three narrowest mandates of the past century, along with Nixon in 1968 and George W. Bush in 2000.
Both Nixon and Bush, however — although they’d later become polarizing presidents — adopted conciliatory tones during their transitions into office. Hardly a partisan word can be found in Nixon’s 1969 inaugural address or Bush’s in 2001. They began their presidencies as relatively popular presidents, therefore. Gallup’s first approval rating poll on Nixon had 59 percent of the public approving of him, against just 5 percent disapproving. For Bush, the numbers were 57 percent approving and 25 percent disapproving. Trump? He started out with 45 percent approving and 45 percent disapproving in the Gallup poll, and his numbers have already gotten worse since last week (although we’ll need more data to confirm whether that’s a meaningful trend).
So Trump’s governing like he’s Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1937 or Ronald Reagan in 1985, presidents who won via record-breaking landslides. But Trump’s popularity measures are more like those of an embattled president a couple of years into his tenure — think Bill Clinton in 1995, for example. Those low moments don’t necessarily doom a presidency; they didn’t doom Clinton’s, and Reagan and Barack Obama also endured bouts of unpopularity before being re-elected. But we’re in uncharted waters to see a president who is so unpopular so early in his term — and yet who is plowing ahead so stubbornly (or so resolutely, if you prefer) with his agenda.
Then again, this was the agenda Trump promised the country, more or less. So here’s my question: Was Trump elected because of his agenda, or despite it?
That is to say, were his supporters taking him literally, or not?
I don’t have a good answer to this question yet, but it could be the one that Trump’s presidency turns upon. If his supporters took him literally, they’ll presumably see a lot to like so far. But many of these policies have tenuous public support beyond Trump’s base. If this is the framework, then Trump is just continuing with the strategy he’s bet upon all along — doubling down on support from his base — and his approval ratings will probably oscillate within a relatively narrow band of 40 percent to 45 percent support. With Republicans controlling both chambers of Congress and having a geographic advantage in the way their votes are distributed, that mediocre rating wouldn’t necessarily do much to constrain Trump in the near term, although ratings toward the lower end of that range might be enough to make the House of Representatives competitive in 2018.
If Trump’s supporters didn’t take him literally, however, the downside might be greater. There are quite a few Trump policies, including greater restrictions on immigration, that are fairly popular in spirit but became unpopular when taken to the extreme that Trump takes them. Other voters may have felt they were in on the joke when Trump was running against the staid, politically correct establishment, but will hold him to a higher standard of responsibility now that he is implementing policies rather than just talking about them. Perhaps they’ll give Trump some credit for keeping his promises, but those promises weren’t very popular ones.
jmurph wrote: Remember that you can have tyranny without fascism- fascism is just a modern spin on it. One of the concerns that those who value individual liberties have is that the erosion of the protection of liberties has steadily accelerated over the last few decades. Trump is just doubling down on the bets made by Obama and GWB. It has been a steady march and the political cheerleaders are the ones enabling it. Ironically, both conservatives and liberals *have* decried this trend, criticizing the Patriot Act, warrantless taps and searches, indefinite detentions, drone strikes, etc. but the larger media and populace glosses over the issues in favor of team based politics and horse race elections.
This country elected a man who openly embraced totalitarian tactics, supports torture, and surrounds himself with crypto (and sometimes open) racists. It is hardly shocking that he is doing what he promised, enabled by his predecessors. Worse, his authoritarian style has a lot of open support. The question will be how far it goes.
You're forgetting your history. Andrew Jackson was elected on a ticket of "I killed lots of British soldiers during the war of 1812, so I'll make a good president."
Jackson later expressed regret at not being able to hang his Vice-President!
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: A general reply to those who replied to my earlier post about what Fascism is.
I'll try to avoid going OT.
ISIL is a threat, but to compare this to powerful nation states such as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, states that had coherent ideologies and powerful militaries, is risible nonsense in my book.
The post-WW2 Soviet Union was a clear and present danger to the West, as it had 300 Divisions ready to roll across Europe, and a powerful nuclear arsenal to back them up...which could have wiped out humanity a dozen times over.
ISIL, though a regional problem, with the odd inspired terrorist attack here and there, is not even in the same ball park, the same city, as the Soviet Union.
The USA was nearly strangled at birth, could have been snuffed out during the war of 1812, and was almost destroyed by its civil war. If Lee had won at Antietam, and the British had come over on the South's side, then the Union was finished, and we're looking at the CSA. That's how close it was...
The USA has survived many threats and challenges in its 250+ years, but it's still here because of the strength of those institutions, the foundations are strong, and its love of liberty will never die.
Yes, the war on terror was and has been a disaster IMO, but the best comparison I can make is Vietnam.
The War on Terror is Vietnam 2.0, and Trump is approaching Richard Nixon territory,
but the USA came through Vietnam and Nixon, and it will survive Trump, because the foundations are strong, very strong...
That's my take.
Lot's of good points and observations there. I find perspective to be the medicine to get through this Presidency, but then I look at the fact it's only been barely a week of Trump and, well, gak! Can't wait to see the SCOTUS choice..."shudder"!
Judge Trump after a year, or even 4 years, but the man has barely got his foot in the door. I think it's premature to be judging him this early.
I agree with you that lot of people need to calm down a bit.
wuestenfux wrote: Well, I wasnt a supporter of Trump during the campaign.
But I think now the media go a bit too far. Trump's EO about immigrants from seven muslim countries is not the end of the world.
The problem with the EO (barring the fact that it's stupidly discriminatory and does nothing to stop home-grown radicals who this EO only inflames, and who are the only real terrorist threats at the moment for the US) is that Trump and his cronies passed multiple legal processes in order to do create it. So if Trump is willing to do this, when does the EO that removes vast swathes of voting rights (targeting, strangely enough, minorities and others that didn't vote for Trump/vote for Republicans) come through in order to stop "voting fraud"?
but the USA came through Vietnam and Nixon, and it will survive Trump, because the foundations are strong, very strong...
We have never had an administration before that, at every turn, is actively attempting to weaken and destroy the foundations of this nation.
As I've said many a time before, the USA has the democracy it deserves. If the American people are worried where this is going, they need to fight for it. By fighting, I don't mean guns or violence, but being informed and fighting back through the political system.
The American people could start by sweeping away the zombie parties of the GOP and the Democrats. They have long outlived their usefulness.
New political parties are needed, but that's for the American people to act and to decide.
The American people could start by sweeping away the zombie parties of the GOP and the Democrats. They have long outlived their usefulness.
New political parties are needed, but that's for the American people to act and to decide.
I still say term limits on House and Senate would help with this as a start. I also believe House and Senate members should be forced to use the same healthcare the American people are forced to use.
jmurph wrote: Remember that you can have tyranny without fascism- fascism is just a modern spin on it. One of the concerns that those who value individual liberties have is that the erosion of the protection of liberties has steadily accelerated over the last few decades. Trump is just doubling down on the bets made by Obama and GWB. It has been a steady march and the political cheerleaders are the ones enabling it. Ironically, both conservatives and liberals *have* decried this trend, criticizing the Patriot Act, warrantless taps and searches, indefinite detentions, drone strikes, etc. but the larger media and populace glosses over the issues in favor of team based politics and horse race elections.
This country elected a man who openly embraced totalitarian tactics, supports torture, and surrounds himself with crypto (and sometimes open) racists. It is hardly shocking that he is doing what he promised, enabled by his predecessors. Worse, his authoritarian style has a lot of open support. The question will be how far it goes.
You're forgetting your history. Andrew Jackson was elected on a ticket of "I killed lots of British soldiers during the war of 1812, so I'll make a good president."
Jackson later expressed regret at not being able to hang his Vice-President!
Trump pales into comparison with Jackson.
Give him a few years
Trump's the 45th President, so obviously, there were 44 before him, and we forget that some of those guys were bloody awful.
The American people could start by sweeping away the zombie parties of the GOP and the Democrats. They have long outlived their usefulness.
New political parties are needed, but that's for the American people to act and to decide.
I still say term limits on House and Senate would help with this as a start. I also believe House and Senate members should be forced to use the same healthcare the American people are forced to use.
Agreed. If POTUS is two terms, then the Senate and Congress should be held to the same standard.
The American people could start by sweeping away the zombie parties of the GOP and the Democrats. They have long outlived their usefulness.
New political parties are needed, but that's for the American people to act and to decide.
I still say term limits on House and Senate would help with this as a start. I also believe House and Senate members should be forced to use the same healthcare the American people are forced to use.
They use the same healthcare the American people are forced to use.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: A general reply to those who replied to my earlier post about what Fascism is.
I'll try to avoid going OT.
ISIL is a threat, but to compare this to powerful nation states such as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, states that had coherent ideologies and powerful militaries, is risible nonsense in my book.
The post-WW2 Soviet Union was a clear and present danger to the West, as it had 300 Divisions ready to roll across Europe, and a powerful nuclear arsenal to back them up...which could have wiped out humanity a dozen times over.
ISIL, though a regional problem, with the odd inspired terrorist attack here and there, is not even in the same ball park, the same city, as the Soviet Union.
The USA was nearly strangled at birth, could have been snuffed out during the war of 1812, and was almost destroyed by its civil war. If Lee had won at Antietam, and the British had come over on the South's side, then the Union was finished, and we're looking at the CSA. That's how close it was...
The USA has survived many threats and challenges in its 250+ years, but it's still here because of the strength of those institutions, the foundations are strong, and its love of liberty will never die.
Yes, the war on terror was and has been a disaster IMO, but the best comparison I can make is Vietnam.
The War on Terror is Vietnam 2.0, and Trump is approaching Richard Nixon territory,
but the USA came through Vietnam and Nixon, and it will survive Trump, because the foundations are strong, very strong...
That's my take.
Lot's of good points and observations there. I find perspective to be the medicine to get through this Presidency, but then I look at the fact it's only been barely a week of Trump and, well, gak! Can't wait to see the SCOTUS choice..."shudder"!
Judge Trump after a year, or even 4 years, but the man has barely got his foot in the door. I think it's premature to be judging him this early.
I agree with you that lot of people need to calm down a bit.
Again another sensible person, I would shake your hand if I could. I blame the media, they over exaggerate political topics for views and then try show the political correct way of thinking, so that next time the viewer gets worked up and needs to watch again and again. Mindless fuel for the people who would protest about anything because they can types. It may also be down to the nature of shouty excitably American's. Remember the Ebola scare? UK: 'Aid agencies struggling against Ebola, more supplies coming'. U.S.A: 'Potentially millions of people infected with Ebola could be in your neighbourhood!'
I also think it might be that politics is shifting to the right globally after many years of lefty loony disasters from policies with banks lending to open borders everywhere. The liberal left has been ousted from the norm by conservative/republican right thinking, and now strangely liberalism is the hipster trend of today.
Also the sooner we trigger article 50 the better! (just seen your picture).
As I've said many a time before, the USA has the democracy it deserves. If the American people are worried where this is going, they need to fight for it. By fighting, I don't mean guns or violence, but being informed and fighting back through the political system.
The American people could start by sweeping away the zombie parties of the GOP and the Democrats. They have long outlived their usefulness.
New political parties are needed, but that's for the American people to act and to decide.
People are fighting for it with protests and voicing them outrage of the actions of Trumps administration. This quote does contradict what you said a few posts ago
Judge Trump after a year, or even 4 years, but the man has barely got his foot in the door. I think it's premature to be judging him this early.
I agree with you that lot of people need to calm down a bit.
You don't wait to fight until a year or 4 years after the gak starts to hit the fan. If you smell gak coming you try and stop it instead of letting it go through ruining everything and then letting hindsight be the decider if you should of done something then or not.
Sentinel1 wrote: I blame the media, they over exaggerate political topics for views and then try show the political correct way of thinking, so that next time the viewer gets worked up and needs to watch again and again. Mindless fuel for the people who would protest about anything because they can types. It may also be down to the nature of shouty excitably American's. Remember the Ebola scare? UK: 'Aid agencies struggling against Ebola, more supplies coming'. U.S.A: 'Potentially millions of people infected with Ebola could be in your neighbourhood!'
So, you obviously condemn Trump for helping to fan the flames of the media's ebola scare, right?
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: A general reply to those who replied to my earlier post about what Fascism is.
I'll try to avoid going OT.
ISIL is a threat, but to compare this to powerful nation states such as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, states that had coherent ideologies and powerful militaries, is risible nonsense in my book.
The post-WW2 Soviet Union was a clear and present danger to the West, as it had 300 Divisions ready to roll across Europe, and a powerful nuclear arsenal to back them up...which could have wiped out humanity a dozen times over.
ISIL, though a regional problem, with the odd inspired terrorist attack here and there, is not even in the same ball park, the same city, as the Soviet Union.
The USA was nearly strangled at birth, could have been snuffed out during the war of 1812, and was almost destroyed by its civil war. If Lee had won at Antietam, and the British had come over on the South's side, then the Union was finished, and we're looking at the CSA. That's how close it was...
The USA has survived many threats and challenges in its 250+ years, but it's still here because of the strength of those institutions, the foundations are strong, and its love of liberty will never die.
Yes, the war on terror was and has been a disaster IMO, but the best comparison I can make is Vietnam.
The War on Terror is Vietnam 2.0, and Trump is approaching Richard Nixon territory,
but the USA came through Vietnam and Nixon, and it will survive Trump, because the foundations are strong, very strong...
That's my take.
Lot's of good points and observations there. I find perspective to be the medicine to get through this Presidency, but then I look at the fact it's only been barely a week of Trump and, well, gak! Can't wait to see the SCOTUS choice..."shudder"!
Judge Trump after a year, or even 4 years, but the man has barely got his foot in the door. I think it's premature to be judging him this early.
I agree with you that lot of people need to calm down a bit.
I think I may have been too soothing in my commentary on perspective with Trump, because I'm really not of a mind to "calm down a bit", nor would I advise others to do so. I had that "wait-and-see" perspective around inauguration time, I even posted as much on these boards. But barely a week in and he's shown that his xenophobic, alt-reality, vindictive pettiness "bark" that we saw on the campaign trail, and were sickened by, is being translated into "bite". This POTUS needs to get the message that he doesn't have the privilege of operating the USA like it's a private company where he's only answerable to himself, surrounded by his groveling relatives and sycophants, but rather, is now CEO of a rather large and diverse publicly held and operated company...and the majority of shareholders don't like him, or where he's steering the firm.
d-usa wrote: If i take a crap in your living room, do you need to wait a year to judge me?
Trump is doing exactly what he said he'd do if elected. I think that took a lot of people by surprise.
I know that you and other people are worried about Trump. I respect and appreciate that. After watching that documentary about fracking earthquakes in Oklahoma and the effects on people, you have double sympathy from me.
Yes, it's easy for me to lecture others about Trump, because I don't have to live in the USA, but I honestly believe that things are not as bad as made out.
I grew up in 1980s Britain with Thatcher wrecking the country, and that was 10 times worse. We had people jumping off bridges
Frankly having people registered in multiple states and dead people registered isn't actually a problem we should concern ourselves with. That someone is on more than one rolls isn't a huge problem since you have to be in state to actually cast your vote, or apply for an absentee ballot which can only be issued if you meet certain requirements. We can confirm that someone only voted once with a simple multi-state cross checking system which already exists and is how they caught two people in 2016 who tried to vote twice in early voting.
It gives millions of people the ability to legally double vote. This can be a problem especially on college towns and jurisdictions with lots of snow refugees: Florida and Arizona for example. It should be a paramount issue to eliminate all voter fraud and abuse, as well as insure all lawful citizens can vote.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: A general reply to those who replied to my earlier post about what Fascism is.
I'll try to avoid going OT.
ISIL is a threat, but to compare this to powerful nation states such as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, states that had coherent ideologies and powerful militaries, is risible nonsense in my book.
The post-WW2 Soviet Union was a clear and present danger to the West, as it had 300 Divisions ready to roll across Europe, and a powerful nuclear arsenal to back them up...which could have wiped out humanity a dozen times over.
ISIL, though a regional problem, with the odd inspired terrorist attack here and there, is not even in the same ball park, the same city, as the Soviet Union.
The USA was nearly strangled at birth, could have been snuffed out during the war of 1812, and was almost destroyed by its civil war. If Lee had won at Antietam, and the British had come over on the South's side, then the Union was finished, and we're looking at the CSA. That's how close it was...
The USA has survived many threats and challenges in its 250+ years, but it's still here because of the strength of those institutions, the foundations are strong, and its love of liberty will never die.
Yes, the war on terror was and has been a disaster IMO, but the best comparison I can make is Vietnam.
The War on Terror is Vietnam 2.0, and Trump is approaching Richard Nixon territory,
but the USA came through Vietnam and Nixon, and it will survive Trump, because the foundations are strong, very strong...
That's my take.
Lot's of good points and observations there. I find perspective to be the medicine to get through this Presidency, but then I look at the fact it's only been barely a week of Trump and, well, gak! Can't wait to see the SCOTUS choice..."shudder"!
Judge Trump after a year, or even 4 years, but the man has barely got his foot in the door. I think it's premature to be judging him this early.
I agree with you that lot of people need to calm down a bit.
I think I may have been too soothing in my commentary on perspective with Trump, because I'm really not of a mind to "calm down a bit", nor would I advise others to do so. I had that "wait-and-see" perspective around inauguration time, I even posted as much on these boards. But barely a week in and he's shown that his xenophobic, alt-reality, vindictive pettiness "bark" that we saw on the campaign trail, and were sickened by, is being translated into "bite". This POTUS needs to get the message that he doesn't have the privilege of operating a private company surrounded by his relatives and sycophants, but rather, is now CEO of a rather large and diverse publicly held and operated company...and the majority of shareholders don't like where he's steering the firm.
I don't see the problem, he built his businesses up from scratch. Why should he let other people ruin them? I understand that there is a certain conflict of interest, but a President would never get away with giving government contracts etc to their own private enterprises so why worry? There are worse people in power for mis-use of public interest. Just look at the leader of South Africa! He spent public money on a huge swimming pool for himself, and then got away with it by declaring it was an 'emergency water storage facility'. At least Trump is honest about his actions as President, it wasn't like he has tried to hide anything.
Yes, it's easy for me to lecture others about Trump, because I don't have to live in the USA, but I honestly believe that things are not as bad as made out...
...if you're wealthy, white, born in the US, and/or have investments with Trump or his staff. Yes, nothing to worry about.
Even then, if you have co-workers with work visas, work in an international company with coworkers with spouses from outside the US, etc., you're still affected by his bull gak.
And let's not forget having sick family members on ACA worrying about what happens next.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: A general reply to those who replied to my earlier post about what Fascism is.
I'll try to avoid going OT.
ISIL is a threat, but to compare this to powerful nation states such as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, states that had coherent ideologies and powerful militaries, is risible nonsense in my book.
The post-WW2 Soviet Union was a clear and present danger to the West, as it had 300 Divisions ready to roll across Europe, and a powerful nuclear arsenal to back them up...which could have wiped out humanity a dozen times over.
ISIL, though a regional problem, with the odd inspired terrorist attack here and there, is not even in the same ball park, the same city, as the Soviet Union.
The USA was nearly strangled at birth, could have been snuffed out during the war of 1812, and was almost destroyed by its civil war. If Lee had won at Antietam, and the British had come over on the South's side, then the Union was finished, and we're looking at the CSA. That's how close it was...
The USA has survived many threats and challenges in its 250+ years, but it's still here because of the strength of those institutions, the foundations are strong, and its love of liberty will never die.
Yes, the war on terror was and has been a disaster IMO, but the best comparison I can make is Vietnam.
The War on Terror is Vietnam 2.0, and Trump is approaching Richard Nixon territory,
but the USA came through Vietnam and Nixon, and it will survive Trump, because the foundations are strong, very strong...
That's my take.
Lot's of good points and observations there. I find perspective to be the medicine to get through this Presidency, but then I look at the fact it's only been barely a week of Trump and, well, gak! Can't wait to see the SCOTUS choice..."shudder"!
Judge Trump after a year, or even 4 years, but the man has barely got his foot in the door. I think it's premature to be judging him this early.
I agree with you that lot of people need to calm down a bit.
I think I may have been too soothing in my commentary on perspective with Trump, because I'm really not of a mind to "calm down a bit", nor would I advise others to do so. I had that "wait-and-see" perspective around inauguration time, I even posted as much on these boards. But barely a week in and he's shown that his xenophobic, alt-reality, vindictive pettiness "bark" that we saw on the campaign trail, and were sickened by, is being translated into "bite". This POTUS needs to get the message that he doesn't have the privilege of operating a private company surrounded by his relatives and sycophants, but rather, is now CEO of a rather large and diverse publicly held and operated company...and the majority of shareholders don't like where he's steering the firm.
Trump is bad in many ways, I've always consistently said that, and I'm not trying to deflect, but the USA would be no better off with Clinton as POTUS. IMO.
Trump is the lesser of two evils in my book.
If Clinton had won, we'd be looking at:
No change for millions of people suffering in rural America. I focused a lot on this area during the campaign, and these people have it tough. In a way, I can see why they voted for Trump, and let's not forget, these people voted for Obama as well. They want change, ANY change. An I don't blame them for that.
Clinton would have been the green light to wall street and more crony capitalism. Drone strikes would have been signed off from Day 1. The media would not have given two
An anti-Iran/Russia stance would have been ramped up under Clinton. That could have led to death and destruction. Trump's foreign policy is exactly what the USA needs after 15 years of half-assed war on terror blundering.
Ultimately, the USA needs to take a long hard look at itself: how did a great nation like America be reduced to choosing between Trump and Clinton?
d-usa wrote: If i take a crap in your living room, do you need to wait a year to judge me?
Trump is doing exactly what he said he'd do if elected. I think that took a lot of people by surprise.
I know that you and other people are worried about Trump. I respect and appreciate that. After watching that documentary about fracking earthquakes in Oklahoma and the effects on people, you have double sympathy from me.
Yes, it's easy for me to lecture others about Trump, because I don't have to live in the USA, but I honestly believe that things are not as bad as made out.
I grew up in 1980s Britain with Thatcher wrecking the country, and that was 10 times worse. We had people jumping off bridges
I think you guys will get through this.
I'll also admit that there are areas where it will be worth waiting a year or more to judge Trump on: the economy, unemployment rate, healthcare access, etc. it's hard to judge him on long term effects for things he really hasn't done anything with.
But we can judge on stuff we know now and we disagree with now. Appointments who are ideologically opposed to the mission of the departments they are heading, appointments who refused to answer questions, the potential for conflicts of interests for Trump, and statements and actions that go against what many people consider moral foundations that this country stands for.
Liberals have their own pillars of morality that they stand on.
As I've said many a time before, the USA has the democracy it deserves. If the American people are worried where this is going, they need to fight for it. By fighting, I don't mean guns or violence, but being informed and fighting back through the political system.
The American people could start by sweeping away the zombie parties of the GOP and the Democrats. They have long outlived their usefulness.
New political parties are needed, but that's for the American people to act and to decide.
People are fighting for it with protests and voicing them outrage of the actions of Trumps administration. This quote does contradict what you said a few posts ago
Judge Trump after a year, or even 4 years, but the man has barely got his foot in the door. I think it's premature to be judging him this early.
I agree with you that lot of people need to calm down a bit.
You don't wait to fight until a year or 4 years after the gak starts to hit the fan. If you smell gak coming you try and stop it instead of letting it go through ruining everything and then letting hindsight be the decider if you should of done something then or not.
What exactly needs to be fought right now? Trump is President he can issue Executive Orders to Federal departments. If the Democrats think any of his EO's are illegal they can contest them in court just like the Republicans did with Obama. Trump hasn't gotten all of his cabinet appointments confirmed yet and hasn't signed a single piece of legislation into law. There are already court injunctions against Trump's immigration ban EO so that's already being contested. For Trump to do anything of real significance he needs legislation to move through congress. If you want to push back against Trump's political agenda then communicate with your Congressional Representative and Senators because they're the ones who can actually do something about it. Expressing yourself with protests is fine but understand that protests won't affect Congress because they're only concerned with their constituents.
Yes, it's easy for me to lecture others about Trump, because I don't have to live in the USA, but I honestly believe that things are not as bad as made out...
...if you're wealthy, white, born in the US, and/or have investments with Trump or his staff. Yes, nothing to worry about.
Even then, if you have co-workers with work visas, work in an international company with coworkers with spouses from outside the US, etc., you're still affected by his bull gak.
And let's not forget having sick family members on ACA worrying about what happens next.
I respect and appreciate the difficulties some people are having.
Not having a go at you Kronk, but I can assure you that it's not a bed of roses here in Britain, either.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: A general reply to those who replied to my earlier post about what Fascism is.
I'll try to avoid going OT.
ISIL is a threat, but to compare this to powerful nation states such as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, states that had coherent ideologies and powerful militaries, is risible nonsense in my book.
The post-WW2 Soviet Union was a clear and present danger to the West, as it had 300 Divisions ready to roll across Europe, and a powerful nuclear arsenal to back them up...which could have wiped out humanity a dozen times over.
ISIL, though a regional problem, with the odd inspired terrorist attack here and there, is not even in the same ball park, the same city, as the Soviet Union.
The USA was nearly strangled at birth, could have been snuffed out during the war of 1812, and was almost destroyed by its civil war. If Lee had won at Antietam, and the British had come over on the South's side, then the Union was finished, and we're looking at the CSA. That's how close it was...
The USA has survived many threats and challenges in its 250+ years, but it's still here because of the strength of those institutions, the foundations are strong, and its love of liberty will never die.
Yes, the war on terror was and has been a disaster IMO, but the best comparison I can make is Vietnam.
The War on Terror is Vietnam 2.0, and Trump is approaching Richard Nixon territory,
but the USA came through Vietnam and Nixon, and it will survive Trump, because the foundations are strong, very strong...
That's my take.
Lot's of good points and observations there. I find perspective to be the medicine to get through this Presidency, but then I look at the fact it's only been barely a week of Trump and, well, gak! Can't wait to see the SCOTUS choice..."shudder"!
Judge Trump after a year, or even 4 years, but the man has barely got his foot in the door. I think it's premature to be judging him this early.
I agree with you that lot of people need to calm down a bit.
I think I may have been too soothing in my commentary on perspective with Trump, because I'm really not of a mind to "calm down a bit", nor would I advise others to do so. I had that "wait-and-see" perspective around inauguration time, I even posted as much on these boards. But barely a week in and he's shown that his xenophobic, alt-reality, vindictive pettiness "bark" that we saw on the campaign trail, and were sickened by, is being translated into "bite". This POTUS needs to get the message that he doesn't have the privilege of operating a private company surrounded by his relatives and sycophants, but rather, is now CEO of a rather large and diverse publicly held and operated company...and the majority of shareholders don't like where he's steering the firm.
I don't see the problem, he built his businesses up from scratch. Why should he let other people ruin them? I understand that there is a certain conflict of interest, but a President would never get away with giving government contracts etc to their own private enterprises so why worry? There are worse people in power for mis-use of public interest. Just look at the leader of South Africa! He spent public money on a huge swimming pool for himself, and then got away with it by declaring it was an 'emergency water storage facility'. At least Trump is honest about his actions as President, it wasn't like he has tried to hide anything.
You have completely missed my point. It has nothing to do with Trump's vested or divested business interests. One of his titles as POTUS is CEO of the USA and as such is answerable to all of us shareholders(citizens), so disregard at your own peril Mr. Trump, unlike the environment he operates his businesses from in the private sector.
W
HITE SUPREMACISTS AND other domestic extremists maintain an active presence in U.S. police departments and other law enforcement agencies. A striking reference to that conclusion, notable for its confidence and the policy prescriptions that accompany it, appears in a classified FBI Counterterrorism Policy Guide from April 2015, obtained by The Intercept. The guide, which details the process by which the FBI enters individuals on a terrorism watchlist, the Known or Suspected Terrorist File, notes that “domestic terrorism investigations focused on militia extremists, white supremacist extremists, and sovereign citizen extremists often have identified active links to law enforcement officers,” and explains in some detail how bureau policies have been crafted to take this infiltration into account.
Although these right-wing extremists have posed a growing threat for years, federal investigators have been reluctant to publicly address that threat or to point out the movement’s longstanding strategy of infiltrating the law enforcement community.
No centralized recruitment process or set of national standards exists for the 18,000 law enforcement agencies in the United States, many of which have deep historical connections to racist ideologies. As a result, state and local police as well as sheriff’s departments present ample opportunities for white supremacists and other right-wing extremists looking to expand their power base.
In a heavily redacted version of an October 2006 FBI internal intelligence assessment, the agency raised the alarm over white supremacist groups’ “historical” interest in “infiltrating law enforcement communities or recruiting law enforcement personnel.” The effort, the memo noted, “can lead to investigative breaches and can jeopardize the safety of law enforcement sources or personnel.” The memo also states that law enforcement had recently become aware of the term “ghost skins,” used among white supremacists to describe “those who avoid overt displays of their beliefs to blend into society and covertly advance white supremacist causes.” In at least one case, the FBI learned of a skinhead group encouraging ghost skins to seek employment with law enforcement agencies in order to warn crews of any investigations.
That report appeared after a series of scandals involving local police and sheriff’s departments. In Los Angeles, for example, a U.S. District Court judge found in 1991 that members of a local sheriff’s department had formed a neo-Nazi gang and habitually terrorized black and Latino residents. In Chicago, Jon Burge, a police detective and rumored KKK member, was fired, and eventually prosecuted in 2008, over charges relating to the torture of at least 120 black men during his decadeslong career. Burge notoriously referred to an electric shock device he used during interrogations as the “[see forum posting rules] box.” In Cleveland, officials found that a number of police officers had scrawled “racist or Nazi graffiti” throughout their department’s locker rooms. In Texas, two police officers were fired when it was discovered they were Klansmen. One of them said he had tried to boost the organization’s membership by giving an application to a fellow officer he thought shared his “white, Christian, heterosexual values.”
Although the FBI has not publicly addressed the issue of white supremacist infiltration of law enforcement since that 2006 report, in a 2015 speech, FBI Director James Comey made an unprecedented acknowledgment of the role historically played by law enforcement in communities of color: “All of us in law enforcement must be honest enough to acknowledge that much of our history is not pretty.” Comey and the agency have been less forthcoming about that history’s continuation into the present.
IN 2009, SHORTLY after the election of Barack Obama, a Department of Homeland Security intelligence study, written in coordination with the FBI, warned of the “resurgence” of right-wing extremism. “Right-wing extremists have capitalized on the election of the first African-American president, and are focusing their efforts to recruit new members, mobilize existing supporters, and broaden their scope and appeal through propaganda,” the report noted, singling out “disgruntled military veterans” as likely targets of recruitment. “Right-wing extremists will attempt to recruit and radicalize returning veterans in order to exploit their skills and knowledge derived from military training and combat.”
The report concluded that “lone wolves and small terrorist cells embracing violent right-wing extremist ideology are the most dangerous domestic terrorism threat in the United States.” Released just ahead of nationwide Tea Party protests, the report caused an uproar among conservatives, who were particularly angered by the suggestion that veterans might be implicated, and by the broad brush with which the report seemed to paint a range of right-wing groups.
Faced with mounting criticism, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano disavowed the document and apologized to veterans. The agency’s unit investigating right-wing extremism was largely dismantled and the report’s lead investigator was pushed out. “They stopped doing intel on that, and that was that,” Heidi Beirich, who leads the Southern Poverty Law Center’s tracking of extremist groups, told The Intercept. “The FBI in theory investigates right-wing terrorism and right-wing extremism, but they have limited resources. The loss of that unit was a loss for a lot of people who did this kind of work.”
“Federal law enforcement agencies in general — the FBI, the Marshals, the ATF — are aware that extremists have infiltrated state and local law enforcement agencies and that there are people in law enforcement agencies that may be sympathetic to these groups,” said Daryl Johnson, who was the lead researcher on the DHS report. Johnson, who now runs DT Analytics, a consulting firm that analyzes domestic extremism, says the problem has since gotten “a lot more troublesome.”
Johnson singled out the Oath Keepers and the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association for their anti-government attitudes and efforts to recruit active as well as retired law enforcement officers. “That’s the biggest issue and it’s greater now than it’s ever been, in my opinion.” Johnson added that Homeland Security has given up tracking right-wing domestic extremists. “It’s only the FBI now,” he said, adding that local police departments don’t seem to be doing anything to address the problem. “There’s not even any training now to make state and local police aware of these groups and how they could infiltrate their ranks.”
A spokesperson for DHS declined to comment on the 2009 report or on the agency’s specific concerns about white supremacist and right-wing groups.
IN 2014, THE Department of Justice re-established its Domestic Terrorism Task Force, a unit that was created following the Oklahoma City bombing. But for the most part, the government’s efforts to confront domestic terrorism threats over the last decade have focused on homegrown extremists radicalized by foreign groups. Last year, a group of progressive members of Congress called on President Obama and DHS to update the controversial 2009 report. “The United States allocates significant resources towards combating Islamic violent extremism while failing to devote adequate resources to right-wing extremism,” they wrote. “This lack of political will comes at a heavy price.”
Critics fear that the backlash following the 2009 DHS report hindered further action against the growing white supremacist threat, and that it was largely ignored because the issue was so politically controversial. “I believe that because that report was so denounced by conservatives, it sort of closed the door on whatever the FBI may have been considering doing with respect to combating infiltration of law enforcement by white supremacists,” said Samuel Jones, a professor of law at the John Marshall School of Law in Chicago who has written about white power ideology in law enforcement. “Because after the 2006 FBI report, we simply cannot find anything by local law enforcement or the federal government that addresses this issue.”
Pete Simi, a sociologist at Chapman University who spent decades studying the proliferation of white supremacists in the U.S. military, agreed. “The report underscores the problem of even discussing this issue. It underscores how difficult this issue is to get any traction on, because a lot of people don’t want to discuss this, let alone actually do something about it.” Simi said that the extremist strategy to infiltrate the military and law enforcement has existed “for decades.” In a study he conducted of individuals indicted for far-right terrorism-related activities, he found that at least 31 percent had military experience.
After a series of investigations uncovered substantial numbers of extremists in the military, the Department of Defense moved to impose stricter screenings, including monitoring recruits’ tattoos for white supremacist symbols and discharging those found to espouse racist views.
“The military has completely reformed its process on this front,” said the SPLC’s Beirich, who lobbied the DOD to adopt those reforms. “I don’t know why it wouldn’t be the same for police officers; we can’t have people with guns having crazy ideas or ideas that threaten certain populations.”
“I believe that because that report was so denounced by conservatives, it sort of closed the door on whatever the FBI may have been considering doing with respect to combating infiltration of law enforcement by white supremacists,” said Samuel Jones, a professor of law at the John Marshall School of Law in Chicago who has written about white power ideology in law enforcement. “Because after the 2006 FBI report, we simply cannot find anything by local law enforcement or the federal government that addresses this issue.”
Odd how the emails were a source of public concern -- and of course the super secret infiltration of the USA govt. by Muslim B'hood /whomever -- but neo -nazi infiltration doesn't merit a mention.
People say Trump is moving the U.S.A forward in a bad way. If Clinton had won, the U.S.A would have been moving two steps back. She would have been continuing the Democrats policies, white-washing over the developing cracks and ignoring the deepening social divides. If Clinton had won everyone here would be moaning about her being a bad leader, that there was no change in the system and that there relatives sons, daughters, child's, future existence was on the brink of disaster. So either way things wouldn't have been good for all those pessimists out there.
Trump is bad in many ways, I've always consistently said that, and I'm not trying to deflect, but the USA would be no better off with Clinton as POTUS. IMO.
Trump is the lesser of two evils in my book.
If Clinton had won, we'd be looking at:
No change for millions of people suffering in rural America. I focused a lot on this area during the campaign, and these people have it tough. In a way, I can see why they voted for Trump, and let's not forget, these people voted for Obama as well. They want change, ANY change. An I don't blame them for that.
Clinton would have been the green light to wall street and more crony capitalism. Drone strikes would have been signed off from Day 1. The media would not have given two
An anti-Iran/Russia stance would have been ramped up under Clinton. That could have led to death and destruction. Trump's foreign policy is exactly what the USA needs after 15 years of half-assed war on terror blundering.
Ultimately, the USA needs to take a long hard look at itself: how did a great nation like America be reduced to choosing between Trump and Clinton?
That is a massive failure in my book.
If this were a conversation, I'd be left speechless. It's amazing that you can tell everyone to give Trump a little time to prove himself, and then go on to insist that the world would be ending the second Clinton was elected.
Because in no way has Trump offered any kind of relief to rural Americans, nor has he taken any kind of stance or actions that indicates he's not going to do everything to make the wealthy wealthier over the course of his presidency. And his actions so far will likely increase the amount of death and destruction we see from terrorists abroad.
Sentinel1 wrote: People say Trump is moving the U.S.A forward in a bad way. If Clinton had won, the U.S.A would have been moving two steps back. She would have been continuing the Democrats policies, white-washing over the developing cracks and ignoring the deepening social divides. If Clinton had won everyone here would be moaning about her being a bad leader, that there was no change in the system and that there relatives sons, daughters, child's, future existence was on the brink of disaster. So either way things wouldn't have been good for all those pessimists out there.
First, it's not the Democrats that are driving wedges in our society, especially since they're the party that has the most to lose. Second, no, only certain posters who still manage to bring up Clinton in Trump's presidency would be moaning as they sat comfortably behind their computer screens.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: A general reply to those who replied to my earlier post about what Fascism is.
I'll try to avoid going OT.
ISIL is a threat, but to compare this to powerful nation states such as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, states that had coherent ideologies and powerful militaries, is risible nonsense in my book.
The post-WW2 Soviet Union was a clear and present danger to the West, as it had 300 Divisions ready to roll across Europe, and a powerful nuclear arsenal to back them up...which could have wiped out humanity a dozen times over.
ISIL, though a regional problem, with the odd inspired terrorist attack here and there, is not even in the same ball park, the same city, as the Soviet Union.
The USA was nearly strangled at birth, could have been snuffed out during the war of 1812, and was almost destroyed by its civil war. If Lee had won at Antietam, and the British had come over on the South's side, then the Union was finished, and we're looking at the CSA. That's how close it was...
The USA has survived many threats and challenges in its 250+ years, but it's still here because of the strength of those institutions, the foundations are strong, and its love of liberty will never die.
Yes, the war on terror was and has been a disaster IMO, but the best comparison I can make is Vietnam.
The War on Terror is Vietnam 2.0, and Trump is approaching Richard Nixon territory,
but the USA came through Vietnam and Nixon, and it will survive Trump, because the foundations are strong, very strong...
That's my take.
Lot's of good points and observations there. I find perspective to be the medicine to get through this Presidency, but then I look at the fact it's only been barely a week of Trump and, well, gak! Can't wait to see the SCOTUS choice..."shudder"!
Judge Trump after a year, or even 4 years, but the man has barely got his foot in the door. I think it's premature to be judging him this early.
I agree with you that lot of people need to calm down a bit.
I think I may have been too soothing in my commentary on perspective with Trump, because I'm really not of a mind to "calm down a bit", nor would I advise others to do so. I had that "wait-and-see" perspective around inauguration time, I even posted as much on these boards. But barely a week in and he's shown that his xenophobic, alt-reality, vindictive pettiness "bark" that we saw on the campaign trail, and were sickened by, is being translated into "bite". This POTUS needs to get the message that he doesn't have the privilege of operating a private company surrounded by his relatives and sycophants, but rather, is now CEO of a rather large and diverse publicly held and operated company...and the majority of shareholders don't like where he's steering the firm.
Trump is bad in many ways, I've always consistently said that, and I'm not trying to deflect, but the USA would be no better off with Clinton as POTUS. IMO.
Trump is the lesser of two evils in my book.
If Clinton had won, we'd be looking at:
No change for millions of people suffering in rural America. I focused a lot on this area during the campaign, and these people have it tough. In a way, I can see why they voted for Trump, and let's not forget, these people voted for Obama as well. They want change, ANY change. An I don't blame them for that.
Clinton would have been the green light to wall street and more crony capitalism. Drone strikes would have been signed off from Day 1. The media would not have given two
An anti-Iran/Russia stance would have been ramped up under Clinton. That could have led to death and destruction. Trump's foreign policy is exactly what the USA needs after 15 years of half-assed war on terror blundering.
Ultimately, the USA needs to take a long hard look at itself: how did a great nation like America be reduced to choosing between Trump and Clinton?
That is a massive failure in my book.
Sorry, I just can't waste time engaging in "woulda, coulda, shoulda" pseudo-prescience with regards to a hypothetical Clinton presidency, for the same reasons I don't participate in "woulda, coulda, shoulda" debates of a Sanders vs Trump election. I see what I see and I respond accordingly, there's only 24 hours in a day, man!
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: A general reply to those who replied to my earlier post about what Fascism is.
I'll try to avoid going OT.
ISIL is a threat, but to compare this to powerful nation states such as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, states that had coherent ideologies and powerful militaries, is risible nonsense in my book.
The post-WW2 Soviet Union was a clear and present danger to the West, as it had 300 Divisions ready to roll across Europe, and a powerful nuclear arsenal to back them up...which could have wiped out humanity a dozen times over.
ISIL, though a regional problem, with the odd inspired terrorist attack here and there, is not even in the same ball park, the same city, as the Soviet Union.
It maybe nonsense to you, but it doesn't matter what you think. As I have learned, it matters what the voting majority of people think. Guess what, they do not agree with you.
Trump is bad in many ways, I've always consistently said that, and I'm not trying to deflect, but the USA would be no better off with Clinton as POTUS. IMO.
Trump is the lesser of two evils in my book.
If Clinton had won, we'd be looking at:
No change for millions of people suffering in rural America. I focused a lot on this area during the campaign, and these people have it tough. In a way, I can see why they voted for Trump, and let's not forget, these people voted for Obama as well. They want change, ANY change. An I don't blame them for that.
Clinton would have been the green light to wall street and more crony capitalism. Drone strikes would have been signed off from Day 1. The media would not have given two
An anti-Iran/Russia stance would have been ramped up under Clinton. That could have led to death and destruction. Trump's foreign policy is exactly what the USA needs after 15 years of half-assed war on terror blundering.
Ultimately, the USA needs to take a long hard look at itself: how did a great nation like America be reduced to choosing between Trump and Clinton?
That is a massive failure in my book.
If this were a conversation, I'd be left speechless. It's amazing that you can tell everyone to give Trump a little time to prove himself, and then go on to insist that the world would be ending the second Clinton was elected.
Because in no way has Trump offered any kind of relief to rural Americans, nor has he taken any kind of stance or actions that indicates he's not going to do everything to make the wealthy wealthier over the course of his presidency. And his actions so far will likely increase the amount of death and destruction we see from terrorists abroad.
We don't know what Trump will do to help rural America. He's talked of a massive infrastructure programme, so maybe this will help?
If, after a year, nothing has happened on this, feel free to call me out on this, and I would probably agree with you.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: A general reply to those who replied to my earlier post about what Fascism is.
I'll try to avoid going OT.
ISIL is a threat, but to compare this to powerful nation states such as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, states that had coherent ideologies and powerful militaries, is risible nonsense in my book.
The post-WW2 Soviet Union was a clear and present danger to the West, as it had 300 Divisions ready to roll across Europe, and a powerful nuclear arsenal to back them up...which could have wiped out humanity a dozen times over.
ISIL, though a regional problem, with the odd inspired terrorist attack here and there, is not even in the same ball park, the same city, as the Soviet Union.
It maybe nonsense to you, but it doesn't matter what you think. As I have learned, it matters what the voting majority of people think. Guess what, they do not agree with you.
My own family doesn't agree with me most of the time
Frankly having people registered in multiple states and dead people registered isn't actually a problem we should concern ourselves with. That someone is on more than one rolls isn't a huge problem since you have to be in state to actually cast your vote, or apply for an absentee ballot which can only be issued if you meet certain requirements. We can confirm that someone only voted once with a simple multi-state cross checking system which already exists and is how they caught two people in 2016 who tried to vote twice in early voting.
It gives millions of people the ability to legally double vote. This can be a problem especially on college towns and jurisdictions with lots of snow refugees: Florida and Arizona for example. It should be a paramount issue to eliminate all voter fraud and abuse, as well as insure all lawful citizens can vote.
While I agree that having voter rolls regularly purged so they are more accurate that is a state issue and is easier said than done. If you moved from Texas to Wyoming how does the Texas Secretary of State's Election Division know that you have moved and that they need to remove you from the voter rolls? If you don't personally notify the Elections Division there is no mechanism in place that automatically tells them you left. The Elections Divisions can purge deceased voters by using the database of death certificates issued by the state but for people who move there's no database. The easiest way to purge people who left the state is to purge people who haven't voted but that can also result in people who haven't voted but simply not voting doesn't mean you left the state. One of our kids was born the day after Election Day and that year my wife didn't vote because she was way too pregnant to go to the polls. Is missing one election enough to get purged? How many elections do you have to abstain from to get purged? While accurate voter rolls is a good idea and harms no one making it a reality is quite complicated.
Sentinel1 wrote: People say Trump is moving the U.S.A forward in a bad way. If Clinton had won, the U.S.A would have been moving two steps back. She would have been continuing the Democrats policies, white-washing over the developing cracks and ignoring the deepening social divides. If Clinton had won everyone here would be moaning about her being a bad leader, that there was no change in the system and that there relatives sons, daughters, child's, future existence was on the brink of disaster. So either way things wouldn't have been good for all those pessimists out there.
In some ways maybe but voicing concerns and complaints is how the representative process works. If they aren't doing a good job you call them out on it and give push back. Just because "the other option" wasn't great doesn't give the current administration a pass to be a dumpster fire.
Sentinel1 wrote: People say Trump is moving the U.S.A forward in a bad way. If Clinton had won, the U.S.A would have been moving two steps back. She would have been continuing the Democrats policies, white-washing over the developing cracks and ignoring the deepening social divides. If Clinton had won everyone here would be moaning about her being a bad leader, that there was no change in the system and that there relatives sons, daughters, child's, future existence was on the brink of disaster. So either way things wouldn't have been good for all those pessimists out there.
That's the problem, people think these negative thoughts based on what exactly? Their feelings.
I can tell you, the data in the end of the Obama Presidency shows the opposite. Employment improved. Standard of living improved across the board, even for the poor. Troops deployed had gone down. More health insurance coverage and health care. By any measure, Obama killed it as a President.
I wonder where the people got the idea that everything was terrible? How would we get these impressions of gloom and doom when the data says otherwise?
Trump is bad in many ways, I've always consistently said that, and I'm not trying to deflect, but the USA would be no better off with Clinton as POTUS. IMO.
Trump is the lesser of two evils in my book.
If Clinton had won, we'd be looking at:
No change for millions of people suffering in rural America. I focused a lot on this area during the campaign, and these people have it tough. In a way, I can see why they voted for Trump, and let's not forget, these people voted for Obama as well. They want change, ANY change. An I don't blame them for that.
Clinton would have been the green light to wall street and more crony capitalism. Drone strikes would have been signed off from Day 1. The media would not have given two
An anti-Iran/Russia stance would have been ramped up under Clinton. That could have led to death and destruction. Trump's foreign policy is exactly what the USA needs after 15 years of half-assed war on terror blundering.
Ultimately, the USA needs to take a long hard look at itself: how did a great nation like America be reduced to choosing between Trump and Clinton?
That is a massive failure in my book.
If this were a conversation, I'd be left speechless. It's amazing that you can tell everyone to give Trump a little time to prove himself, and then go on to insist that the world would be ending the second Clinton was elected.
Because in no way has Trump offered any kind of relief to rural Americans, nor has he taken any kind of stance or actions that indicates he's not going to do everything to make the wealthy wealthier over the course of his presidency. And his actions so far will likely increase the amount of death and destruction we see from terrorists abroad.
We don't know what Trump will do to help rural America. He's talked of a massive infrastructure programme, so maybe this will help?
If, after a year, nothing has happened on this, feel free to call me out on this, and I would probably agree with you.
Do you really think that an infrastructure bill passed by Republicans is going to bother gathering, training, and putting rural Americans to work? The same party that condemned Clinton when she tried offering the same deal to out-of-work coal miners?
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: A general reply to those who replied to my earlier post about what Fascism is.
I'll try to avoid going OT.
ISIL is a threat, but to compare this to powerful nation states such as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, states that had coherent ideologies and powerful militaries, is risible nonsense in my book.
The post-WW2 Soviet Union was a clear and present danger to the West, as it had 300 Divisions ready to roll across Europe, and a powerful nuclear arsenal to back them up...which could have wiped out humanity a dozen times over.
ISIL, though a regional problem, with the odd inspired terrorist attack here and there, is not even in the same ball park, the same city, as the Soviet Union.
It maybe nonsense to you, but it doesn't matter what you think. As I have learned, it matters what the voting majority of people think. Guess what, they do not agree with you.
Um....guess what your guy lost by the same metric.
Trump is bad in many ways, I've always consistently said that, and I'm not trying to deflect, but the USA would be no better off with Clinton as POTUS. IMO.
Trump is the lesser of two evils in my book.
If Clinton had won, we'd be looking at:
No change for millions of people suffering in rural America. I focused a lot on this area during the campaign, and these people have it tough. In a way, I can see why they voted for Trump, and let's not forget, these people voted for Obama as well. They want change, ANY change. An I don't blame them for that.
Clinton would have been the green light to wall street and more crony capitalism. Drone strikes would have been signed off from Day 1. The media would not have given two
An anti-Iran/Russia stance would have been ramped up under Clinton. That could have led to death and destruction. Trump's foreign policy is exactly what the USA needs after 15 years of half-assed war on terror blundering.
Ultimately, the USA needs to take a long hard look at itself: how did a great nation like America be reduced to choosing between Trump and Clinton?
That is a massive failure in my book.
If this were a conversation, I'd be left speechless. It's amazing that you can tell everyone to give Trump a little time to prove himself, and then go on to insist that the world would be ending the second Clinton was elected.
Because in no way has Trump offered any kind of relief to rural Americans, nor has he taken any kind of stance or actions that indicates he's not going to do everything to make the wealthy wealthier over the course of his presidency. And his actions so far will likely increase the amount of death and destruction we see from terrorists abroad.
We don't know what Trump will do to help rural America. He's talked of a massive infrastructure programme, so maybe this will help?
If, after a year, nothing has happened on this, feel free to call me out on this, and I would probably agree with you.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: A general reply to those who replied to my earlier post about what Fascism is.
I'll try to avoid going OT.
ISIL is a threat, but to compare this to powerful nation states such as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, states that had coherent ideologies and powerful militaries, is risible nonsense in my book.
The post-WW2 Soviet Union was a clear and present danger to the West, as it had 300 Divisions ready to roll across Europe, and a powerful nuclear arsenal to back them up...which could have wiped out humanity a dozen times over.
ISIL, though a regional problem, with the odd inspired terrorist attack here and there, is not even in the same ball park, the same city, as the Soviet Union.
It maybe nonsense to you, but it doesn't matter what you think. As I have learned, it matters what the voting majority of people think. Guess what, they do not agree with you.
My own family doesn't agree with me most of the time
Exactly, no previous president has spelled out their entire policy plan for a year within a month of taking office, he will have large infrastructure plans but they may be spread out over the duration of his presidency. I believe he will benefit traditional industries including agriculture, most likely in a new form of farming subsidy system. Only time will tell.
Phew! I am completely Trumped out now, time for a rest
Trump is bad in many ways, I've always consistently said that, and I'm not trying to deflect, but the USA would be no better off with Clinton as POTUS. IMO.
Trump is the lesser of two evils in my book.
If Clinton had won, we'd be looking at:
No change for millions of people suffering in rural America. I focused a lot on this area during the campaign, and these people have it tough. In a way, I can see why they voted for Trump, and let's not forget, these people voted for Obama as well. They want change, ANY change. An I don't blame them for that.
Clinton would have been the green light to wall street and more crony capitalism. Drone strikes would have been signed off from Day 1. The media would not have given two
An anti-Iran/Russia stance would have been ramped up under Clinton. That could have led to death and destruction. Trump's foreign policy is exactly what the USA needs after 15 years of half-assed war on terror blundering.
Ultimately, the USA needs to take a long hard look at itself: how did a great nation like America be reduced to choosing between Trump and Clinton?
That is a massive failure in my book.
If this were a conversation, I'd be left speechless. It's amazing that you can tell everyone to give Trump a little time to prove himself, and then go on to insist that the world would be ending the second Clinton was elected.
Because in no way has Trump offered any kind of relief to rural Americans, nor has he taken any kind of stance or actions that indicates he's not going to do everything to make the wealthy wealthier over the course of his presidency. And his actions so far will likely increase the amount of death and destruction we see from terrorists abroad.
We don't know what Trump will do to help rural America. He's talked of a massive infrastructure programme, so maybe this will help?
If, after a year, nothing has happened on this, feel free to call me out on this, and I would probably agree with you.
Do you really think that an infrastructure bill passed by Republicans is going to bother gathering, training, and putting rural Americans to work? The same party that condemned Clinton when she tried offering the same deal to out-of-work coal miners?
Call me naïve, but I would hope that the GOP would reward states that voted for them with investment and infrastructure projects, or am I being naïve?
That's how politics works in Britain. Town X votes for party Z, and town X gets shiny stuff in return.
Trump is bad in many ways, I've always consistently said that, and I'm not trying to deflect, but the USA would be no better off with Clinton as POTUS. IMO.
Trump is the lesser of two evils in my book.
If Clinton had won, we'd be looking at:
No change for millions of people suffering in rural America. I focused a lot on this area during the campaign, and these people have it tough. In a way, I can see why they voted for Trump, and let's not forget, these people voted for Obama as well. They want change, ANY change. An I don't blame them for that.
Clinton would have been the green light to wall street and more crony capitalism. Drone strikes would have been signed off from Day 1. The media would not have given two
An anti-Iran/Russia stance would have been ramped up under Clinton. That could have led to death and destruction. Trump's foreign policy is exactly what the USA needs after 15 years of half-assed war on terror blundering.
Ultimately, the USA needs to take a long hard look at itself: how did a great nation like America be reduced to choosing between Trump and Clinton?
That is a massive failure in my book.
If this were a conversation, I'd be left speechless. It's amazing that you can tell everyone to give Trump a little time to prove himself, and then go on to insist that the world would be ending the second Clinton was elected.
Because in no way has Trump offered any kind of relief to rural Americans, nor has he taken any kind of stance or actions that indicates he's not going to do everything to make the wealthy wealthier over the course of his presidency. And his actions so far will likely increase the amount of death and destruction we see from terrorists abroad.
We don't know what Trump will do to help rural America. He's talked of a massive infrastructure programme, so maybe this will help?
If, after a year, nothing has happened on this, feel free to call me out on this, and I would probably agree with you.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: A general reply to those who replied to my earlier post about what Fascism is.
I'll try to avoid going OT.
ISIL is a threat, but to compare this to powerful nation states such as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, states that had coherent ideologies and powerful militaries, is risible nonsense in my book.
The post-WW2 Soviet Union was a clear and present danger to the West, as it had 300 Divisions ready to roll across Europe, and a powerful nuclear arsenal to back them up...which could have wiped out humanity a dozen times over.
ISIL, though a regional problem, with the odd inspired terrorist attack here and there, is not even in the same ball park, the same city, as the Soviet Union.
It maybe nonsense to you, but it doesn't matter what you think. As I have learned, it matters what the voting majority of people think. Guess what, they do not agree with you.
My own family doesn't agree with me most of the time
Exactly, no previous president has spelled out their entire policy plan for a year within a month of taking office, he will have large infrastructure plans but they may be spread out over the duration of his presidency. I believe he will benefit traditional industries including agriculture, most likely in a new form of farming subsidy system. Only time will tell.
Phew! I am completely Trumped out now, time for a rest
Yeah, I'm having 40 different conversations here, so I may need a break as well.
Do you really think that an infrastructure bill passed by Republicans is going to bother gathering, training, and putting rural Americans to work? The same party that condemned Clinton when she tried offering the same deal to out-of-work coal miners?
Call me naïve, but I would hope that the GOP would reward states that voted for them with investment and infrastructure projects, or am I being naïve?
That's how politics works in Britain. Town X votes for party Z, and town X gets shiny stuff in return.
Oh, I don't doubt that with Obama out of the way, Republicans won't stop any infrastructure improvements that they can claim were their own ideas. I'm disputing the idea that any of the money would make its way into the pockets of rural Americans instead of corporations that provide Republican politicians with donations.
A new bridge or repaved road isn't exactly comforting when you're still out of a job and half your town is dying from heroin addiction. And don't forget, Trump's the candidate that's floated the privatization of America's infrastructure. So I hope those rural Americans are read to pay whenever they want to cross one of those new bridges or repaved roads.
I'm not really sure why people are interpreting the outrage directed at Trump's first ten days as "surprise." I mean... did we all forget the outrage directed at him before the 21st or something? Are people that genuinely "surprised" that outrage directed at a man when he is just talking about stuff might get worse when he actually does the things he talked about?
Although Trump likes to make a big thing about this, I honestly don't think it bothers him, he is a man throughout life has never taken no for an answer, particularly now at the start of his political career he will be focusing on decisive action. I recon that when these topics cool off and he focuses on implementing policies to help Americans at home, the opinion pols will warm up to him. Particularly all the Social Justice Warriors on protest at the minute will eventually loose steam and public interest. When they give up it will be plain sailing for him.
Nah he will keep doing bad orders that hurt america like so far. Humans don't instantly change. Would require complete personality change for him to be even passable president.
He looks to boost his wealth and ego knowing very well it hurts america. He just doesn't care.
He has shown already all he is. This has been known for years
Frankly having people registered in multiple states and dead people registered isn't actually a problem we should concern ourselves with. That someone is on more than one rolls isn't a huge problem since you have to be in state to actually cast your vote, or apply for an absentee ballot which can only be issued if you meet certain requirements. We can confirm that someone only voted once with a simple multi-state cross checking system which already exists and is how they caught two people in 2016 who tried to vote twice in early voting.
It gives millions of people the ability to legally double vote. This can be a problem especially on college towns and jurisdictions with lots of snow refugees: Florida and Arizona for example. It should be a paramount issue to eliminate all voter fraud and abuse, as well as insure all lawful citizens can vote.
Even if we accept such things were possible, there is no evidence that such exists on any meaningful scale, certainly not enough to have tipped any election, despite many investigations on both sides.
No change for millions of people suffering in rural America. I focused a lot on this area during the campaign, and these people have it tough. In a way, I can see why they voted for Trump, and let's not forget, these people voted for Obama as well. They want change, ANY change. An I don't blame them for that.
This assumes Trump is going to do anything for them, and that it will be positive. There is no appearance that such is the case.
Clinton would have been the green light to wall street and more crony capitalism.
and this isnt even more the case with Donald Fething Trump?
Drone strikes would have been signed off from Day 1. The media would not have given two
this didnt happen with Trump?
An anti-Iran/Russia stance would have been ramped up under Clinton. That could have led to death and destruction. Trump's foreign policy is exactly what the USA needs after 15 years of half-assed war on terror blundering.
this is rather wild supposition, particularly given the heavily nationalist and hawkish bent of the Republicans and the Trump crowd in general. From who publicly made this statement...
"The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes"
And asked why have them if we're not gonna use them.
So...not seeing the logic here in Trump being the safer bet.
Ultimately, the USA needs to take a long hard look at itself: how did a great nation like America be reduced to choosing between Trump and Clinton?
Sentinel1 wrote: People say Trump is moving the U.S.A forward in a bad way. If Clinton had won, the U.S.A would have been moving two steps back. She would have been continuing the Democrats policies, white-washing over the developing cracks and ignoring the deepening social divides. If Clinton had won everyone here would be moaning about her being a bad leader, that there was no change in the system and that there relatives sons, daughters, child's, future existence was on the brink of disaster. So either way things wouldn't have been good for all those pessimists out there.
The kind of leader Clinton would have been was well evidenced in her desertion without a word to her supporters on election night when she lost.
Sentinel1 wrote: People say Trump is moving the U.S.A forward in a bad way. If Clinton had won, the U.S.A would have been moving two steps back. She would have been continuing the Democrats policies, white-washing over the developing cracks and ignoring the deepening social divides. If Clinton had won everyone here would be moaning about her being a bad leader, that there was no change in the system and that there relatives sons, daughters, child's, future existence was on the brink of disaster. So either way things wouldn't have been good for all those pessimists out there.
The kind of leader Clinton would have been was well evidenced in her desertion without a word to her supporters on election night when she lost.
much like Romney cutting of staffers expense accounts with no warning on election night leaving them stranded at hotels, convention centers, airports, etc? Election night things get weird. Hillary was a turd sandwich, but do you think Trump would have been any more graceful? Lets be real.
Sentinel1 wrote: People say Trump is moving the U.S.A forward in a bad way. If Clinton had won, the U.S.A would have been moving two steps back. She would have been continuing the Democrats policies, white-washing over the developing cracks and ignoring the deepening social divides. If Clinton had won everyone here would be moaning about her being a bad leader, that there was no change in the system and that there relatives sons, daughters, child's, future existence was on the brink of disaster. So either way things wouldn't have been good for all those pessimists out there.
The kind of leader Clinton would have been was well evidenced in her desertion without a word to her supporters on election night when she lost.
So I guess we knew what kind of leader Trump was going to be when, after losing the debates, he fled the stage and told the media he had won thanks to "alternative facts" from online polls.
Sentinel1 wrote: People say Trump is moving the U.S.A forward in a bad way. If Clinton had won, the U.S.A would have been moving two steps back. She would have been continuing the Democrats policies, white-washing over the developing cracks and ignoring the deepening social divides. If Clinton had won everyone here would be moaning about her being a bad leader, that there was no change in the system and that there relatives sons, daughters, child's, future existence was on the brink of disaster. So either way things wouldn't have been good for all those pessimists out there.
That's the problem, people think these negative thoughts based on what exactly? Their feelings.
I can tell you, the data in the end of the Obama Presidency shows the opposite. Employment improved. Standard of living improved across the board, even for the poor. Troops deployed had gone down. More health insurance coverage and health care. By any measure, Obama killed it as a President.
I wonder where the people got the idea that everything was terrible? How would we get these impressions of gloom and doom when the data says otherwise?
Hmmmmm?
Stagnant wages. Low labor force participation rates. Continued economic hardship in rust belt states. The stock market bottomed out around 6,800 at the nadir of the recession that hit at the end of Bush43 and the start of Obama's presidency and now it's around 20,000 but who was helped by that resurgence in the stock market? Yes good things happened under Obama's presidency but there weren't nationwide gains. There are large swathes of the country that have been struggling economically for years with no real prospects of life getting any easier anytime soon. There was some economic growth and positive statistics to point to but that growth still left a lot of people behind so the message that things were good or improving fell on a lot of deaf ears and came off as politicking bullgak.
Frankly having people registered in multiple states and dead people registered isn't actually a problem we should concern ourselves with. That someone is on more than one rolls isn't a huge problem since you have to be in state to actually cast your vote, or apply for an absentee ballot which can only be issued if you meet certain requirements. We can confirm that someone only voted once with a simple multi-state cross checking system which already exists and is how they caught two people in 2016 who tried to vote twice in early voting.
It gives millions of people the ability to legally double vote. This can be a problem especially on college towns and jurisdictions with lots of snow refugees: Florida and Arizona for example. It should be a paramount issue to eliminate all voter fraud and abuse, as well as insure all lawful citizens can vote.
While I agree that having voter rolls regularly purged so they are more accurate that is a state issue and is easier said than done. If you moved from Texas to Wyoming how does the Texas Secretary of State's Election Division know that you have moved and that they need to remove you from the voter rolls? If you don't personally notify the Elections Division there is no mechanism in place that automatically tells them you left. The Elections Divisions can purge deceased voters by using the database of death certificates issued by the state but for people who move there's no database. The easiest way to purge people who left the state is to purge people who haven't voted but that can also result in people who haven't voted but simply not voting doesn't mean you left the state. One of our kids was born the day after Election Day and that year my wife didn't vote because she was way too pregnant to go to the polls. Is missing one election enough to get purged? How many elections do you have to abstain from to get purged? While accurate voter rolls is a good idea and harms no one making it a reality is quite complicated.
Simply force everyone in the state to "register" every year.
We do this anyway when we declare our personal property taxes (house, cars, if you're a renter)... that is, the state sends you a form of what they think you have, you return it with confirmation/addition so that the state can properly assess what taxes are owed at the end of the year.
Simply piggy back that same function... that's how you truly keep the voter rolls "clean".
No change for millions of people suffering in rural America. I focused a lot on this area during the campaign, and these people have it tough. In a way, I can see why they voted for Trump, and let's not forget, these people voted for Obama as well. They want change, ANY change. An I don't blame them for that.
Clinton would have been the green light to wall street and more crony capitalism. Drone strikes would have been signed off from Day 1. The media would not have given two
An anti-Iran/Russia stance would have been ramped up under Clinton. That could have led to death and destruction. Trump's foreign policy is exactly what the USA needs after 15 years of half-assed war on terror blundering.
Ultimately, the USA needs to take a long hard look at itself: how did a great nation like America be reduced to choosing between Trump and Clinton?
That is a massive failure in my book.
You do know no change is better than change for worse? Rurals you talk are poor and middle class that trump is going to screw over to help rich guys.
Change to better with clinton might have been small but better than 0(economy was already improving. All she would have needed to do is maintjin it...) but trump is quaranteed worse.
And trump is leading us into collision with china and no quarantee improve with russia. And if yes that means russia can feel like taking more countries. Face it. Trump is the bigger warhawk. Hell he thinks nukes should have been used already
Vaktathi wrote: much like Romney cutting of staffers expense accounts with no warning on election night leaving them stranded at hotels, convention centers, airports, etc?
Still a dick move, man. Wow.
Also, Trumps melt down would have been epic. I am sad, for many fething reasons, that we all missed out on it!
Prestor Jon wrote: . If you want to push back against Trump's political agenda then communicate with your Congressional Representative and Senators because they're the ones who can actually do something about it. Expressing yourself with protests is fine but understand that protests won't affect Congress because they're only concerned with their constituents.
Show republicans this sort of policy is not popular and they might start to fight it to help themselves in next elections.
Small chance as republican politicians are out of touch with reality but better than accepting bad silently.
Frankly having people registered in multiple states and dead people registered isn't actually a problem we should concern ourselves with. That someone is on more than one rolls isn't a huge problem since you have to be in state to actually cast your vote, or apply for an absentee ballot which can only be issued if you meet certain requirements. We can confirm that someone only voted once with a simple multi-state cross checking system which already exists and is how they caught two people in 2016 who tried to vote twice in early voting.
It gives millions of people the ability to legally double vote. This can be a problem especially on college towns and jurisdictions with lots of snow refugees: Florida and Arizona for example. It should be a paramount issue to eliminate all voter fraud and abuse, as well as insure all lawful citizens can vote.
While I agree that having voter rolls regularly purged so they are more accurate that is a state issue and is easier said than done. If you moved from Texas to Wyoming how does the Texas Secretary of State's Election Division know that you have moved and that they need to remove you from the voter rolls? If you don't personally notify the Elections Division there is no mechanism in place that automatically tells them you left. The Elections Divisions can purge deceased voters by using the database of death certificates issued by the state but for people who move there's no database. The easiest way to purge people who left the state is to purge people who haven't voted but that can also result in people who haven't voted but simply not voting doesn't mean you left the state. One of our kids was born the day after Election Day and that year my wife didn't vote because she was way too pregnant to go to the polls. Is missing one election enough to get purged? How many elections do you have to abstain from to get purged? While accurate voter rolls is a good idea and harms no one making it a reality is quite complicated.
Simply force everyone in the state to "register" every year.
We do this anyway when we declare our personal property taxes (house, cars, if you're a renter)... that is, the state sends you a form of what they think you have, you return it with confirmation/addition so that the state can properly assess what taxes are owed at the end of the year.
Simply piggy back that same function... that's how you truly keep the voter rolls "clean".
I don't think forcing the state to go through the time and expense to register millions of voters over again every year is the right answer. Elections departments get swamped with registrations in the lead up to Election day every presidential cycle which is why so many voters get stuck with provisional ballots on election day.
Missouri handles property taxes differently than NC then. I just get the form that says I live at X address and the property has Y value. There's no need to send it back unless I've moved or I need to add other taxable property like boats or whatever or if I want to dispute my property valuation. Besides using tax forms as voter registration just complicates the paperwork for the state. You end up with the revenue dept needing to send forms and data over to the elections dept or you end up making the elections dept a subsidiary of the revenue dept etc.
Sentinel1 wrote: People say Trump is moving the U.S.A forward in a bad way. If Clinton had won, the U.S.A would have been moving two steps back. She would have been continuing the Democrats policies, white-washing over the developing cracks and ignoring the deepening social divides. If Clinton had won everyone here would be moaning about her being a bad leader, that there was no change in the system and that there relatives sons, daughters, child's, future existence was on the brink of disaster. So either way things wouldn't have been good for all those pessimists out there.
Better than now. If clinton is 2 steps back trumpis 10.
Prestor Jon wrote: . If you want to push back against Trump's political agenda then communicate with your Congressional Representative and Senators because they're the ones who can actually do something about it. Expressing yourself with protests is fine but understand that protests won't affect Congress because they're only concerned with their constituents.
Show republicans this sort of policy is not popular and they might start to fight it to help themselves in next elections.
Small chance as republican politicians are out of touch with reality but better than accepting bad silently.
Do you have a lot of interaction with US congressional offices in Finland? That kind of interaction is what motivates Congress to vote for/against a policy. When Bush43 got legislation proposed to reform immigration and talk radio/pundits decided it was "amnesty" and encouraged people to call up their representatives in Congress and voice their displeasure the legislation lost support and failed to pass. Republicans care about getting re-elected, a few bad votes is all it takes to lose to a primary challenger or a Democrat. Losing touch with your constituents is a surefire way to lose your seat even in very "safe" party districts, just ask Eric Cantor.
Frankly having people registered in multiple states and dead people registered isn't actually a problem we should concern ourselves with. That someone is on more than one rolls isn't a huge problem since you have to be in state to actually cast your vote, or apply for an absentee ballot which can only be issued if you meet certain requirements. We can confirm that someone only voted once with a simple multi-state cross checking system which already exists and is how they caught two people in 2016 who tried to vote twice in early voting.
It gives millions of people the ability to legally double vote. This can be a problem especially on college towns and jurisdictions with lots of snow refugees: Florida and Arizona for example. It should be a paramount issue to eliminate all voter fraud and abuse, as well as insure all lawful citizens can vote.
Even if we accept such things were possible, there is no evidence that such exists on any meaningful scale, certainly not enough to have tipped any election, despite many investigations on both sides.
No change for millions of people suffering in rural America. I focused a lot on this area during the campaign, and these people have it tough. In a way, I can see why they voted for Trump, and let's not forget, these people voted for Obama as well. They want change, ANY change. An I don't blame them for that.
This assumes Trump is going to do anything for them, and that it will be positive. There is no appearance that such is the case.
Clinton would have been the green light to wall street and more crony capitalism.
and this isnt even more the case with Donald Fething Trump?
Drone strikes would have been signed off from Day 1. The media would not have given two
this didnt happen with Trump?
An anti-Iran/Russia stance would have been ramped up under Clinton. That could have led to death and destruction. Trump's foreign policy is exactly what the USA needs after 15 years of half-assed war on terror blundering.
this is rather wild supposition, particularly given the heavily nationalist and hawkish bent of the Republicans and the Trump crowd in general. From who publicly made this statement...
"The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes"
And asked why have them if we're not gonna use them.
So...not seeing the logic here in Trump being the safer bet.
Ultimately, the USA needs to take a long hard look at itself: how did a great nation like America be reduced to choosing between Trump and Clinton?
That is a massive failure in my book.
thats an excellent question
We don't know what's happening with Trump and drone strikes. It's likely that Trump will continue the depressing trend of using them, but we might be surprised.
Yes, I am fully aware that with all 3 branches under GOP control, the mask will probably slip and the dogs of war will be unleashed i.e we'll see the true face of the GOP.
Or maybe not. I don't mean to patronise you or anybody else, and I'm running out of clichés here,
but we can only wait and see, only time will tell...
Sentinel1 wrote: People say Trump is moving the U.S.A forward in a bad way. If Clinton had won, the U.S.A would have been moving two steps back. She would have been continuing the Democrats policies, white-washing over the developing cracks and ignoring the deepening social divides. If Clinton had won everyone here would be moaning about her being a bad leader, that there was no change in the system and that there relatives sons, daughters, child's, future existence was on the brink of disaster. So either way things wouldn't have been good for all those pessimists out there.
Better than now. If clinton is 2 steps back trumpis 10.
Change for worse is worse than current.
its also especially amusing when it's the party that is far more socially and ethnically inclusive is apparently the "divisive" party
Frankly having people registered in multiple states and dead people registered isn't actually a problem we should concern ourselves with. That someone is on more than one rolls isn't a huge problem since you have to be in state to actually cast your vote, or apply for an absentee ballot which can only be issued if you meet certain requirements. We can confirm that someone only voted once with a simple multi-state cross checking system which already exists and is how they caught two people in 2016 who tried to vote twice in early voting.
It gives millions of people the ability to legally double vote. This can be a problem especially on college towns and jurisdictions with lots of snow refugees: Florida and Arizona for example. It should be a paramount issue to eliminate all voter fraud and abuse, as well as insure all lawful citizens can vote.
While I agree that having voter rolls regularly purged so they are more accurate that is a state issue and is easier said than done. If you moved from Texas to Wyoming how does the Texas Secretary of State's Election Division know that you have moved and that they need to remove you from the voter rolls? If you don't personally notify the Elections Division there is no mechanism in place that automatically tells them you left. The Elections Divisions can purge deceased voters by using the database of death certificates issued by the state but for people who move there's no database. The easiest way to purge people who left the state is to purge people who haven't voted but that can also result in people who haven't voted but simply not voting doesn't mean you left the state. One of our kids was born the day after Election Day and that year my wife didn't vote because she was way too pregnant to go to the polls. Is missing one election enough to get purged? How many elections do you have to abstain from to get purged? While accurate voter rolls is a good idea and harms no one making it a reality is quite complicated.
Simply force everyone in the state to "register" every year.
We do this anyway when we declare our personal property taxes (house, cars, if you're a renter)... that is, the state sends you a form of what they think you have, you return it with confirmation/addition so that the state can properly assess what taxes are owed at the end of the year.
Simply piggy back that same function... that's how you truly keep the voter rolls "clean".
I don't think forcing the state to go through the time and expense to register millions of voters over again every year is the right answer. Elections departments get swamped with registrations in the lead up to Election day every presidential cycle which is why so many voters get stuck with provisional ballots on election day.
Missouri handles property taxes differently than NC then. I just get the form that says I live at X address and the property has Y value. There's no need to send it back unless I've moved or I need to add other taxable property like boats or whatever or if I want to dispute my property valuation. Besides using tax forms as voter registration just complicates the paperwork for the state. You end up with the revenue dept needing to send forms and data over to the elections dept or you end up making the elections dept a subsidiary of the revenue dept etc.
In MO, you must send back your declaration, or face a fine.
I work in IT... as setting up a system whereby the revenue dept sends data to the elections depts is like the most basic, basicaspect of an IT infrastructure/DB management. If done right, it'll be cost effective too.
They way I look at it, EVERY citizen must file taxes in some way shape or form... even if you DON'T pay the state/feds anything. So, instead of re-inventing the wheel by orchestrating an independent workflow, simply piggyback an existing method (like the tax declaration/tax return process).
No change for millions of people suffering in rural America. I focused a lot on this area during the campaign, and these people have it tough. In a way, I can see why they voted for Trump, and let's not forget, these people voted for Obama as well. They want change, ANY change. An I don't blame them for that.
Clinton would have been the green light to wall street and more crony capitalism. Drone strikes would have been signed off from Day 1. The media would not have given two
An anti-Iran/Russia stance would have been ramped up under Clinton. That could have led to death and destruction. Trump's foreign policy is exactly what the USA needs after 15 years of half-assed war on terror blundering.
Ultimately, the USA needs to take a long hard look at itself: how did a great nation like America be reduced to choosing between Trump and Clinton?
That is a massive failure in my book.
You do know no change is better than change for worse? Rurals you talk are poor and middle class that trump is going to screw over to help rich guys.
Change to better with clinton might have been small but better than 0(economy was already improving. All she would have needed to do is maintjin it...) but trump is quaranteed worse.
And trump is leading us into collision with china and no quarantee improve with russia. And if yes that means russia can feel like taking more countries. Face it. Trump is the bigger warhawk. Hell he thinks nukes should have been used already
Trump's foreign policy, if he's true to campaign promises, is one of the very very few things I agree with him on.
Other NATO countries need to hit that 2% of GDP target on defence. Germany only spends 1.1% of GDP on its military. Trump is correct to call them out on that.
Better dialogue with Russia is a good thing IMO. Talk is cheap, if it comes to nothing, you've lost nothing, but at least you tried.
whembly wrote: Yeah... he appointed his own people to these departments.
The holdovers from Obama administrations are likely going to lose their job because Trump is going to want his own peeps there...
...
As someone wisely said... elections has consequences.
So you would be perfectly fine if, for example, he put a pacifist with no military experience to be Defense Sec?
My opinion doesn't matter... President appoints, and Senate provides the up/down.
The Senate only has the powah here... they can even choose to NOT even bring the candidate to a vote.
What? It's nothing to do with whether he can, it's whether what is is doing it right. Did you not get that?
Of course I can policy differences with Trumpestos and his goonies at the agencies.
My point is, you can't expect holdovers from the Obama administration to remain in these Agencies if they're going to pull the same stunt as that acting AG. Whether we like it or not, Trumpesto is expected to have his own peeps at the agencies...
It's pointless to gnash your teeth that he puts someone there that is diametrically opposed to what the agencies have done in the past... the POTUS sets the agenda... the agencies ENACTS them.
It's our job as voters to hold him to account via the voting booth, or in warranted case, take him to court. (provided we have standing)
Frankly having people registered in multiple states and dead people registered isn't actually a problem we should concern ourselves with. That someone is on more than one rolls isn't a huge problem since you have to be in state to actually cast your vote, or apply for an absentee ballot which can only be issued if you meet certain requirements. We can confirm that someone only voted once with a simple multi-state cross checking system which already exists and is how they caught two people in 2016 who tried to vote twice in early voting.
It gives millions of people the ability to legally double vote. This can be a problem especially on college towns and jurisdictions with lots of snow refugees: Florida and Arizona for example. It should be a paramount issue to eliminate all voter fraud and abuse, as well as insure all lawful citizens can vote.
Even if we accept such things were possible, there is no evidence that such exists on any meaningful scale, certainly not enough to have tipped any election, despite many investigations on both sides.
No change for millions of people suffering in rural America. I focused a lot on this area during the campaign, and these people have it tough. In a way, I can see why they voted for Trump, and let's not forget, these people voted for Obama as well. They want change, ANY change. An I don't blame them for that.
This assumes Trump is going to do anything for them, and that it will be positive. There is no appearance that such is the case.
Clinton would have been the green light to wall street and more crony capitalism.
and this isnt even more the case with Donald Fething Trump?
Drone strikes would have been signed off from Day 1. The media would not have given two
this didnt happen with Trump?
An anti-Iran/Russia stance would have been ramped up under Clinton. That could have led to death and destruction. Trump's foreign policy is exactly what the USA needs after 15 years of half-assed war on terror blundering.
this is rather wild supposition, particularly given the heavily nationalist and hawkish bent of the Republicans and the Trump crowd in general. From who publicly made this statement...
"The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes"
And asked why have them if we're not gonna use them.
So...not seeing the logic here in Trump being the safer bet.
Ultimately, the USA needs to take a long hard look at itself: how did a great nation like America be reduced to choosing between Trump and Clinton?
That is a massive failure in my book.
thats an excellent question
We don't know what's happening with Trump and drone strikes. It's likely that Trump will continue the depressing trend of using them, but we might be surprised.
Drone strikes have continued unabated and unchanged under Trump and his rhetoric has only ever been to escalate, not draw back.
Yes, I am fully aware that with all 3 branches under GOP control, the mask will probably slip and the dogs of war will be unleashed i.e we'll see the true face of the GOP.
Or maybe not. I don't mean to patronise you or anybody else, and I'm running out of clichés here,
but we can only wait and see, only time will tell...
Hell, Trump might not even last 4 years.
he might, I'm just not seeing any of the logic where Trump was the lesser of two evils to turd sandwich by any of the criteria
No change for millions of people suffering in rural America. I focused a lot on this area during the campaign, and these people have it tough. In a way, I can see why they voted for Trump, and let's not forget, these people voted for Obama as well. They want change, ANY change. An I don't blame them for that.
Clinton would have been the green light to wall street and more crony capitalism. Drone strikes would have been signed off from Day 1. The media would not have given two
An anti-Iran/Russia stance would have been ramped up under Clinton. That could have led to death and destruction. Trump's foreign policy is exactly what the USA needs after 15 years of half-assed war on terror blundering.
Ultimately, the USA needs to take a long hard look at itself: how did a great nation like America be reduced to choosing between Trump and Clinton?
That is a massive failure in my book.
You do know no change is better than change for worse? Rurals you talk are poor and middle class that trump is going to screw over to help rich guys.
Change to better with clinton might have been small but better than 0(economy was already improving. All she would have needed to do is maintjin it...) but trump is quaranteed worse.
And trump is leading us into collision with china and no quarantee improve with russia. And if yes that means russia can feel like taking more countries. Face it. Trump is the bigger warhawk. Hell he thinks nukes should have been used already
Trump's foreign policy, if he's true to campaign promises, is one of the very very few things I agree with him on.
Other NATO countries need to hit that 2% of GDP target on defence. Germany only spends 1.1% of GDP on its military. Trump is correct to call them out on that.
Better dialogue with Russia is a good thing IMO. Talk is cheap, if it comes to nothing, you've lost nothing, but at least you tried.
He's not going to pull out of NATO... while I feel like the US (and other nato countries) pull a lion's share of the NATO expeditures and it sucks... at the end of the day, NATO is very much a high national interest to the US. Something that Sec of Defense Mattis and NatSec Flynn feels very strongly about.
I'm more concerned about Russians shenanigans in the Balkans... ethnic strife is flaring up again...
Frankly having people registered in multiple states and dead people registered isn't actually a problem we should concern ourselves with. That someone is on more than one rolls isn't a huge problem since you have to be in state to actually cast your vote, or apply for an absentee ballot which can only be issued if you meet certain requirements. We can confirm that someone only voted once with a simple multi-state cross checking system which already exists and is how they caught two people in 2016 who tried to vote twice in early voting.
It gives millions of people the ability to legally double vote. This can be a problem especially on college towns and jurisdictions with lots of snow refugees: Florida and Arizona for example. It should be a paramount issue to eliminate all voter fraud and abuse, as well as insure all lawful citizens can vote.
While I agree that having voter rolls regularly purged so they are more accurate that is a state issue and is easier said than done. If you moved from Texas to Wyoming how does the Texas Secretary of State's Election Division know that you have moved and that they need to remove you from the voter rolls? If you don't personally notify the Elections Division there is no mechanism in place that automatically tells them you left. The Elections Divisions can purge deceased voters by using the database of death certificates issued by the state but for people who move there's no database. The easiest way to purge people who left the state is to purge people who haven't voted but that can also result in people who haven't voted but simply not voting doesn't mean you left the state. One of our kids was born the day after Election Day and that year my wife didn't vote because she was way too pregnant to go to the polls. Is missing one election enough to get purged? How many elections do you have to abstain from to get purged? While accurate voter rolls is a good idea and harms no one making it a reality is quite complicated.
Simply force everyone in the state to "register" every year.
We do this anyway when we declare our personal property taxes (house, cars, if you're a renter)... that is, the state sends you a form of what they think you have, you return it with confirmation/addition so that the state can properly assess what taxes are owed at the end of the year.
Simply piggy back that same function... that's how you truly keep the voter rolls "clean".
Yes this is doable and just one issue relating to voting rights. The argument "well its not material" seem immaterial for people who want to pass confiscatory laws (firearms, "safety" legislation for example) so it doesn't hold water when the actual methodology does no harm whatsoever.
No change for millions of people suffering in rural America. I focused a lot on this area during the campaign, and these people have it tough. In a way, I can see why they voted for Trump, and let's not forget, these people voted for Obama as well. They want change, ANY change. An I don't blame them for that.
Clinton would have been the green light to wall street and more crony capitalism. Drone strikes would have been signed off from Day 1. The media would not have given two
An anti-Iran/Russia stance would have been ramped up under Clinton. That could have led to death and destruction. Trump's foreign policy is exactly what the USA needs after 15 years of half-assed war on terror blundering.
Ultimately, the USA needs to take a long hard look at itself: how did a great nation like America be reduced to choosing between Trump and Clinton?
That is a massive failure in my book.
You do know no change is better than change for worse? Rurals you talk are poor and middle class that trump is going to screw over to help rich guys.
Change to better with clinton might have been small but better than 0(economy was already improving. All she would have needed to do is maintjin it...) but trump is quaranteed worse.
And trump is leading us into collision with china and no quarantee improve with russia. And if yes that means russia can feel like taking more countries. Face it. Trump is the bigger warhawk. Hell he thinks nukes should have been used already
Trump's foreign policy, if he's true to campaign promises, is one of the very very few things I agree with him on.
Other NATO countries need to hit that 2% of GDP target on defence. Germany only spends 1.1% of GDP on its military. Trump is correct to call them out on that.
Better dialogue with Russia is a good thing IMO. Talk is cheap, if it comes to nothing, you've lost nothing, but at least you tried.
He's not going to pull out of NATO... while I feel like the US (and other nato countries) pull a lion's share of the NATO expeditures and it sucks... at the end of the day, NATO is very much a high national interest to the US. Something that Sec of Defense Mattis and NatSec Flynn feels very strongly about.
I'm more concerned about Russians shenanigans in the Balkans... ethnic strife is flaring up again...
There's been ethnic strife in the Balkans for about 1000 years. It was here before Trump, and it will be here long after you, I, and Trump are long gone. I wouldn't worry too much about it.
Frankly having people registered in multiple states and dead people registered isn't actually a problem we should concern ourselves with. That someone is on more than one rolls isn't a huge problem since you have to be in state to actually cast your vote, or apply for an absentee ballot which can only be issued if you meet certain requirements. We can confirm that someone only voted once with a simple multi-state cross checking system which already exists and is how they caught two people in 2016 who tried to vote twice in early voting.
It gives millions of people the ability to legally double vote. This can be a problem especially on college towns and jurisdictions with lots of snow refugees: Florida and Arizona for example. It should be a paramount issue to eliminate all voter fraud and abuse, as well as insure all lawful citizens can vote.
While I agree that having voter rolls regularly purged so they are more accurate that is a state issue and is easier said than done. If you moved from Texas to Wyoming how does the Texas Secretary of State's Election Division know that you have moved and that they need to remove you from the voter rolls? If you don't personally notify the Elections Division there is no mechanism in place that automatically tells them you left. The Elections Divisions can purge deceased voters by using the database of death certificates issued by the state but for people who move there's no database. The easiest way to purge people who left the state is to purge people who haven't voted but that can also result in people who haven't voted but simply not voting doesn't mean you left the state. One of our kids was born the day after Election Day and that year my wife didn't vote because she was way too pregnant to go to the polls. Is missing one election enough to get purged? How many elections do you have to abstain from to get purged? While accurate voter rolls is a good idea and harms no one making it a reality is quite complicated.
Simply force everyone in the state to "register" every year.
We do this anyway when we declare our personal property taxes (house, cars, if you're a renter)... that is, the state sends you a form of what they think you have, you return it with confirmation/addition so that the state can properly assess what taxes are owed at the end of the year.
Simply piggy back that same function... that's how you truly keep the voter rolls "clean".
I don't think forcing the state to go through the time and expense to register millions of voters over again every year is the right answer. Elections departments get swamped with registrations in the lead up to Election day every presidential cycle which is why so many voters get stuck with provisional ballots on election day.
Missouri handles property taxes differently than NC then. I just get the form that says I live at X address and the property has Y value. There's no need to send it back unless I've moved or I need to add other taxable property like boats or whatever or if I want to dispute my property valuation. Besides using tax forms as voter registration just complicates the paperwork for the state. You end up with the revenue dept needing to send forms and data over to the elections dept or you end up making the elections dept a subsidiary of the revenue dept etc.
In MO, you must send back your declaration, or face a fine.
I work in IT... as setting up a system whereby the revenue dept sends data to the elections depts is like the most basic, basicaspect of an IT infrastructure/DB management. If done right, it'll be cost effective too.
They way I look at it, EVERY citizen must file taxes in some way shape or form... even if you DON'T pay the state/feds anything. So, instead of re-inventing the wheel by orchestrating an independent workflow, simply piggyback an existing method (like the tax declaration/tax return process).
We do that for things like the selective service.
As kronk may say...lean six sigma this gak yo!
Alternatively nationalize it. The fed courts run it anyway.
Frankly having people registered in multiple states and dead people registered isn't actually a problem we should concern ourselves with. That someone is on more than one rolls isn't a huge problem since you have to be in state to actually cast your vote, or apply for an absentee ballot which can only be issued if you meet certain requirements. We can confirm that someone only voted once with a simple multi-state cross checking system which already exists and is how they caught two people in 2016 who tried to vote twice in early voting.
It gives millions of people the ability to legally double vote. This can be a problem especially on college towns and jurisdictions with lots of snow refugees: Florida and Arizona for example. It should be a paramount issue to eliminate all voter fraud and abuse, as well as insure all lawful citizens can vote.
While I agree that having voter rolls regularly purged so they are more accurate that is a state issue and is easier said than done. If you moved from Texas to Wyoming how does the Texas Secretary of State's Election Division know that you have moved and that they need to remove you from the voter rolls? If you don't personally notify the Elections Division there is no mechanism in place that automatically tells them you left. The Elections Divisions can purge deceased voters by using the database of death certificates issued by the state but for people who move there's no database. The easiest way to purge people who left the state is to purge people who haven't voted but that can also result in people who haven't voted but simply not voting doesn't mean you left the state. One of our kids was born the day after Election Day and that year my wife didn't vote because she was way too pregnant to go to the polls. Is missing one election enough to get purged? How many elections do you have to abstain from to get purged? While accurate voter rolls is a good idea and harms no one making it a reality is quite complicated.
Simply force everyone in the state to "register" every year.
We do this anyway when we declare our personal property taxes (house, cars, if you're a renter)... that is, the state sends you a form of what they think you have, you return it with confirmation/addition so that the state can properly assess what taxes are owed at the end of the year.
Simply piggy back that same function... that's how you truly keep the voter rolls "clean".
Yes this is doable and just one issue relating to voting rights. The argument "well its not material" seem immaterial for people who want to pass confiscatory laws (firearms, "safety" legislation for example) so it doesn't hold water when the actual methodology does no harm whatsoever.
Ooooooooo... good point. Well gak, at times I feel like we love to make things harder for us....
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: If I'm all over the place, it's because this damn flu is affecting my judgement and I'm sitting here at the PC to take my mind off it.
Some might say I contradict myself even when I'm fine, but those would be cruel words
Anybody that knows me on dakka hopefully knows that I don't mind apologising if I'm wrong.
If the facts change, I change my opinion, as the quote goes.
If say, 12-18 months down the line I was wrong, feel free to call me out on it.
Then again, it might be too late by then, and I might be battling a mutant horde for control of the world's last tin opener.
This is a good thing but I wouldn't call it praise worthy for doing essentially nothing. Now if he vetos something passed by congress that would of negatively impacted the LGBTQ community's rights then he will deserve praise for standing up for their rights.
It's a good start. Now we'll have to see if he is also going to nominate a SCOTUS judge that would rule against the same discrimination or if it will be a pick that would allow people to discriminate.
whembly wrote: Yeah... he appointed his own people to these departments.
The holdovers from Obama administrations are likely going to lose their job because Trump is going to want his own peeps there...
...
As someone wisely said... elections has consequences.
So you would be perfectly fine if, for example, he put a pacifist with no military experience to be Defense Sec?
My opinion doesn't matter... President appoints, and Senate provides the up/down.
The Senate only has the powah here... they can even choose to NOT even bring the candidate to a vote.
What? It's nothing to do with whether he can, it's whether what is is doing it right. Did you not get that?
Of course I can policy differences with Trumpestos and his goonies at the agencies.
My point is, you can't expect holdovers from the Obama administration to remain in these Agencies if they're going to pull the same stunt as that acting AG. Whether we like it or not, Trumpesto is expected to have his own peeps at the agencies...
It's pointless to gnash your teeth that he puts someone there that is diametrically opposed to what the agencies have done in the past... the POTUS sets the agenda... the agencies ENACTS them.
It's our job as voters to hold him to account via the voting booth, or in warranted case, take him to court. (provided we have standing)
Don't play dumb Whem'. This isn't about leaving " holdovers from the Obama administration." Appointing people who a diametrically opposed to the exsitance and function of the agencies is a big deal. This isn't about "just a change in policy", this is about people who have done everything in their power to stop these agencies operating (because it cuts down on profit). Again, it's like putting a pacifist in charge of the military. Or a pedophile in charge of teaching third graders. But it only affects "liberal" causes like clean water, air, consumer and citizen protection and the environment, so of course you aren't concerned.
It's a good start. Now we'll have to see if he is also going to nominate a SCOTUS judge that would rule against the same discrimination or if it will be a pick that would allow people to discriminate.
Frankly having people registered in multiple states and dead people registered isn't actually a problem we should concern ourselves with. That someone is on more than one rolls isn't a huge problem since you have to be in state to actually cast your vote, or apply for an absentee ballot which can only be issued if you meet certain requirements. We can confirm that someone only voted once with a simple multi-state cross checking system which already exists and is how they caught two people in 2016 who tried to vote twice in early voting.
It gives millions of people the ability to legally double vote. This can be a problem especially on college towns and jurisdictions with lots of snow refugees: Florida and Arizona for example. It should be a paramount issue to eliminate all voter fraud and abuse, as well as insure all lawful citizens can vote.
While I agree that having voter rolls regularly purged so they are more accurate that is a state issue and is easier said than done. If you moved from Texas to Wyoming how does the Texas Secretary of State's Election Division know that you have moved and that they need to remove you from the voter rolls? If you don't personally notify the Elections Division there is no mechanism in place that automatically tells them you left. The Elections Divisions can purge deceased voters by using the database of death certificates issued by the state but for people who move there's no database. The easiest way to purge people who left the state is to purge people who haven't voted but that can also result in people who haven't voted but simply not voting doesn't mean you left the state. One of our kids was born the day after Election Day and that year my wife didn't vote because she was way too pregnant to go to the polls. Is missing one election enough to get purged? How many elections do you have to abstain from to get purged? While accurate voter rolls is a good idea and harms no one making it a reality is quite complicated.
Simply force everyone in the state to "register" every year.
We do this anyway when we declare our personal property taxes (house, cars, if you're a renter)... that is, the state sends you a form of what they think you have, you return it with confirmation/addition so that the state can properly assess what taxes are owed at the end of the year.
Simply piggy back that same function... that's how you truly keep the voter rolls "clean".
I don't think forcing the state to go through the time and expense to register millions of voters over again every year is the right answer. Elections departments get swamped with registrations in the lead up to Election day every presidential cycle which is why so many voters get stuck with provisional ballots on election day.
Missouri handles property taxes differently than NC then. I just get the form that says I live at X address and the property has Y value. There's no need to send it back unless I've moved or I need to add other taxable property like boats or whatever or if I want to dispute my property valuation. Besides using tax forms as voter registration just complicates the paperwork for the state. You end up with the revenue dept needing to send forms and data over to the elections dept or you end up making the elections dept a subsidiary of the revenue dept etc.
In MO, you must send back your declaration, or face a fine.
I work in IT... as setting up a system whereby the revenue dept sends data to the elections depts is like the most basic, basicaspect of an IT infrastructure/DB management. If done right, it'll be cost effective too.
They way I look at it, EVERY citizen must file taxes in some way shape or form... even if you DON'T pay the state/feds anything. So, instead of re-inventing the wheel by orchestrating an independent workflow, simply piggyback an existing method (like the tax declaration/tax return process).
We do that for things like the selective service.
As kronk may say...lean six sigma this gak yo!
Alternatively nationalize it. The fed courts run it anyway.
The Federal courts rule on Federal election laws but the Federal govt doesn't have an agency that actually administrates federal elections that's all done on the state level.
whembly wrote: Yeah... he appointed his own people to these departments.
The holdovers from Obama administrations are likely going to lose their job because Trump is going to want his own peeps there...
...
As someone wisely said... elections has consequences.
So you would be perfectly fine if, for example, he put a pacifist with no military experience to be Defense Sec?
My opinion doesn't matter... President appoints, and Senate provides the up/down.
The Senate only has the powah here... they can even choose to NOT even bring the candidate to a vote.
What? It's nothing to do with whether he can, it's whether what is is doing it right. Did you not get that?
Of course I can policy differences with Trumpestos and his goonies at the agencies.
My point is, you can't expect holdovers from the Obama administration to remain in these Agencies if they're going to pull the same stunt as that acting AG. Whether we like it or not, Trumpesto is expected to have his own peeps at the agencies...
It's pointless to gnash your teeth that he puts someone there that is diametrically opposed to what the agencies have done in the past... the POTUS sets the agenda... the agencies ENACTS them.
It's our job as voters to hold him to account via the voting booth, or in warranted case, take him to court. (provided we have standing)
Don't play dumb Whem'. This isn't about leaving " holdovers from the Obama administration." Appointing people who a diametrically opposed to the exsitance and function of the agencies is a big deal. This isn't about "just a change in policy", this is about people who have done everything in their power to stop these agencies operating (because it cuts down on profit). Again, it's like putting a pacifist in charge of the military. Or a pedophile in charge of teaching third graders. But it only affects "liberal" causes like clean water, air, consumer and citizen protection and the environment, so of course you aren't concerned.
What is the proper role and function of the Dept of Education? Or the Dept of Energy? Or the Dept of Homeland Security? The Dept of Ed has only been operating since 1980, The Dept of Energy began operating in 1977, Homeland security started in 2002, HUD was formed in 1965. The majority of the cabinet departments are relatively new creations in US history, they're not mentioned in the constitution, their mission and proper function changes with every new president. What is the benchmark you're using to determine the efficacy and proper usage of these departments? Policies under Obama were different than under Clinton which were different than during the Reagan administration etc.
Sentinel1 wrote: People say Trump is moving the U.S.A forward in a bad way. If Clinton had won, the U.S.A would have been moving two steps back. She would have been continuing the Democrats policies, white-washing over the developing cracks and ignoring the deepening social divides. If Clinton had won everyone here would be moaning about her being a bad leader, that there was no change in the system and that there relatives sons, daughters, child's, future existence was on the brink of disaster. So either way things wouldn't have been good for all those pessimists out there.
The kind of leader Clinton would have been was well evidenced in her desertion without a word to her supporters on election night when she lost.
So I guess we knew what kind of leader Trump was going to be when, after losing the debates, he fled the stage and told the media he had won thanks to "alternative facts" from online polls.
Winning the election doesn't mean one "won" the debates, and in fact one can become president with only about a quarter of the popular vote and potentially fewer than one in fifteen americans casting a vote for that candidate. Winning the election is a much different thing, as most votes are effectively pointless and only a relatively small handful of voted in a small number of places actually have a decisive impact.
Besides...to call what was passed off as "Debates" as such is to rob the term of any actual meaning, though thats not new, just a new low.
"Winning the election doesn't mean one "won" the debates, and in fact one can become president with only about a quarter of the popular vote and potentially fewer than one in fifteen americans casting a vote for that candidate. Winning the election is a much different thing, as most votes are effectively pointless and only a relatively small handful of voted in a small number of places actually have a decisive impact."
crimsondave wrote: "Winning the election doesn't mean one "won" the debates, and in fact one can become president with only about a quarter of the popular vote and potentially fewer than one in fifteen americans casting a vote for that candidate. Winning the election is a much different thing, as most votes are effectively pointless and only a relatively small handful of voted in a small number of places actually have a decisive impact."
A quarter? One in fifteen?
Clinton: 48.2%
Trump: 46.1%
I didnt say that's what happened, I said its whats possible, and why translating popular voting on things like debate performance doesnt translate to election results since the popular vote doesnt translate to election victory.
crimsondave wrote: "Winning the election doesn't mean one "won" the debates, and in fact one can become president with only about a quarter of the popular vote and potentially fewer than one in fifteen americans casting a vote for that candidate. Winning the election is a much different thing, as most votes are effectively pointless and only a relatively small handful of voted in a small number of places actually have a decisive impact."
A quarter? One in fifteen?
Clinton: 48.2%
Trump: 46.1%
Vaktathi was referring to the hypothetical, not Trump's specific popular vote loss.
A hypothetical President can hypothetically become president with as few as 1 in 15 votes cast, due to the way the electoral college works.
Ok. That seems highly unlikely, but possible I guess. I like the system myself, but I live in small state. I understand why those in larger states would not like it.
whembly wrote: Yeah... he appointed his own people to these departments.
The holdovers from Obama administrations are likely going to lose their job because Trump is going to want his own peeps there...
...
As someone wisely said... elections has consequences.
So you would be perfectly fine if, for example, he put a pacifist with no military experience to be Defense Sec?
My opinion doesn't matter... President appoints, and Senate provides the up/down.
The Senate only has the powah here... they can even choose to NOT even bring the candidate to a vote.
What? It's nothing to do with whether he can, it's whether what is is doing it right. Did you not get that?
Of course I can policy differences with Trumpestos and his goonies at the agencies.
My point is, you can't expect holdovers from the Obama administration to remain in these Agencies if they're going to pull the same stunt as that acting AG. Whether we like it or not, Trumpesto is expected to have his own peeps at the agencies...
It's pointless to gnash your teeth that he puts someone there that is diametrically opposed to what the agencies have done in the past... the POTUS sets the agenda... the agencies ENACTS them.
It's our job as voters to hold him to account via the voting booth, or in warranted case, take him to court. (provided we have standing)
Don't play dumb Whem'. This isn't about leaving " holdovers from the Obama administration." Appointing people who a diametrically opposed to the exsitance and function of the agencies is a big deal. This isn't about "just a change in policy", this is about people who have done everything in their power to stop these agencies operating (because it cuts down on profit). Again, it's like putting a pacifist in charge of the military. Or a pedophile in charge of teaching third graders. But it only affects "liberal" causes like clean water, air, consumer and citizen protection and the environment, so of course you aren't concerned.
It's not playing dumb dude... it's being pragmatic.
Cheeto Jesus is justified in wanting his own peeps to head these agencies.
If these yahoo does something bad, there are plethora of watchdog entities whom are more than willing to take 'em to court.
whembly wrote: Yeah... he appointed his own people to these departments.
The holdovers from Obama administrations are likely going to lose their job because Trump is going to want his own peeps there...
...
As someone wisely said... elections has consequences.
So you would be perfectly fine if, for example, he put a pacifist with no military experience to be Defense Sec?
My opinion doesn't matter... President appoints, and Senate provides the up/down.
The Senate only has the powah here... they can even choose to NOT even bring the candidate to a vote.
What? It's nothing to do with whether he can, it's whether what is is doing it right. Did you not get that?
Of course I can policy differences with Trumpestos and his goonies at the agencies.
My point is, you can't expect holdovers from the Obama administration to remain in these Agencies if they're going to pull the same stunt as that acting AG. Whether we like it or not, Trumpesto is expected to have his own peeps at the agencies...
It's pointless to gnash your teeth that he puts someone there that is diametrically opposed to what the agencies have done in the past... the POTUS sets the agenda... the agencies ENACTS them.
It's our job as voters to hold him to account via the voting booth, or in warranted case, take him to court. (provided we have standing)
Don't play dumb Whem'. This isn't about leaving " holdovers from the Obama administration." Appointing people who a diametrically opposed to the exsitance and function of the agencies is a big deal. This isn't about "just a change in policy", this is about people who have done everything in their power to stop these agencies operating (because it cuts down on profit). Again, it's like putting a pacifist in charge of the military. Or a pedophile in charge of teaching third graders. But it only affects "liberal" causes like clean water, air, consumer and citizen protection and the environment, so of course you aren't concerned.
It's not playing dumb dude... it's being pragmatic.
Cheeto Jesus is justified in wanting his own peeps to head these agencies.
If these yahoo does something bad, there are plethora of watchdog entities whom are more than willing to take 'em to court.
Wanting someone he can trust and who is qualified shouldn't be exclusive.
And the main concern isn't so much them doing something, as not doing anything. Slashing and weakening what environmental regulations they can, Not going after people who break the intact regulations. It's the same with the FCC, the new chair not only opposes the existing NN rules, but refuses to even say whether or not he supports it in principle. Things designed to protect people and the environment are being used against them.
Vaktathi wrote: Winning the election doesn't mean one "won" the debates, and in fact one can become president with only about a quarter of the popular vote and potentially fewer than one in fifteen americans casting a vote for that candidate. Winning the election is a much different thing, as most votes are effectively pointless and only a relatively small handful of voted in a small number of places actually have a decisive impact.
Besides...to call what was passed off as "Debates" as such is to rob the term of any actual meaning, though thats not new, just a new low.
The people who counted were persuaded by his stirring oratory, though, putting him in office. I call that a win.
Relapse wrote: The people who counted were persuaded by his stirring oratory, though, putting him in office. I call that a win.
Let's not pretend that Trump actually did anything to earn his votes. Trump won because ~60 million people will reflexively vote for anyone with an R next to their name, no matter how obviously terrible.
Vaktathi wrote: Winning the election doesn't mean one "won" the debates, and in fact one can become president with only about a quarter of the popular vote and potentially fewer than one in fifteen americans casting a vote for that candidate. Winning the election is a much different thing, as most votes are effectively pointless and only a relatively small handful of voted in a small number of places actually have a decisive impact.
Besides...to call what was passed off as "Debates" as such is to rob the term of any actual meaning, though thats not new, just a new low.
The people who counted were persuaded by his stirring oratory, though, putting him in office. I call that a win.
Hrm, thats something of a stretch. The single most defining thing with Clintons loss was probably the Comey mishap, you can go on 538's trend analysis and there's a clear tipping point there at that moment where her chances start to fall and Trumps start to rise, while the debates tended to raise Clintons numbers.
Wanting someone he can trust and who is qualified shouldn't be exclusive.
Well: 1. Normally I would agree but this aint the Bush Sr. cabinet now is it... 2. I think in addition to trust, you need "sucks up bigtime," I mean even more than normal.
The single most defining thing with Clintons loss was
Vaktathi wrote: Winning the election doesn't mean one "won" the debates, and in fact one can become president with only about a quarter of the popular vote and potentially fewer than one in fifteen americans casting a vote for that candidate. Winning the election is a much different thing, as most votes are effectively pointless and only a relatively small handful of voted in a small number of places actually have a decisive impact.
Besides...to call what was passed off as "Debates" as such is to rob the term of any actual meaning, though thats not new, just a new low.
The people who counted were persuaded by his stirring oratory, though, putting him in office. I call that a win.
Hrm, thats something of a stretch. The single most defining thing with Clintons loss was probably the Comey mishap, you can go on 538's trend analysis and there's a clear tipping point there at that moment where her chances start to fall and Trumps start to rise, while the debates tended to raise Clintons numbers.
Yeah, we're talking about the same "stirring oratory" that saw Trump go completely silent during the week before the election while Comey's nothing-letter ran rampant across the news.
Wanting someone he can trust and who is qualified shouldn't be exclusive.
Well:
1. Normally I would agree but this aint the Bush Sr. cabinet now is it...
2. I think in addition to trust, you need "sucks up bigtime," I mean even more than normal.
He's a shallow man... stroke his ego and you'll be fine.
The single most defining thing with Clintons loss was
Relapse wrote: The people who counted were persuaded by his stirring oratory, though, putting him in office. I call that a win.
Let's not pretend that Trump actually did anything to earn his votes. Trump won because ~60 million people will reflexively vote for anyone with an R next to their name, no matter how obviously terrible.
In all fairness, we'd have nothing but Republican presidents if that were true. Besides, Clinton was a rotten candidate to put forward in this surreal election.
Relapse wrote: The people who counted were persuaded by his stirring oratory, though, putting him in office. I call that a win.
Let's not pretend that Trump actually did anything to earn his votes. Trump won because ~60 million people will reflexively vote for anyone with an R next to their name, no matter how obviously terrible.
My girlfriend's mom = perfect example. She hates, hates, hates trump, but she was forced to vote for him because he's a republican. I asked why she was forced, and she said because she always votes republican no matter what. I remember my grandparents were the same way, only for Democrats. The whole party thing is just stupid to me. We should be voting for the person who's the best for the job, but that will never happen. All we get to choose from are giant douches and turd sandwiches. Every. Single. Time.
Vaktathi wrote: Winning the election doesn't mean one "won" the debates, and in fact one can become president with only about a quarter of the popular vote and potentially fewer than one in fifteen americans casting a vote for that candidate. Winning the election is a much different thing, as most votes are effectively pointless and only a relatively small handful of voted in a small number of places actually have a decisive impact.
Besides...to call what was passed off as "Debates" as such is to rob the term of any actual meaning, though thats not new, just a new low.
The people who counted were persuaded by his stirring oratory, though, putting him in office. I call that a win.
Hrm, thats something of a stretch. The single most defining thing with Clintons loss was probably the Comey mishap, you can go on 538's trend analysis and there's a clear tipping point there at that moment where her chances start to fall and Trumps start to rise, while the debates tended to raise Clintons numbers.
Yeah, we're talking about the same "stirring oratory" that saw Trump go completely silent during the week before the election while Comey's nothing-letter ran rampant across the news.
The man is magnificent. He knows when to awaken the hearts of the people and when to let his silence speak for him.
Relapse wrote: The people who counted were persuaded by his stirring oratory, though, putting him in office. I call that a win.
Let's not pretend that Trump actually did anything to earn his votes. Trump won because ~60 million people will reflexively vote for anyone with an R next to their name, no matter how obviously terrible.
I guess enough of those 60 million moved to blue states from red after the 2012 election to cause those blue states to flip.
CONFIRMED: Trump will pick Judge Neil Gorsuch tonight, youngest SCOTUS pick in 30 years. https://t.co/lakw5LrAqa — Benny (@bennyjohnson) January 31, 2017
CNN reporting Gorsuch is the frontrunner for SCOTUS. Easy way to unite the GOP...
— Josh Kraushaar (@HotlineJosh) January 31, 2017
Neil Gorsuch was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit by President George W. Bush on May 10, 2006, and confirmed shortly thereafter. Both his pre-judicial resumé and his body of work as a judge make him a natural fit for an appointment to the Supreme Court by a Republican president. He is relatively young (turning 50 this year), and his background is filled with sterling legal and academic credentials. He was a Marshall Scholar at the University of Oxford, graduated from Harvard Law School, clerked for prominent conservative judges (Judge David Sentelle of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, as well as Justices Byron White and Anthony Kennedy of the Supreme Court), and was a high-
ranking official in the Bush Justice Department before his judicial appointment. He is celebrated as a keen legal thinker and a particularly incisive legal writer, with a flair that matches
— or at least evokes — that of the justice whose seat he would be nominated to fill. In fact, one study has identified him as the most natural successor to Justice Antonin Scalia on the Trump shortlist, both in terms of his judicial style and his substantive approach.
With perhaps one notable area of disagreement, Judge Gorsuch’s prominent decisions bear the comparison out. For one thing, the great compliment that Gorsuch’s legal writing is in a class with Scalia’s is deserved: Gorsuch’s opinions are exceptionally clear and routinely entertaining; he is an unusual pleasure to read, and it is always plain exactly what he thinks and why. Like Scalia, Gorsuch also seems to have a set of judicial/ideological commitments apart from his personal policy preferences that drive his decision-making. He is an ardent textualist (like Scalia); he believes criminal laws should be clear and interpreted in favor of defendants even if that hurts government prosecutions (like Scalia); he is skeptical of efforts to purge religious expression from public spaces (like Scalia); he is highly dubious of legislative history (like Scalia); and he is less than enamored of the dormant commerce clause (like Scalia). In fact, some of the parallels can be downright eerie. For example, the reasoning in Gorsuch’s 2008 concurrence in United States v. Hinckley, in which he argues that one possible reading of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act would probably violate the rarely invoked non-delegation principle, is exactly the same as that of Scalia’s 2012 dissent in Reynolds v. United States. The notable exception is one prominent concurrence last August, in Gutierrez-Brizuela v. Lynch, in which Gorsuch criticized a doctrine of administrative law (called Chevron deference) that Scalia had long defended. Even here, however, there may be more in common than meets the eye.
Religion
Some of the most high-profile cases in which Gorsuch has cast a vote have involved the religion clauses of the Constitution (those prohibiting the establishment of religion and creating a right to free exercise), as well as congressional statutes expanding protection for religious adherents (known as RFRA and RLUIPA). Followers of the Supreme Court will recognize two recent cases in which Gorsuch participated on the 10th Circuit, Hobby Lobby Stores v. Sebelius and Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged v. Burwell. In Hobby Lobby, Gorsuch wrote a concurrence in the en banc 10th Circuit that sided with the company and its owners. He stressed the need to accept these parties’ own conceptions regarding the requirements of their faith, and held (among other things) that they were likely to prevail on claims that the contraception mandate in the Affordable Care Act substantially burdened their religious exercise in violation of RFRA. This position was largely vindicated in the subsequent decision by the Supreme Court. Thereafter, in Little Sisters of the Poor, Gorsuch joined a group of 10th Circuit judges who dissented from denial of rehearing en banc when a panel of the court of appeals ruled against the Little Sisters on their RFRA claims about the same ACA mandate. There, again, the point was that the 10th Circuit had shown insufficient deference to the Little Sisters’ own articulation of the tenets of their religious beliefs. That position, too, was at least partially vindicated by the Supreme Court when it decided that the Little Sisters’ religious beliefs probably could be accommodated while still affording full and equal contraceptive coverage to their employees, and directed the parties and courts to consider such a solution on remand. Simply put, in cases that closely divided his court and the Supreme Court, Gorsuch has shown himself to be an ardent defender of religious liberties and pluralistic accommodations for religious adherents.
Gorsuch has also written or joined opinions – again, largely vindicated by the Supreme Court – that have criticized doctrines that limit religious expression in public spaces. In Summum v. Pleasant Grove City, in 2007, Gorsuch joined a dissent from denial of rehearing en banc in a case in which the 10th Circuit had limited the ability of the government to display a donated Ten Commandments monument in a public park without accepting all other offers of donated monuments. The subsequent Supreme Court decision reversing the 10th Circuit largely adopted the reasoning of that dissent. Gorsuch also has a pair of dissenting opinions in which he criticizes the “reasonable observer” test for establishment clause cases as far too likely to find impermissible endorsements of religion by the government when none was intended, and thus to prevent religious adherents from reasonably participating in public life. These cases are American Atheists Inc. v. Davenport, in 2010, and Green v. Haskell County Boad. of Commissioners, in 2009. The common thread in these cases is one that matters very deeply to conservatives: a sense that the government can permit public displays of religion – and can accommodate deeply held religious views – without either violating the religion clauses of the Constitution or destroying the effectiveness of government programs that occasionally run into religious objections. In his 2009 concurrence in Pleasant Grove City, Utah v. Summum, Scalia articulated very similar views. Gorsuch’s opinions on these issues are quite thoughtful, and demonstrate that he would be a natural successor to Scalia in adopting a pro-religion conception of the establishment clause.
Criminal Law
Another area in which Gorsuch has written persuasively in a manner that closely echoes Scalia relates to how to interpret criminal laws correctly, so as to avoid criminalizing potentially innocent conduct. One of Gorsuch’s most notable opinions in this area also happens to overlap with the hot-button issue of gun ownership — although the case is not about the Second Amendment, and doesn’t involve anything like the typical gun-rights groups.
A federal criminal law prohibits the knowing possession of a gun by a felon. This law has given rise to a debate about how best to read its limitation to “knowing” violations: Does it apply whenever a felon knowingly possesses a gun, or must violators also know that they have been convicted of a felony? This matters, because lots of minor crimes might technically be felonies, and lots of dispositions that seem inconsequential (because they involve no jail time) might technically be felony convictions. And the penalties for violating this law can be very high. In United States v. Games-Perez, in 2012, Gorsuch urged the 10th Circuit to review its rule holding that it is enough to support a conviction that the defendant knew he possessed the gun, whether or not he knew he was a felon. The opinion is an example of Gorsuch’s strong commitment to textualism, and a severe critique of using legislative history — particularly to make criminal what might otherwise be innocent. Accordingly, it is easy to hear clear echoes of Scalia’s views regarding the proper reading of statutes — especially criminal statutes — as well as the importance of focusing on ordinary usage and linguistic rules.
A few examples make the resemblance even clearer. Take this sentence from Games-Perez: “For current purposes, just stating Capps‘s holding makes the problem clear enough: its interpretation—reading Congress’s mens rea requirement as leapfrogging over the first statutorily specified element and touching down only at the second listed element—defies grammatical gravity and linguistic logic.” Or this passage, which contains both an endorsement of Second Amendment rights and a classic Scalia principle about attaching mens rea requirements to the element that criminalizes innocent conduct:
Besides, even if the government could somehow manage to squeeze an ambiguity out of the plain statutory text before us, it faces another intractable problem. The Supreme Court has long recognized a “presumption” grounded in our common law tradition that a mens rea requirement attaches to “each of the statutory elements that criminalize otherwise innocent conduct.” … Together §§ 922(g) and 924(a)(2) operate to criminalize the possession of any kind of gun. But gun possession is often lawful and sometimes even protected as a matter of constitutional right. The only statutory element separating innocent (even constitutionally protected) gun possession from criminal conduct in §§ 922(g) and 924(a) is a prior felony conviction. So the presumption that the government must prove mens rea here applies with full force.
Either of these passages would be perfectly at home in a canonical Scalia opinion about how to read the criminal law. And, it is worth noting, this means that Gorsuch, just like Scalia, is sometimes willing to read criminal laws more narrowly in a way that disfavors the prosecution – especially when the Second Amendment or another constitutional protection is involved.
Death Penalty
Gorsuch, like Scalia, has not been a friendly vote for death penalty petitioners pursuing relief from their sentences through federal habeas. But it is important to recognize that, as in the case of Scalia, this makes plenty of sense in light of Gorsuch’s commitment to reading statutes according to their plain text. During the 1990s, Congress passed a statute called the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act that – true to its name – was intended to limit federal habeas in order to make the death penalty easier to carry out. Strict readers of AEDPA are unlikely to find many cases in which a petitioner qualifies for relief. This is particularly true in the courts of appeals, where many of the death penalty habeas cases are uncontroversial —or at least not nearly as close as the cases that make their way to the Supreme Court. Whatever the source of the position, however, it is clear that Gorsuch’s position in death penalty cases is likely to be quite close to Scalia’s, and very unlikely to make the court any more solicitous of the claims of capital defendants.
Dormant Commerce Clause
Another area of the law in which Gorsuch has shown both his writing talent and his similarity to Scalia is in the application (and critique) of doctrines surrounding the so-called “dormant commerce clause.” These doctrines treat the commerce clause not only as a grant of power to Congress to make laws regulating interstate commerce, but as a kind of presumptive limitation on the power of states to make laws that either unduly burden or unfairly discriminate against interstate commerce, without regard to whether Congress has ever passed a law in the relevant area. Because — as its name suggests — the dormant commerce clause cannot actually be found in the text of the Constitution, Scalia eventually came around to the view that it should not be a thing, and refused to endorse any future expansions of the doctrine. For example, in 2015, in a dissenting opinion in Comptroller v. Wynne, Scalia stated: “The fundamental problem with our negative Commerce Clause cases is that the Constitution does not contain a negative Commerce Clause.” Although a court of appeals judge lacks the same freedom to disparage and/or depart from existing Supreme Court precedent, Gorsuch’s opinions also reveal a measure of distrust towards unwritten constitutional provisions like the dormant commerce clause.
For example, a 2015 10th Circuit decision written by Gorsuch, Energy and Environment Legal Institute v. Epel, declined to apply the dormant commerce clause to strike down a clean-energy program created by Colorado on the grounds that it might negatively affect traditional energy producers outside the state. The opinion explains that this result is consistent with the limited reach of the dormant commerce clause’s “judicial free trade policy” even under existing precedent. But while acknowledging that lower courts must take the Supreme Court’s doctrine as they find it, Gorsuch’s opinion shows respect for the doctrine’s “[d]etractors,” like Scalia, who “find dormant commerce doctrine absent from the Constitution’s text and incompatible with its structure.” Though Gorsuch’s personal constitution seems to require him to write clearly about the many unclear aspects of the doctrine, his opinion plainly takes some joy in the act of demonstrating that not only does the dormant commerce clause not apply — the doctrine also doesn’t make much sense. That same instinct is present in a prominent concurrence last year in Direct Marketing Association v. Brohl, in which Gorsuch singled out one aspect of dormant commerce clause doctrine—the Quill rule that exempts out-of-state mail order sales from state sales tax—as an “analytical oddity” that “seems deliberately designed” to be overruled eventually. This opinion aligned him with Justice Anthony Kennedy (who has called for overruling Quill), and again with Scalia, who identified Quill as part of the “bestiary of ad hoc tests and ad hoc exceptions that we apply nowadays” under the dormant commerce clause.
The dormant commerce clause isn’t a particularly hot-button issue, nor does it have obvious liberal/conservative fault lines. But it’s noteworthy that criticism of the dormant commerce clause is of a piece with criticism of the “right to privacy” that undergirds the Supreme Court ‘s abortion jurisprudence, as well as other judge-made doctrines that do not have a strong connection to the constitutional text. Again, Gorsuch’s opinions seem to follow the lead of textualists and federalists like Scalia in expressing great skepticism towards such doctrines, which allow judges to strike down duly enacted local laws on the basis of vague principles that cannot be found in the concrete text of the national charter.
Administrative Law
Finally, there is administrative law—the one area that seems to demonstrate some real distance between Scalia and Gorsuch. Last August, Gorsuch made real waves in the normally sleepy world of administrative law by advocating the end of a doctrine that has been tied closely to the functioning of the administrative state and the executive branch since the mid-1980s — a doctrine called Chevron deference. The basic idea behind Chevron is that, when Congress enacts a broadly worded statute whose precise contours are ambiguous, the courts should permit the federal agencies that are charged with administering the statute to enforce it in any manner that is not clearly forbidden. Scalia was a judge on the D.C. Circuit (which does more agency review than any other court), and he was a strong advocate for Chevron’s basic take on agency review and the flexibility that it preserved in the administrative state: He often warned that the consequences of efforts to limit or tinker with its model could be severe. Gorsuch’s recent opinions in Gutierrez-Brizuela — he wrote both the majority opinion and a concurrence to his own opinion to express his personal views on the doctrine — expressly urge: “We managed to live with the administrative state before Chevron. We could do it again.” Ironically, Gorsuch’s chief complaint about Chevron doctrine was something that would have been close to Scalia’s heart — namely, that it empowers agencies to take the power of statutory interpretation away from courts, and subjects judicial decision-making to administrative review, rather than the other way around.
Gorsuch’s opinion — in which he stakes out ground that few have sought to defend — is a very compelling read, and it is unfair to try to summarize it in a few sentences. But it seems quite clear that: (1) Gorsuch’s views on administrative law are meaningfully different from Scalia’s in a way that could be described as even more conservative; and yet (2) the difference is not as profound as one might think. Unlike Scalia, Gorsuch really does want to apply the basic Gorsuch/Scalia take on ordinary statutes to administrative statutes as well. He believes even these broadly worded enforcement statutes have objective meanings that can be understood from their texts; that it is the job of the courts to say what those laws mean and to tell agencies when they do not have the best reading; and that if the agency disagrees, the only proper recourse is for Congress to change the law or the Supreme Court to correct the error. Scalia, on the other hand, wanted to limit courts to the role of reviewing agency implementations of these kinds of statutes for clear error in order to prevent “ossification,” recognizing that the understanding of these kinds of laws might need to change from time to time to accommodate changing priorities among presidents and changing conditions on the ground.
The reason that difference is less pronounced than you might think is that Scalia’s take on Chevron was always a little different from others’, in part to address the very concerns that Gorsuch so clearly articulates. First, Scalia was much more willing than others to say that a particular agency position was beyond the statutory bounds, even when the words at issue in the statute were ambiguous (at least in isolation). For example, in MCI Telecommunications Group v. AT&T, in 1994, Scalia held that the term “modify” unambiguously excludes major changes. In fact, in a Duke Law Journal piece in 1989 Scalia once said strict textualists like him (and, say, Judge Gorsuch) would be less likely to find statutes ambiguous for purposes of Chevron because of their attention to the details of statutory text and their unwillingness to consider broad purposes and legislative history. Such an approach makes a statute’s delegation to agencies much narrower, notwithstanding Chevron. And second, Scalia wanted Chevron to apply all the time precisely to avoid a situation in which a court would give the statute its best reading and the agency could later revise that understanding with the benefit of newfound deference — one of Gorsuch’s chief complaints. In Gutierrez-Brizuela, Gorsuch criticized the Supreme Court’s 2005 decision in National Cable & Telecommunications Ass’n v. Brand X, which permitted an agency to bypass a Supreme Court decision through Chevron deference, echoing Scalia’s own dissent in Brand X, in which Scalia criticized the court for having adopted a version of Chevron that led to the spectacle of agencies bypassing Supreme Court readings of statutes.
In short, Gorsuch definitely has a different take from Scalia on the administrative state — one that grants it less power, and so accords even more closely with the conservative conception of small government. Indeed, this is an area in which Gorsuch is plainly a thought leader, expressing judicial sentiments many conservatives with similar concerns have rarely voiced, and which even Scalia might have bristled at. But given their parallel commitments to textualism and their parallel understandings of the relative roles of agencies and courts, even this seems like a bridgeable divide between Gorsuch and the justice he might replace. Gorsuch is still a very natural choice for any Republican president to nominate as a replacement for Scalia — someone who would espouse similar principles, stand firm on similar doctrinal commitments, reach similar outcomes, and even fill a similar role as one of the court’s most articulate defenders of conservative judicial theory.
My response if this indeed is going to be Trump's pick?
Relapse wrote: The people who counted were persuaded by his stirring oratory, though, putting him in office. I call that a win.
Let's not pretend that Trump actually did anything to earn his votes. Trump won because ~60 million people will reflexively vote for anyone with an R next to their name, no matter how obviously terrible.
I guess enough of those 60 million moved to blue states from red after the 2012 election to cause those blue states to flip.
Michigan:
Red gained 160,000, Blue lost 200,000
Wisconsin:
Red lost 2,500 votes, Blue lost 24,000
Pennsylvania:
Red gained 290,000 votes, Blue lost 28,000 votes
Ohio:
Red gained 180,000 votes , Blue lost 430,000 votes
In only one of those states did the Republicans gain more than the Democrats lost. And out of those four states, Ohio is the only state where Trump got more votes in 2016 than Obama did in 2012. Trump won, but he really needs to thank Clinton for running a horrible campaign. And people need to stop thinking that he has some sort of mandate. Especially with a narrow electoral college win and a popular vote loss. He had a very narrow win, and the landscape looks good for the GOP in 2018. But if 2016 showed us anything it should be to never underestimate the people you are pissing off.
A man who President Donald Trump has promoted as an authority on voter fraud was registered to vote in multiple states during the 2016 presidential election, the Associated Press has learned.
Gregg Phillips, whose unsubstantiated claim that the election was marred by 3 million illegal votes was tweeted by the president, was listed on the rolls in Alabama, Texas and Mississippi, according to voting records and election officials in those states. He voted only in Alabama in November, records show.
In a post earlier this month, Phillips described "an amazing effort" by volunteers tied to True the Vote, an organization whose board he sits on, who he said found "thousands of duplicate records and registrations of dead people."
Trump has made an issue of people who are registered to vote in more than one state, using it as one of the bedrocks of his overall contention that voter fraud is rampant in the U.S. and that voting by 3 to 5 million immigrants illegally in the country cost him the popular vote in November.
The AP found that Phillips was registered in Alabama and Texas under the name Gregg Allen Phillips, with the identical Social Security number. Mississippi records list him under the name Gregg A. Phillips, and that record includes the final four digits of Phillips' Social Security number, his correct date of birth and a prior address matching one once attached to Gregg Allen Phillips. He has lived in all three states.
In some ways it's the incredible incompetence of the new administration that is so frustrating.
nearly.
It honestly probably just goes to show how stupid a measure for fraud "registered in multiple states" is. I was probably registered in at least three states in 2016, simply because I didn't exactly call up the Election Boards in Kansas or Virginia that I had moved to Pennsylvania. Rolls are not purged frequently in many states, so once you're registered you can end up on their rolls for a long time. Hell for all I know I'm still registered in North Carolina from oh so many years ago. There are hordes of dead people on the rolls in many states because the rolls are never checked against obituaries so the people maintaining them don't know when someone dies unless you call them up and tell them which is not part of the usual "my dad died" procedures.
There are likely hordes of Americans registered in multiple states, but it's a piss poor indication of where they voted and it's terrible evidence of voter fraud.
Exactly to, but the point is that Trump has taken this guy's word that there were at least 3 million false votes cast, on the basis of there being people registered in more than one state.
The first actual double-voter found out very amusingly was a Trump voter, of course.
BigWaaagh wrote: What is it called when the guy crying 'Wolf' is flagrantly guilty himself...but let's just give Trump "a few more years" to work things out. NOPE.
"Trump has made an issue of people who are registered to vote in more than one state, using it is one of the bedrocks of his overall contention that voter fraud is rampant in the U.S. and that improper votes by 3 to 5 million "illegals" cost him the popular vote in November."
d-usa wrote: Interesting sound clip on the radio this morning, from Yates' confirmation hearing a few years back:
Sen. Sessions: "If the President issues an illegal order, should the AG or Deputy AG follow that order?"
Yates: "No, the AG or Deputy AG should follow the law and act as independent advisor to the POTUS."
So what was illegal about Trump's EO?
Spoiler:
Even she couldn't articulate that...
Automatically Appended Next Post:
wuestenfux wrote: Well, I wasnt a supporter of Trump during the campaign.
But I think now the media go a bit too far. Trump's EO about immigrants from seven muslim countries is not the end of the world.
When Obama does it... <crickets>
When Trump does it... people lose their minds.
See the pattern?
Exactly people are losing focus blaming the man for being the man, rather than remembering it isn't a new trick at all. In fact Obama drew up the plan but never implemented it. Trump took over shop and thought he'd make use of what was left of Obama's stock.
I forgot because Obama did it, it automatically makes it A-OKAY! Pack it up guys we got out played.
Well, no, it was okay because it was okay. See my discussion with Prestor Jon about the drone strikes for an example.
But to flip your argument, it was bad because Obama did it, and because Obama did it, it's okay for Trump to do it.
Frankly having people registered in multiple states and dead people registered isn't actually a problem we should concern ourselves with. That someone is on more than one rolls isn't a huge problem since you have to be in state to actually cast your vote, or apply for an absentee ballot which can only be issued if you meet certain requirements. We can confirm that someone only voted once with a simple multi-state cross checking system which already exists and is how they caught two people in 2016 who tried to vote twice in early voting.
It gives millions of people the ability to legally double vote. This can be a problem especially on college towns and jurisdictions with lots of snow refugees: Florida and Arizona for example. It should be a paramount issue to eliminate all voter fraud and abuse, as well as insure all lawful citizens can vote.
There is no evidence any of this has happened, though, so there is no reason for a paramount issue to eliminate all voter fraud.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: A general reply to those who replied to my earlier post about what Fascism is.
I'll try to avoid going OT.
ISIL is a threat, but to compare this to powerful nation states such as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, states that had coherent ideologies and powerful militaries, is risible nonsense in my book.
The post-WW2 Soviet Union was a clear and present danger to the West, as it had 300 Divisions ready to roll across Europe, and a powerful nuclear arsenal to back them up...which could have wiped out humanity a dozen times over.
ISIL, though a regional problem, with the odd inspired terrorist attack here and there, is not even in the same ball park, the same city, as the Soviet Union.
The USA was nearly strangled at birth, could have been snuffed out during the war of 1812, and was almost destroyed by its civil war. If Lee had won at Antietam, and the British had come over on the South's side, then the Union was finished, and we're looking at the CSA. That's how close it was...
The USA has survived many threats and challenges in its 250+ years, but it's still here because of the strength of those institutions, the foundations are strong, and its love of liberty will never die.
Yes, the war on terror was and has been a disaster IMO, but the best comparison I can make is Vietnam.
The War on Terror is Vietnam 2.0, and Trump is approaching Richard Nixon territory,
but the USA came through Vietnam and Nixon, and it will survive Trump, because the foundations are strong, very strong...
That's my take.
Lot's of good points and observations there. I find perspective to be the medicine to get through this Presidency, but then I look at the fact it's only been barely a week of Trump and, well, gak! Can't wait to see the SCOTUS choice..."shudder"!
Judge Trump after a year, or even 4 years, but the man has barely got his foot in the door. I think it's premature to be judging him this early.
I agree with you that lot of people need to calm down a bit.
I think I may have been too soothing in my commentary on perspective with Trump, because I'm really not of a mind to "calm down a bit", nor would I advise others to do so. I had that "wait-and-see" perspective around inauguration time, I even posted as much on these boards. But barely a week in and he's shown that his xenophobic, alt-reality, vindictive pettiness "bark" that we saw on the campaign trail, and were sickened by, is being translated into "bite". This POTUS needs to get the message that he doesn't have the privilege of operating a private company surrounded by his relatives and sycophants, but rather, is now CEO of a rather large and diverse publicly held and operated company...and the majority of shareholders don't like where he's steering the firm.
I don't see the problem, he built his businesses up from scratch. Why should he let other people ruin them? I understand that there is a certain conflict of interest, but a President would never get away with giving government contracts etc to their own private enterprises so why worry? There are worse people in power for mis-use of public interest. Just look at the leader of South Africa! He spent public money on a huge swimming pool for himself, and then got away with it by declaring it was an 'emergency water storage facility'. At least Trump is honest about his actions as President, it wasn't like he has tried to hide anything.
He built his businesses up from having millions of dollars, connnections and good will inherited from his real estate magnate father.
It's really a comment on the state of things that I'm kind of happy with this pick. Not that I actually want another Scalia on the court, but at least he has the qualifications to be a judge. That's certainly more than you can say for most of the current administration...
It's really a comment on the state of things that I'm kind of happy with this pick. Not that I actually want another Scalia on the court, but at least he has the qualifications to be a judge. That's certainly more than you can say for most of the current administration...
We could do worse, that's for sure.
My main area of concern will be for cases involving religion in denying services. For most other things I believe the other justices would balance him out. Judges don't always rule on the SCOTUS bench the same way they did on lower circuits. The stakes are different and the other judges get to argue with you, so he might moderate out a bit. Roberts might be a flip vote on cases he would be a strong right vote for.
Relapse wrote: The people who counted were persuaded by his stirring oratory, though, putting him in office. I call that a win.
Let's not pretend that Trump actually did anything to earn his votes. Trump won because ~60 million people will reflexively vote for anyone with an R next to their name, no matter how obviously terrible.
I guess enough of those 60 million moved to blue states from red after the 2012 election to cause those blue states to flip.
Michigan:
Red gained 160,000, Blue lost 200,000
Wisconsin:
Red lost 2,500 votes, Blue lost 24,000
Pennsylvania:
Red gained 290,000 votes, Blue lost 28,000 votes
Ohio:
Red gained 180,000 votes , Blue lost 430,000 votes
In only one of those states did the Republicans gain more than the Democrats lost. And out of those four states, Ohio is the only state where Trump got more votes in 2016 than Obama did in 2012. Trump won, but he really needs to thank Clinton for running a horrible campaign. And people need to stop thinking that he has some sort of mandate. Especially with a narrow electoral college win and a popular vote loss. He had a very narrow win, and the landscape looks good for the GOP in 2018. But if 2016 showed us anything it should be to never underestimate the people you are pissing off.
The stats you posted really show how even though a lot of people on Dakka seemed to think that Hillary Clinton was a great candidate and that Trump was a terrible one a lot of the Democrat voters in several key states chose not to vote for her. Even with the risk of a Trump victory hundreds of thousands of Democrats would rather not vote than vote for Hillary. Either she ran the worst campaign ever or she was never really a strong candidate at all for her to get rejected that massively by her own base with so much at stake.
Regarding the complaints that the refugee ban is not a Muslim ban:
Fox News host Jeanine Pirro asked Giuliani whether the ban had anything to do with religion.
“How did the president decide the seven countries?” she asked. “Okay, talk to me.”
“I'll tell you the whole history of it,” Giuliani responded eagerly. “So when [Trump] first announced it, he said, 'Muslim ban.' He called me up. He said, 'Put a commission together. Show me the right way to do it legally.' "
Relapse wrote: The people who counted were persuaded by his stirring oratory, though, putting him in office. I call that a win.
Let's not pretend that Trump actually did anything to earn his votes. Trump won because ~60 million people will reflexively vote for anyone with an R next to their name, no matter how obviously terrible.
I guess enough of those 60 million moved to blue states from red after the 2012 election to cause those blue states to flip.
Michigan:
Red gained 160,000, Blue lost 200,000
Wisconsin:
Red lost 2,500 votes, Blue lost 24,000
Pennsylvania:
Red gained 290,000 votes, Blue lost 28,000 votes
Ohio:
Red gained 180,000 votes , Blue lost 430,000 votes
In only one of those states did the Republicans gain more than the Democrats lost. And out of those four states, Ohio is the only state where Trump got more votes in 2016 than Obama did in 2012. Trump won, but he really needs to thank Clinton for running a horrible campaign. And people need to stop thinking that he has some sort of mandate. Especially with a narrow electoral college win and a popular vote loss. He had a very narrow win, and the landscape looks good for the GOP in 2018. But if 2016 showed us anything it should be to never underestimate the people you are pissing off.
The stats you posted really show how even though a lot of people on Dakka seemed to think that Hillary Clinton was a great candidate and that Trump was a terrible one a lot of the Democrat voters in several key states chose not to vote for her. Even with the risk of a Trump victory hundreds of thousands of Democrats would rather not vote than vote for Hillary. Either she ran the worst campaign ever or she was never really a strong candidate at all for her to get rejected that massively by her own base with so much at stake.
Then again, those are four states were the working class where hit hard by closing factories - the people who apparently shifted from Obama to Trump. Clinton didn't promise them their jobs back, but offered other solutions, just like she did with coal workers. Trump promised to wave his magic golden wand and turn back time. Voters chose fantasy over reality. If evidence is worth anything, Republicans have already abandoned their promise to bring back the coal industry, and factory workers should also expect short shrift.
Relapse wrote: The people who counted were persuaded by his stirring oratory, though, putting him in office. I call that a win.
Let's not pretend that Trump actually did anything to earn his votes. Trump won because ~60 million people will reflexively vote for anyone with an R next to their name, no matter how obviously terrible.
I guess enough of those 60 million moved to blue states from red after the 2012 election to cause those blue states to flip.
Michigan:
Red gained 160,000, Blue lost 200,000
Wisconsin:
Red lost 2,500 votes, Blue lost 24,000
Pennsylvania:
Red gained 290,000 votes, Blue lost 28,000 votes
Ohio:
Red gained 180,000 votes , Blue lost 430,000 votes
In only one of those states did the Republicans gain more than the Democrats lost. And out of those four states, Ohio is the only state where Trump got more votes in 2016 than Obama did in 2012. Trump won, but he really needs to thank Clinton for running a horrible campaign. And people need to stop thinking that he has some sort of mandate. Especially with a narrow electoral college win and a popular vote loss. He had a very narrow win, and the landscape looks good for the GOP in 2018. But if 2016 showed us anything it should be to never underestimate the people you are pissing off.
The stats you posted really show how even though a lot of people on Dakka seemed to think that Hillary Clinton was a great candidate and that Trump was a terrible one a lot of the Democrat voters in several key states chose not to vote for her. Even with the risk of a Trump victory hundreds of thousands of Democrats would rather not vote than vote for Hillary. Either she ran the worst campaign ever or she was never really a strong candidate at all for her to get rejected that massively by her own base with so much at stake.
I agree there.
I've said in the past that I think the FBI announcements had an impact and drove her numbers down. But I think it wouldn't have mattered if she ran a solid campaign. If you don't want a blown call by the ref to decide the game in the last quarter, you have to put it away.
Prestor Jon wrote: Even with the risk of a Trump victory hundreds of thousands of Democrats would rather not vote than vote for Hillary. Either she ran the worst campaign ever or she was never really a strong candidate at all for her to get rejected that massively by her own base with so much at stake.
I suspect many people stayed home because almost nobody thought that Trump could win. He is so obviously unsuited for the job that the assumption was he would depress R votes more than Hils would depress D votes. That assumption was wrong, of course, and now the US is going to dig itself an economic hole similar to the one Reagan put it in.
To quote the great thinker Descartes, "Y'all are fethed!"
Relapse wrote: The people who counted were persuaded by his stirring oratory, though, putting him in office. I call that a win.
Let's not pretend that Trump actually did anything to earn his votes. Trump won because ~60 million people will reflexively vote for anyone with an R next to their name, no matter how obviously terrible.
I guess enough of those 60 million moved to blue states from red after the 2012 election to cause those blue states to flip.
Michigan:
Red gained 160,000, Blue lost 200,000
Wisconsin:
Red lost 2,500 votes, Blue lost 24,000
Pennsylvania:
Red gained 290,000 votes, Blue lost 28,000 votes
Ohio:
Red gained 180,000 votes , Blue lost 430,000 votes
In only one of those states did the Republicans gain more than the Democrats lost. And out of those four states, Ohio is the only state where Trump got more votes in 2016 than Obama did in 2012. Trump won, but he really needs to thank Clinton for running a horrible campaign. And people need to stop thinking that he has some sort of mandate. Especially with a narrow electoral college win and a popular vote loss. He had a very narrow win, and the landscape looks good for the GOP in 2018. But if 2016 showed us anything it should be to never underestimate the people you are pissing off.
The stats you posted really show how even though a lot of people on Dakka seemed to think that Hillary Clinton was a great candidate and that Trump was a terrible one a lot of the Democrat voters in several key states chose not to vote for her. Even with the risk of a Trump victory hundreds of thousands of Democrats would rather not vote than vote for Hillary. Either she ran the worst campaign ever or she was never really a strong candidate at all for her to get rejected that massively by her own base with so much at stake.
Then again, those are four states were the working class where hit hard by closing factories - the people who apparently shifted from Obama to Trump. Clinton didn't promise them their jobs back, but offered other solutions, just like she did with coal workers. Trump promised to wave his magic golden wand and turn back time. Voters chose fantasy over reality. If evidence is worth anything, Republicans have already abandoned their promise to bring back the coal industry, and factory workers should also expect short shrift.
How was Hillary going to put unemployed rust belt residents back to work? There's no magic solution that would allow a President to just create jobs in those states that would be tailored to those who had lost their jobs.
Relapse wrote: The people who counted were persuaded by his stirring oratory, though, putting him in office. I call that a win.
Let's not pretend that Trump actually did anything to earn his votes. Trump won because ~60 million people will reflexively vote for anyone with an R next to their name, no matter how obviously terrible.
I guess enough of those 60 million moved to blue states from red after the 2012 election to cause those blue states to flip.
Michigan:
Red gained 160,000, Blue lost 200,000
Wisconsin:
Red lost 2,500 votes, Blue lost 24,000
Pennsylvania:
Red gained 290,000 votes, Blue lost 28,000 votes
Ohio:
Red gained 180,000 votes , Blue lost 430,000 votes
In only one of those states did the Republicans gain more than the Democrats lost. And out of those four states, Ohio is the only state where Trump got more votes in 2016 than Obama did in 2012. Trump won, but he really needs to thank Clinton for running a horrible campaign. And people need to stop thinking that he has some sort of mandate. Especially with a narrow electoral college win and a popular vote loss. He had a very narrow win, and the landscape looks good for the GOP in 2018. But if 2016 showed us anything it should be to never underestimate the people you are pissing off.
The stats you posted really show how even though a lot of people on Dakka seemed to think that Hillary Clinton was a great candidate and that Trump was a terrible one a lot of the Democrat voters in several key states chose not to vote for her. Even with the risk of a Trump victory hundreds of thousands of Democrats would rather not vote than vote for Hillary. Either she ran the worst campaign ever or she was never really a strong candidate at all for her to get rejected that massively by her own base with so much at stake.
Then again, those are four states were the working class where hit hard by closing factories - the people who apparently shifted from Obama to Trump. Clinton didn't promise them their jobs back, but offered other solutions, just like she did with coal workers. Trump promised to wave his magic golden wand and turn back time. Voters chose fantasy over reality. If evidence is worth anything, Republicans have already abandoned their promise to bring back the coal industry, and factory workers should also expect short shrift.
How was Hillary going to put unemployed rust belt residents back to work? There's no magic solution that would allow a President to just create jobs in those states that would be tailored to those who had lost their jobs.
She had a $30 billion plan to revitalize coal communities and retrain coal workers. It would have required work on the part of the workers to learn new skills and modernize. But they wanted their old jobs back. So now no one's going to get jobs, and we're going to spend that money on a useless vanity project in the name of Trump's ego.
Relapse wrote: The people who counted were persuaded by his stirring oratory, though, putting him in office. I call that a win.
Let's not pretend that Trump actually did anything to earn his votes. Trump won because ~60 million people will reflexively vote for anyone with an R next to their name, no matter how obviously terrible.
I guess enough of those 60 million moved to blue states from red after the 2012 election to cause those blue states to flip.
Michigan:
Red gained 160,000, Blue lost 200,000
Wisconsin:
Red lost 2,500 votes, Blue lost 24,000
Pennsylvania:
Red gained 290,000 votes, Blue lost 28,000 votes
Ohio:
Red gained 180,000 votes , Blue lost 430,000 votes
In only one of those states did the Republicans gain more than the Democrats lost. And out of those four states, Ohio is the only state where Trump got more votes in 2016 than Obama did in 2012. Trump won, but he really needs to thank Clinton for running a horrible campaign. And people need to stop thinking that he has some sort of mandate. Especially with a narrow electoral college win and a popular vote loss. He had a very narrow win, and the landscape looks good for the GOP in 2018. But if 2016 showed us anything it should be to never underestimate the people you are pissing off.
The stats you posted really show how even though a lot of people on Dakka seemed to think that Hillary Clinton was a great candidate and that Trump was a terrible one a lot of the Democrat voters in several key states chose not to vote for her. Even with the risk of a Trump victory hundreds of thousands of Democrats would rather not vote than vote for Hillary. Either she ran the worst campaign ever or she was never really a strong candidate at all for her to get rejected that massively by her own base with so much at stake.
Then again, those are four states were the working class where hit hard by closing factories - the people who apparently shifted from Obama to Trump. Clinton didn't promise them their jobs back, but offered other solutions, just like she did with coal workers. Trump promised to wave his magic golden wand and turn back time. Voters chose fantasy over reality. If evidence is worth anything, Republicans have already abandoned their promise to bring back the coal industry, and factory workers should also expect short shrift.
How was Hillary going to put unemployed rust belt residents back to work? There's no magic solution that would allow a President to just create jobs in those states that would be tailored to those who had lost their jobs.
She had a $30 billion plan to revitalize coal communities and retrain coal workers. It would have required work on the part of the workers to learn new skills and modernize. But they wanted their old jobs back. So now no one's going to get jobs, and we're going to spend that money on a useless vanity project in the name of Trump's ego.
The coal mine I work at is probably not going to be here in 1 to 5 years and that has nothing to do with Obama or Trump.
Our owner, living gak stain he is, has heavily invested inthe oil and gas boom, selling off large chunks of mineral rights. He also bought a lot of newer mines in the next state over. Add to it this mine is 75 years old and producing high sulphur coal, which is bad, and the fact china is moving away from coal and we're boned.
But hey, you try telling these yahoos who scream all lives matter and hang Obama that Trump isn't gonna save their sorry asses...
Sanders would never have said that. Bill Clinton would never have said that. Johnson and FDR damn well never would have said that.
You mean the single quote that was taken completely out of context?
Look, we have serious economic problems in many parts of our country. And Roland is absolutely right. Instead of dividing people the way Donald Trump does, let's reunite around policies that will bring jobs and opportunities to all these underserved poor communities.
So for example, I'm the only candidate which has a policy about how to bring economic opportunity using clean renewable energy as the key into coal country. Because we're going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business, right?
And we're going to make it clear that we don't want to forget those people. Those people labored in those mines for generations, losing their health, often losing their lives to turn on our lights and power our factories.
Now we've got to move away from coal and all the other fossil fuels, but I don't want to move away from the people who did the best they could to produce the energy that we relied on.
So whether it's coal country or Indian country or poor urban areas, there is a lot of poverty in America. We have gone backwards. We were moving in the right direction. In the '90s, more people were lifted out of poverty than any time in recent history.
Because of the terrible economic policies of the Bush administration, President Obama was left with the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, and people fell back into poverty because they lost jobs, they lost homes, they lost opportunities, and hope.
So I am passionate about this, which is why I have put forward specific plans about how we incentivize more jobs, more investment in poor communities, and put people to work.
So we're back to the double standard - Trump got to say whatever, whenever, and recieved a pass. Clinton's words were pulled from context and twisted, and got a massive condemnation.
But hey, you try telling these yahoos who scream all lives matter and hang Obama that Trump isn't gonna save their sorry asses...
Vote Cthulu: #Nolivesmatter
So we're back to the double standard - Trump got to say whatever, whenever, and recieved a pass. Clinton's words were pulled from context and twisted, and got a massive condemnation.
Except of course they weren't twisted. That was Obama policy.
But hey, you try telling these yahoos who scream all lives matter and hang Obama that Trump isn't gonna save their sorry asses...
Vote Cthulu: #Nolivesmatter
Why settle for the lesser evil?
So we're back to the double standard - Trump got to say whatever, whenever, and recieved a pass. Clinton's words were pulled from context and twisted, and got a massive condemnation.
Except of course they weren't twisted. That was Obama policy.
You said Hils was crowing about putting coal out of business. Infinite Array showed what she actually said. How is that not twisting her words?
Relapse wrote: The people who counted were persuaded by his stirring oratory, though, putting him in office. I call that a win.
Let's not pretend that Trump actually did anything to earn his votes. Trump won because ~60 million people will reflexively vote for anyone with an R next to their name, no matter how obviously terrible.
I guess enough of those 60 million moved to blue states from red after the 2012 election to cause those blue states to flip.
Michigan:
Red gained 160,000, Blue lost 200,000
Wisconsin:
Red lost 2,500 votes, Blue lost 24,000
Pennsylvania:
Red gained 290,000 votes, Blue lost 28,000 votes
Ohio:
Red gained 180,000 votes , Blue lost 430,000 votes
In only one of those states did the Republicans gain more than the Democrats lost. And out of those four states, Ohio is the only state where Trump got more votes in 2016 than Obama did in 2012. Trump won, but he really needs to thank Clinton for running a horrible campaign. And people need to stop thinking that he has some sort of mandate. Especially with a narrow electoral college win and a popular vote loss. He had a very narrow win, and the landscape looks good for the GOP in 2018. But if 2016 showed us anything it should be to never underestimate the people you are pissing off.
The stats you posted really show how even though a lot of people on Dakka seemed to think that Hillary Clinton was a great candidate and that Trump was a terrible one a lot of the Democrat voters in several key states chose not to vote for her. Even with the risk of a Trump victory hundreds of thousands of Democrats would rather not vote than vote for Hillary. Either she ran the worst campaign ever or she was never really a strong candidate at all for her to get rejected that massively by her own base with so much at stake.
Then again, those are four states were the working class where hit hard by closing factories - the people who apparently shifted from Obama to Trump. Clinton didn't promise them their jobs back, but offered other solutions, just like she did with coal workers. Trump promised to wave his magic golden wand and turn back time. Voters chose fantasy over reality. If evidence is worth anything, Republicans have already abandoned their promise to bring back the coal industry, and factory workers should also expect short shrift.
How was Hillary going to put unemployed rust belt residents back to work? There's no magic solution that would allow a President to just create jobs in those states that would be tailored to those who had lost their jobs.
She had a $30 billion plan to revitalize coal communities and retrain coal workers. It would have required work on the part of the workers to learn new skills and modernize. But they wanted their old jobs back. So now no one's going to get jobs, and we're going to spend that money on a useless vanity project in the name of Trump's ego.
Reading through it looks like mostly real estate redevelopment, govt projects and federal subsidizes for corporations. The only parts about addressing unemployed coal miners is a program for free College and an apprenticeship program with a residential construction company.
But hey, you try telling these yahoos who scream all lives matter and hang Obama that Trump isn't gonna save their sorry asses...
Vote Cthulu: #Nolivesmatter
Why settle for the lesser evil?
So we're back to the double standard - Trump got to say whatever, whenever, and recieved a pass. Clinton's words were pulled from context and twisted, and got a massive condemnation.
Except of course they weren't twisted. That was Obama policy.
You said Hils was crowing about putting coal out of business. Infinite Array showed what she actually said. How is that not twisting her words?
because it was Obama admin policy. Lets quit playing games.
Reading through it looks like mostly real estate redevelopment, govt projects and federal subsidizes for corporations. The only parts about addressing unemployed coal miners is a program for free College and an apprenticeship program with a residential construction company.
So an actual plan, maybe not the greatest plan, but something real. Versus the empty promises from a serial fraudster.
But hey, you try telling these yahoos who scream all lives matter and hang Obama that Trump isn't gonna save their sorry asses...
Vote Cthulu: #Nolivesmatter
Why settle for the lesser evil?
So we're back to the double standard - Trump got to say whatever, whenever, and recieved a pass. Clinton's words were pulled from context and twisted, and got a massive condemnation.
Except of course they weren't twisted. That was Obama policy.
You said Hils was crowing about putting coal out of business. Infinite Array showed what she actually said. How is that not twisting her words?
because it was Obama admin policy. Lets quit playing games.
Your original comment, and the story you linked to, was about Hils comments to coal workers on the campaign trail.
In a nutshell, she said "coal is dying, let's make sure you don't die with it". Which was then twisted into "hahaha coal miners are LOSERS!"
But hey, you try telling these yahoos who scream all lives matter and hang Obama that Trump isn't gonna save their sorry asses...
Vote Cthulu: #Nolivesmatter
Why settle for the lesser evil?
So we're back to the double standard - Trump got to say whatever, whenever, and recieved a pass. Clinton's words were pulled from context and twisted, and got a massive condemnation.
Except of course they weren't twisted. That was Obama policy.
You said Hils was crowing about putting coal out of business. Infinite Array showed what she actually said. How is that not twisting her words?
because it was Obama admin policy. Lets quit playing games.
We're not the ones playing games. The message was never "This was Obama's strategy," because then the Republicans would have to answer the follow up, "Why didn't it work?" with "Oh, we stopped it." The message was always "She's going to take your jobs!"
By the way, I hope everyone remembers the message that came out of the GOP immediately after Trump's election - that deregulation of the coal industry isn't going to bring back jobs. So much for Trump's promises.
CONFIRMED: Trump will pick Judge Neil Gorsuch tonight, youngest SCOTUS pick in 30 years. https://t.co/lakw5LrAqa — Benny (@bennyjohnson) January 31, 2017
CNN reporting Gorsuch is the frontrunner for SCOTUS. Easy way to unite the GOP...
— Josh Kraushaar (@HotlineJosh) January 31, 2017
Neil Gorsuch was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit by President George W. Bush on May 10, 2006, and confirmed shortly thereafter. Both his pre-judicial resumé and his body of work as a judge make him a natural fit for an appointment to the Supreme Court by a Republican president. He is relatively young (turning 50 this year), and his background is filled with sterling legal and academic credentials. He was a Marshall Scholar at the University of Oxford, graduated from Harvard Law School, clerked for prominent conservative judges (Judge David Sentelle of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, as well as Justices Byron White and Anthony Kennedy of the Supreme Court), and was a high-
ranking official in the Bush Justice Department before his judicial appointment. He is celebrated as a keen legal thinker and a particularly incisive legal writer, with a flair that matches
— or at least evokes — that of the justice whose seat he would be nominated to fill. In fact, one study has identified him as the most natural successor to Justice Antonin Scalia on the Trump shortlist, both in terms of his judicial style and his substantive approach.
With perhaps one notable area of disagreement, Judge Gorsuch’s prominent decisions bear the comparison out. For one thing, the great compliment that Gorsuch’s legal writing is in a class with Scalia’s is deserved: Gorsuch’s opinions are exceptionally clear and routinely entertaining; he is an unusual pleasure to read, and it is always plain exactly what he thinks and why. Like Scalia, Gorsuch also seems to have a set of judicial/ideological commitments apart from his personal policy preferences that drive his decision-making. He is an ardent textualist (like Scalia); he believes criminal laws should be clear and interpreted in favor of defendants even if that hurts government prosecutions (like Scalia); he is skeptical of efforts to purge religious expression from public spaces (like Scalia); he is highly dubious of legislative history (like Scalia); and he is less than enamored of the dormant commerce clause (like Scalia). In fact, some of the parallels can be downright eerie. For example, the reasoning in Gorsuch’s 2008 concurrence in United States v. Hinckley, in which he argues that one possible reading of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act would probably violate the rarely invoked non-delegation principle, is exactly the same as that of Scalia’s 2012 dissent in Reynolds v. United States. The notable exception is one prominent concurrence last August, in Gutierrez-Brizuela v. Lynch, in which Gorsuch criticized a doctrine of administrative law (called Chevron deference) that Scalia had long defended. Even here, however, there may be more in common than meets the eye.
Religion
Some of the most high-profile cases in which Gorsuch has cast a vote have involved the religion clauses of the Constitution (those prohibiting the establishment of religion and creating a right to free exercise), as well as congressional statutes expanding protection for religious adherents (known as RFRA and RLUIPA). Followers of the Supreme Court will recognize two recent cases in which Gorsuch participated on the 10th Circuit, Hobby Lobby Stores v. Sebelius and Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged v. Burwell. In Hobby Lobby, Gorsuch wrote a concurrence in the en banc 10th Circuit that sided with the company and its owners. He stressed the need to accept these parties’ own conceptions regarding the requirements of their faith, and held (among other things) that they were likely to prevail on claims that the contraception mandate in the Affordable Care Act substantially burdened their religious exercise in violation of RFRA. This position was largely vindicated in the subsequent decision by the Supreme Court. Thereafter, in Little Sisters of the Poor, Gorsuch joined a group of 10th Circuit judges who dissented from denial of rehearing en banc when a panel of the court of appeals ruled against the Little Sisters on their RFRA claims about the same ACA mandate. There, again, the point was that the 10th Circuit had shown insufficient deference to the Little Sisters’ own articulation of the tenets of their religious beliefs. That position, too, was at least partially vindicated by the Supreme Court when it decided that the Little Sisters’ religious beliefs probably could be accommodated while still affording full and equal contraceptive coverage to their employees, and directed the parties and courts to consider such a solution on remand. Simply put, in cases that closely divided his court and the Supreme Court, Gorsuch has shown himself to be an ardent defender of religious liberties and pluralistic accommodations for religious adherents.
Gorsuch has also written or joined opinions – again, largely vindicated by the Supreme Court – that have criticized doctrines that limit religious expression in public spaces. In Summum v. Pleasant Grove City, in 2007, Gorsuch joined a dissent from denial of rehearing en banc in a case in which the 10th Circuit had limited the ability of the government to display a donated Ten Commandments monument in a public park without accepting all other offers of donated monuments. The subsequent Supreme Court decision reversing the 10th Circuit largely adopted the reasoning of that dissent. Gorsuch also has a pair of dissenting opinions in which he criticizes the “reasonable observer” test for establishment clause cases as far too likely to find impermissible endorsements of religion by the government when none was intended, and thus to prevent religious adherents from reasonably participating in public life. These cases are American Atheists Inc. v. Davenport, in 2010, and Green v. Haskell County Boad. of Commissioners, in 2009. The common thread in these cases is one that matters very deeply to conservatives: a sense that the government can permit public displays of religion – and can accommodate deeply held religious views – without either violating the religion clauses of the Constitution or destroying the effectiveness of government programs that occasionally run into religious objections. In his 2009 concurrence in Pleasant Grove City, Utah v. Summum, Scalia articulated very similar views. Gorsuch’s opinions on these issues are quite thoughtful, and demonstrate that he would be a natural successor to Scalia in adopting a pro-religion conception of the establishment clause.
Criminal Law
Another area in which Gorsuch has written persuasively in a manner that closely echoes Scalia relates to how to interpret criminal laws correctly, so as to avoid criminalizing potentially innocent conduct. One of Gorsuch’s most notable opinions in this area also happens to overlap with the hot-button issue of gun ownership — although the case is not about the Second Amendment, and doesn’t involve anything like the typical gun-rights groups.
A federal criminal law prohibits the knowing possession of a gun by a felon. This law has given rise to a debate about how best to read its limitation to “knowing” violations: Does it apply whenever a felon knowingly possesses a gun, or must violators also know that they have been convicted of a felony? This matters, because lots of minor crimes might technically be felonies, and lots of dispositions that seem inconsequential (because they involve no jail time) might technically be felony convictions. And the penalties for violating this law can be very high. In United States v. Games-Perez, in 2012, Gorsuch urged the 10th Circuit to review its rule holding that it is enough to support a conviction that the defendant knew he possessed the gun, whether or not he knew he was a felon. The opinion is an example of Gorsuch’s strong commitment to textualism, and a severe critique of using legislative history — particularly to make criminal what might otherwise be innocent. Accordingly, it is easy to hear clear echoes of Scalia’s views regarding the proper reading of statutes — especially criminal statutes — as well as the importance of focusing on ordinary usage and linguistic rules.
A few examples make the resemblance even clearer. Take this sentence from Games-Perez: “For current purposes, just stating Capps‘s holding makes the problem clear enough: its interpretation—reading Congress’s mens rea requirement as leapfrogging over the first statutorily specified element and touching down only at the second listed element—defies grammatical gravity and linguistic logic.” Or this passage, which contains both an endorsement of Second Amendment rights and a classic Scalia principle about attaching mens rea requirements to the element that criminalizes innocent conduct:
Besides, even if the government could somehow manage to squeeze an ambiguity out of the plain statutory text before us, it faces another intractable problem. The Supreme Court has long recognized a “presumption” grounded in our common law tradition that a mens rea requirement attaches to “each of the statutory elements that criminalize otherwise innocent conduct.” … Together §§ 922(g) and 924(a)(2) operate to criminalize the possession of any kind of gun. But gun possession is often lawful and sometimes even protected as a matter of constitutional right. The only statutory element separating innocent (even constitutionally protected) gun possession from criminal conduct in §§ 922(g) and 924(a) is a prior felony conviction. So the presumption that the government must prove mens rea here applies with full force.
Either of these passages would be perfectly at home in a canonical Scalia opinion about how to read the criminal law. And, it is worth noting, this means that Gorsuch, just like Scalia, is sometimes willing to read criminal laws more narrowly in a way that disfavors the prosecution – especially when the Second Amendment or another constitutional protection is involved.
Death Penalty
Gorsuch, like Scalia, has not been a friendly vote for death penalty petitioners pursuing relief from their sentences through federal habeas. But it is important to recognize that, as in the case of Scalia, this makes plenty of sense in light of Gorsuch’s commitment to reading statutes according to their plain text. During the 1990s, Congress passed a statute called the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act that – true to its name – was intended to limit federal habeas in order to make the death penalty easier to carry out. Strict readers of AEDPA are unlikely to find many cases in which a petitioner qualifies for relief. This is particularly true in the courts of appeals, where many of the death penalty habeas cases are uncontroversial —or at least not nearly as close as the cases that make their way to the Supreme Court. Whatever the source of the position, however, it is clear that Gorsuch’s position in death penalty cases is likely to be quite close to Scalia’s, and very unlikely to make the court any more solicitous of the claims of capital defendants.
Dormant Commerce Clause
Another area of the law in which Gorsuch has shown both his writing talent and his similarity to Scalia is in the application (and critique) of doctrines surrounding the so-called “dormant commerce clause.” These doctrines treat the commerce clause not only as a grant of power to Congress to make laws regulating interstate commerce, but as a kind of presumptive limitation on the power of states to make laws that either unduly burden or unfairly discriminate against interstate commerce, without regard to whether Congress has ever passed a law in the relevant area. Because — as its name suggests — the dormant commerce clause cannot actually be found in the text of the Constitution, Scalia eventually came around to the view that it should not be a thing, and refused to endorse any future expansions of the doctrine. For example, in 2015, in a dissenting opinion in Comptroller v. Wynne, Scalia stated: “The fundamental problem with our negative Commerce Clause cases is that the Constitution does not contain a negative Commerce Clause.” Although a court of appeals judge lacks the same freedom to disparage and/or depart from existing Supreme Court precedent, Gorsuch’s opinions also reveal a measure of distrust towards unwritten constitutional provisions like the dormant commerce clause.
For example, a 2015 10th Circuit decision written by Gorsuch, Energy and Environment Legal Institute v. Epel, declined to apply the dormant commerce clause to strike down a clean-energy program created by Colorado on the grounds that it might negatively affect traditional energy producers outside the state. The opinion explains that this result is consistent with the limited reach of the dormant commerce clause’s “judicial free trade policy” even under existing precedent. But while acknowledging that lower courts must take the Supreme Court’s doctrine as they find it, Gorsuch’s opinion shows respect for the doctrine’s “[d]etractors,” like Scalia, who “find dormant commerce doctrine absent from the Constitution’s text and incompatible with its structure.” Though Gorsuch’s personal constitution seems to require him to write clearly about the many unclear aspects of the doctrine, his opinion plainly takes some joy in the act of demonstrating that not only does the dormant commerce clause not apply — the doctrine also doesn’t make much sense. That same instinct is present in a prominent concurrence last year in Direct Marketing Association v. Brohl, in which Gorsuch singled out one aspect of dormant commerce clause doctrine—the Quill rule that exempts out-of-state mail order sales from state sales tax—as an “analytical oddity” that “seems deliberately designed” to be overruled eventually. This opinion aligned him with Justice Anthony Kennedy (who has called for overruling Quill), and again with Scalia, who identified Quill as part of the “bestiary of ad hoc tests and ad hoc exceptions that we apply nowadays” under the dormant commerce clause.
The dormant commerce clause isn’t a particularly hot-button issue, nor does it have obvious liberal/conservative fault lines. But it’s noteworthy that criticism of the dormant commerce clause is of a piece with criticism of the “right to privacy” that undergirds the Supreme Court ‘s abortion jurisprudence, as well as other judge-made doctrines that do not have a strong connection to the constitutional text. Again, Gorsuch’s opinions seem to follow the lead of textualists and federalists like Scalia in expressing great skepticism towards such doctrines, which allow judges to strike down duly enacted local laws on the basis of vague principles that cannot be found in the concrete text of the national charter.
Administrative Law
Finally, there is administrative law—the one area that seems to demonstrate some real distance between Scalia and Gorsuch. Last August, Gorsuch made real waves in the normally sleepy world of administrative law by advocating the end of a doctrine that has been tied closely to the functioning of the administrative state and the executive branch since the mid-1980s — a doctrine called Chevron deference. The basic idea behind Chevron is that, when Congress enacts a broadly worded statute whose precise contours are ambiguous, the courts should permit the federal agencies that are charged with administering the statute to enforce it in any manner that is not clearly forbidden. Scalia was a judge on the D.C. Circuit (which does more agency review than any other court), and he was a strong advocate for Chevron’s basic take on agency review and the flexibility that it preserved in the administrative state: He often warned that the consequences of efforts to limit or tinker with its model could be severe. Gorsuch’s recent opinions in Gutierrez-Brizuela — he wrote both the majority opinion and a concurrence to his own opinion to express his personal views on the doctrine — expressly urge: “We managed to live with the administrative state before Chevron. We could do it again.” Ironically, Gorsuch’s chief complaint about Chevron doctrine was something that would have been close to Scalia’s heart — namely, that it empowers agencies to take the power of statutory interpretation away from courts, and subjects judicial decision-making to administrative review, rather than the other way around.
Gorsuch’s opinion — in which he stakes out ground that few have sought to defend — is a very compelling read, and it is unfair to try to summarize it in a few sentences. But it seems quite clear that: (1) Gorsuch’s views on administrative law are meaningfully different from Scalia’s in a way that could be described as even more conservative; and yet (2) the difference is not as profound as one might think. Unlike Scalia, Gorsuch really does want to apply the basic Gorsuch/Scalia take on ordinary statutes to administrative statutes as well. He believes even these broadly worded enforcement statutes have objective meanings that can be understood from their texts; that it is the job of the courts to say what those laws mean and to tell agencies when they do not have the best reading; and that if the agency disagrees, the only proper recourse is for Congress to change the law or the Supreme Court to correct the error. Scalia, on the other hand, wanted to limit courts to the role of reviewing agency implementations of these kinds of statutes for clear error in order to prevent “ossification,” recognizing that the understanding of these kinds of laws might need to change from time to time to accommodate changing priorities among presidents and changing conditions on the ground.
The reason that difference is less pronounced than you might think is that Scalia’s take on Chevron was always a little different from others’, in part to address the very concerns that Gorsuch so clearly articulates. First, Scalia was much more willing than others to say that a particular agency position was beyond the statutory bounds, even when the words at issue in the statute were ambiguous (at least in isolation). For example, in MCI Telecommunications Group v. AT&T, in 1994, Scalia held that the term “modify” unambiguously excludes major changes. In fact, in a Duke Law Journal piece in 1989 Scalia once said strict textualists like him (and, say, Judge Gorsuch) would be less likely to find statutes ambiguous for purposes of Chevron because of their attention to the details of statutory text and their unwillingness to consider broad purposes and legislative history. Such an approach makes a statute’s delegation to agencies much narrower, notwithstanding Chevron. And second, Scalia wanted Chevron to apply all the time precisely to avoid a situation in which a court would give the statute its best reading and the agency could later revise that understanding with the benefit of newfound deference — one of Gorsuch’s chief complaints. In Gutierrez-Brizuela, Gorsuch criticized the Supreme Court’s 2005 decision in National Cable & Telecommunications Ass’n v. Brand X, which permitted an agency to bypass a Supreme Court decision through Chevron deference, echoing Scalia’s own dissent in Brand X, in which Scalia criticized the court for having adopted a version of Chevron that led to the spectacle of agencies bypassing Supreme Court readings of statutes.
In short, Gorsuch definitely has a different take from Scalia on the administrative state — one that grants it less power, and so accords even more closely with the conservative conception of small government. Indeed, this is an area in which Gorsuch is plainly a thought leader, expressing judicial sentiments many conservatives with similar concerns have rarely voiced, and which even Scalia might have bristled at. But given their parallel commitments to textualism and their parallel understandings of the relative roles of agencies and courts, even this seems like a bridgeable divide between Gorsuch and the justice he might replace. Gorsuch is still a very natural choice for any Republican president to nominate as a replacement for Scalia — someone who would espouse similar principles, stand firm on similar doctrinal commitments, reach similar outcomes, and even fill a similar role as one of the court’s most articulate defenders of conservative judicial theory.
My response if this indeed is going to be Trump's pick?
Spoiler:
He doesn't seem to be anti-gay marriage, or anti RvW, so I'm OK with this. Would have rather a more moderate one, but you can't have everything.
Simply force everyone in the state to "register" every year.
We do this anyway when we declare our personal property taxes (house, cars, if you're a renter)... that is, the state sends you a form of what they think you have, you return it with confirmation/addition so that the state can properly assess what taxes are owed at the end of the year.
Simply piggy back that same function... that's how you truly keep the voter rolls "clean".
That's how we do it in the UK; every time an election is coming up we get a form out with a list of registered voters, do nothing if it's unchanged, or use a code to update it via internet or phone. It's based on address, so if you move away the new resident will replace your entries.
d-usa wrote: Regarding the complaints that the refugee ban is not a Muslim ban:
Fox News host Jeanine Pirro asked Giuliani whether the ban had anything to do with religion.
“How did the president decide the seven countries?” she asked. “Okay, talk to me.”
“I'll tell you the whole history of it,” Giuliani responded eagerly. “So when [Trump] first announced it, he said, 'Muslim ban.' He called me up. He said, 'Put a commission together. Show me the right way to do it legally.' "
I think, more than anything, the thoughts running through my head right now are "Oh god, I'm going to have to deal with Giuliani for four years now aren't I?"
Reading through it looks like mostly real estate redevelopment, govt projects and federal subsidizes for corporations. The only parts about addressing unemployed coal miners is a program for free College and an apprenticeship program with a residential construction company.
So an actual plan, maybe not the greatest plan, but something real. Versus the empty promises from a serial fraudster.
No an obviously fraudulent plan. College scholarships aren't jobs going back to school doesn't support your family. Partnering with local businesses isn't viable, companies in economically depressed areas with shuttered mines and unemployed miners aren't going to be expanding. Losing the primary employer and economic engine in the community is going to create less demand not create more to fuel expansion. No amount of govt subsidies for expanding companies can make it viable when there is no demand. Pie in the sky window dressing doesn't change the fact that most of Hillary's plan is to re zone federal land being mined and try to sell it off to corporations that will be subsidized by govt infrastructure projects. New federal roads aren't going to magically create jobs in the middle of nowhere W Va when the mines shut down. There is no saving those areas when the mines close, the mines are the reason those towns exist and roads and high speed internet won't fill their void. Hillary just invested more effort in her lies than Trump.
Reading through it looks like mostly real estate redevelopment, govt projects and federal subsidizes for corporations. The only parts about addressing unemployed coal miners is a program for free College and an apprenticeship program with a residential construction company.
So an actual plan, maybe not the greatest plan, but something real. Versus the empty promises from a serial fraudster.
No an obviously fraudulent plan. College scholarships aren't jobs going back to school doesn't support your family. Partnering with local businesses isn't viable, companies in economically depressed areas with shuttered mines and unemployed miners aren't going to be expanding. Losing the primary employer and economic engine in the community is going to create less demand not create more to fuel expansion. No amount of govt subsidies for expanding companies can make it viable when there is no demand. Pie in the sky window dressing doesn't change the fact that most of Hillary's plan is to re zone federal land being mined and try to sell it off to corporations that will be subsidized by govt infrastructure projects. New federal roads aren't going to magically create jobs in the middle of nowhere W Va when the mines shut down. There is no saving those areas when the mines close, the mines are the reason those towns exist and roads and high speed internet won't fill their void. Hillary just invested more effort in her lies than Trump.
Maybe. My town economy used to be fishing and forestry based. Now it's finance and high tech. Adapt or die.
No amount of Trump is going to change the fact that coal is dying off. Those miners need something more than red hats and yuge slogans.
Prestor Jon wrote: College scholarships aren't jobs going back to school doesn't support your family.
Not immediately, but it gives you the qualifications to get a job. A person whose only marketable skill requires a dying industry only has one hope: die before the industry does. You either learn something else and change careers, or you desperately hope that you can make enough money scrubbing toilets or flipping burgers or whatever once the coal industry finishes dying.
No amount of govt subsidies for expanding companies can make it viable when there is no demand.
This is not true. Most industries don't need local demand to survive. If, say, you're making cars you're selling across the country. Who cares if nobody in the adjacent town is buying, all that matters is the cost of manufacturing there vs. the cost elsewhere. If the government offers subsidies to put that factory in a West Virginia coal town and brings the cost of running the factor down below the cost of building it elsewhere then that's where the factory goes. And that factory needs workers, who then spend their money on local businesses, and so on.
Of course it's possible that those incentives won't be enough, and the coal towns will die. In that case it goes back to education: if you have a college degree and marketable skills you can move elsewhere and get a job. If you have nothing but "I worked in a coal mine" to offer you get to sit in your dying town in crippling poverty until you finally join the coal industry in death.
Hillary just invested more effort in her lies than Trump.
No, Clinton offered a plan to replace the coal industry jobs. It might work, or it might not work. Trump offered nothing but lies and wishful thinking about magically making the coal industry continue to exist. As a plan it doesn't even reach "might work" level, it's almost guaranteed to fail. But apparently people would rather believe a comforting lie about coal mining jobs coming back than face the hard truth of an uncertain future in some other industry.
Prestor Jon wrote: College scholarships aren't jobs going back to school doesn't support your family.
Not immediately, but it gives you the qualifications to get a job. A person whose only marketable skill requires a dying industry only has one hope: die before the industry does. You either learn something else and change careers, or you desperately hope that you can make enough money scrubbing toilets or flipping burgers or whatever once the coal industry finishes dying.
No amount of govt subsidies for expanding companies can make it viable when there is no demand.
This is not true. Most industries don't need local demand to survive. If, say, you're making cars you're selling across the country. Who cares if nobody in the adjacent town is buying, all that matters is the cost of manufacturing there vs. the cost elsewhere. If the government offers subsidies to put that factory in a West Virginia coal town and brings the cost of running the factor down below the cost of building it elsewhere then that's where the factory goes. And that factory needs workers, who then spend their money on local businesses, and so on.
Of course it's possible that those incentives won't be enough, and the coal towns will die. In that case it goes back to education: if you have a college degree and marketable skills you can move elsewhere and get a job. If you have nothing but "I worked in a coal mine" to offer you get to sit in your dying town in crippling poverty until you finally join the coal industry in death.
You're a coal miner in your early 40s and the mine you work at in W Va shuts down and lays you off. Pres Hillary Clinton gets legislation passed through congress that qualifies you for a college scholarship for retraining. You have a wife, 2 kids and a mortgage, what happens while you're enrolled at college for the next 2-4 or even 6-8 years? Where do they live? What do they eat? How do you pay your bills? Getting a scholarship doesn't take away a laid off coal miner's responsibilities and dependents.
The specific program mentioned and hyperlinked to in Hillary's policy paper is for a local construction company that builds houses. How does a shuttered mine and thousands of laid off workers create demand for more homes to be built or generate economic growth to enable people to buy them?
Hillary's idea that she could just have the federal govt cut a $30 billion check and magically turn anytown usa into a thriving community is a mirage. Govt money isn't an economic panacea. Hillary couldn't buy rural W Va prosperity with federal funds. If this is a workable plan why isn't it working anywhere else? Suffering communities all across the country have been the beneficiary of govts programs for years and the problems persist. We can't fix Youngstown or Cleveland in OH or Camden in NJ or Harrisburg in PA or Flint in MI but it'll work in rural WVa when the coal industry closes shop?
Reading through it looks like mostly real estate redevelopment, govt projects and federal subsidizes for corporations. The only parts about addressing unemployed coal miners is a program for free College and an apprenticeship program with a residential construction company.
So an actual plan, maybe not the greatest plan, but something real. Versus the empty promises from a serial fraudster.
No an obviously fraudulent plan. College scholarships aren't jobs going back to school doesn't support your family. Partnering with local businesses isn't viable, companies in economically depressed areas with shuttered mines and unemployed miners aren't going to be expanding. Losing the primary employer and economic engine in the community is going to create less demand not create more to fuel expansion. No amount of govt subsidies for expanding companies can make it viable when there is no demand. Pie in the sky window dressing doesn't change the fact that most of Hillary's plan is to re zone federal land being mined and try to sell it off to corporations that will be subsidized by govt infrastructure projects. New federal roads aren't going to magically create jobs in the middle of nowhere W Va when the mines shut down. There is no saving those areas when the mines close, the mines are the reason those towns exist and roads and high speed internet won't fill their void. Hillary just invested more effort in her lies than Trump.
Maybe. My town economy used to be fishing and forestry based. Now it's finance and high tech. Adapt or die.
No amount of Trump is going to change the fact that coal is dying off. Those miners need something more than red hats and yuge slogans.
That is my opinion on the whole "Our manufacturing jobs are disappearing!!!!1!!one" front. Those jobs are disappearing unless we want to make automation illegal. It's better to re-train those those who lost their jobs.
You're a coal miner in your early 40s and the mine you work at in W Va shuts down and lays you off. Pres Hillary Clinton gets legislation passed through congress that qualifies you for a college scholarship for retraining. You have a wife, 2 kids and a mortgage, what happens while you're enrolled at college for the next 2-4 or even 6-8 years? Where do they live? What do they eat? How do you pay your bills? Getting a scholarship doesn't take away a laid off coal miner's responsibilities and dependents.
The specific program mentioned and hyperlinked to in Hillary's policy paper is for a local construction company that builds houses. How does a shuttered mine and thousands of laid off workers create demand for more homes to be built or generate economic growth to enable people to buy them?
Versus not having anything? I know which one I'd pick. Because those jobs are sure as hell not coming back. Coal has been going down as a percentage of US power since the mid 80's, and coal exporting is dropping as well (down nearly a quarter in 2015) as much of the world looks to alternatives.
As far as I'm concerned, a plan that's not perfect is better than none at all. And if those scholarships can go to the children of said coal miners, it's still the same effect economically, just a generation later. And who doesn't want their children to be better off than them?
Reading through it looks like mostly real estate redevelopment, govt projects and federal subsidizes for corporations. The only parts about addressing unemployed coal miners is a program for free College and an apprenticeship program with a residential construction company.
So an actual plan, maybe not the greatest plan, but something real. Versus the empty promises from a serial fraudster.
No an obviously fraudulent plan. College scholarships aren't jobs going back to school doesn't support your family. Partnering with local businesses isn't viable, companies in economically depressed areas with shuttered mines and unemployed miners aren't going to be expanding. Losing the primary employer and economic engine in the community is going to create less demand not create more to fuel expansion. No amount of govt subsidies for expanding companies can make it viable when there is no demand. Pie in the sky window dressing doesn't change the fact that most of Hillary's plan is to re zone federal land being mined and try to sell it off to corporations that will be subsidized by govt infrastructure projects. New federal roads aren't going to magically create jobs in the middle of nowhere W Va when the mines shut down. There is no saving those areas when the mines close, the mines are the reason those towns exist and roads and high speed internet won't fill their void. Hillary just invested more effort in her lies than Trump.
Maybe. My town economy used to be fishing and forestry based. Now it's finance and high tech. Adapt or die.
No amount of Trump is going to change the fact that coal is dying off. Those miners need something more than red hats and yuge slogans.
That is my opinion on the whole "Our manufacturing jobs are disappearing!!!!1!!one" front. Those jobs are disappearing unless we want to make automation illegal. It's better to re-train those those who lost their jobs.
You can't make technological progress illegal. You're not putting the automation genie back in the bottle.
Prestor Jon wrote: You're a coal miner in your early 40s and the mine you work at in W Va shuts down and lays you off. Pres Hillary Clinton gets legislation passed through congress that qualifies you for a college scholarship for retraining. You have a wife, 2 kids and a mortgage, what happens while you're enrolled at college for the next 2-4 or even 6-8 years? Where do they live? What do they eat? How do you pay your bills? Getting a scholarship doesn't take away a laid off coal miner's responsibilities and dependents.
Maybe you have to send the kids to live with their grandparents and your wife has to get a minimum-wage job to pay for basic needs. Maybe instead of a four-year degree you take evening classes at a community college. Obviously it's not an ideal situation, but it's certainly better than the alternative:
You're a coal miner in your early 40s and the mine you work at in W Va shuts down and lays you off. Pres Donald Trump says some magic words about job creation and saving the coal industry, but coal is no longer profitable and the mine is still dead. You have a wife, 2 kids and a mortgage, what happens while you're unemployed for the next rest of your life? Where do they live? What do they eat? How do you pay your bills? Getting a tiny welfare check (which Trump's party wants to abolish) doesn't take away a laid off coal miner's responsibilities and dependents.
I don't know about you, but if I was in that situation I'd certainly prefer Clinton's plan to Trump's.
The specific program mentioned and hyperlinked to in Hillary's policy paper is for a local construction company that builds houses. How does a shuttered mine and thousands of laid off workers create demand for more homes to be built or generate economic growth to enable people to buy them?
That's just one example. I don't think anyone believes that one example from a policy paper is the entire plan, or that it excludes other businesses.
Hillary's idea that she could just have the federal govt cut a $30 billion check and magically turn anytown usa into a thriving community is a mirage. Govt money isn't an economic panacea. Hillary couldn't buy rural W Va prosperity with federal funds. If this is a workable plan why isn't it working anywhere else? Suffering communities all across the country have been the beneficiary of govts programs for years and the problems persist. We can't fix Youngstown or Cleveland in OH or Camden in NJ or Harrisburg in PA or Flint in MI but it'll work in rural WVa when the coal industry closes shop?
Again, it's a hard problem and any solution is working against strong opposing forces. But a flawed plan that may not work is infinitely better than lies and promises to cast a magic "make some jobs" spell.
When the Hollywood types express their views and opinions do you think this sways or influence citizens to think similarly? Think recent headlines and events. Madonna, JLaw, etc.
Byte wrote: Question for the Americans in the thread.
When the Hollywood types express their views and opinions do you think this sways or influence citizens to think similarly? Think recent headlines and events. Madonna, JLaw, etc.
Probably as much as any similar source of opinions. People who are easily persuaded by clever slogans and don't understand the substance of the issues (sadly far too many people) will go along with it, people who care about the issues won't pay much attention because they have better sources of information. The main value of celebrity opinions is giving publicity to a cause and getting people to pay attention long enough to form an opinion.
I used to work at a pork processing plant here in Indiana. Several people working on the cut floor had degrees of some type or another. I was halfway to my forensics degree when the professor who was the head of the Chemical Technology department informed me of the glut in people looking for that specific job. They had no problem telling me that after I blew half my GI Bill on classes that do me no good now, but they couldn't tell me earlier so I could shift to a degree with demand in the job field? Degrees are nice and all, but it's not an instant fix, and production labor jobs aren't going away any time soon. The better solution is finding other uses for the coal in the mines. Might be inconvenient for some, and downright unacceptable to those that think coal is the Antichrist, but it beats throwing money the government doesn't have at the problem.
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Byte wrote: Question for the Americans in the thread.
When the Hollywood types express their views and opinions do you think this sways or influence citizens to think similarly? Think recent headlines and events. Madonna, JLaw, etc.
Speaking for myself: I don't give credence to some disaffected prima donna telling me how to think/feel/vote/whatever. I can form my own opinions, and don't value the opinion of someone that hasn't lived anything near that life.
Just Tony wrote: I used to work at a pork processing plant here in Indiana. Several people working on the cut floor had degrees of some type or another. I was halfway to my forensics degree when the professor who was the head of the Chemical Technology department informed me of the glut in people looking for that specific job. They had no problem telling me that after I blew half my GI Bill on classes that do me no good now, but they couldn't tell me earlier so I could shift to a degree with demand in the job field? Degrees are nice and all, but it's not an instant fix, and production labor jobs aren't going away any time soon. The better solution is finding other uses for the coal in the mines. Might be inconvenient for some, and downright unacceptable to those that think coal is the Antichrist, but it beats throwing money the government doesn't have at the problem.
Even less of a fix for the folks 40 years old and over. Even if they can keep paying the bills while getting their degree, companies would rather hire the 20 something rather than the 40+ something for those New Degree type positions.
Just Tony wrote: The better solution is finding other uses for the coal in the mines.
Like what? Wishful thinking doesn't magically make coal useful for other things.
Might be inconvenient for some, and downright unacceptable to those that think coal is the Antichrist, but it beats throwing money the government doesn't have at the problem.
Better that than throwing money the government doesn't have at building a border wall that won't work.
Just Tony wrote: The better solution is finding other uses for the coal in the mines.
Like what? Wishful thinking doesn't magically make coal useful for other things.
Might be inconvenient for some, and downright unacceptable to those that think coal is the Antichrist, but it beats throwing money the government doesn't have at the problem.
Better that than throwing money the government doesn't have at building a border wall that won't work.
The only thing I can think of is re-opening out rare earth metal mines, as those are ever increasing in usage (with technology). Still have the problem of automation though, and I'm not sure they could compete with China, but it's something to look into I guess.
So there was a deal made between the US and Australia in the final hours of the Obama administration, part of which included the US taking refugees currently sitting in Australian detention camps. Honestly the deal is total bs in lots of different ways, not just because Obama made it as he was walking out the door, it also makes no sense in terms of management of the refugee problem*. There are good arguments for the new Trump administration to walk back the deal, and as an incoming president he'd have plenty of scope to re-open discussions with Australia to make a very different deal. And God knows Australia is agreeable enough with any US administration that if Trump wanted to 're-negotiate' the deal in to nothingness we'd just quietly accept that.
However, this is not what the Trump administration did, because the Trump administration is incredibly terrible at being an administration. Instead, at 1pm yesterday Sean Spicer stated in his press meeting that the US would be honoring deal, with the addition that the refugees would be subjected to extreme vetting. It still remains unclear whether Mountain Dew was the official sponsor of extreme vetting, but other than that everything seemed perfectly ordinary.
But then, at 5.00pm that same day the Australian press corps started getting phone calls from Trump staffer saying that now Trump was saying he wasn't accepting the deal. He might accept the deal, maybe, out of respect to our long relationship, maybe. What could have been quietly done, or quietly buried, has now become a political flashpoint in both countries. And probably the lasting lesson that will come from this is for Australia - don't try and rely on deals with Trump on sensitive issues, because he is incompetent and will only cause trouble for everyone involved.
This isn't a huge thing, but it is example #37 of the Trump administration seeing a small pebble on the road, and somehow managing to jam it in to their eye. It's mostly a story about in politics, right and left ideology actually ends up being less important than basic operating competence. And this is a lesson we all learn, and learn hard in the next four years.
*The Australian stance is that many people are using refugee claims to migrate to countries with better standards of living, and along the way taking dangerous boat rides in which lots of them die. So we have a policy to not resettle in Australia to remove that economic incentive - sending them to the US instead seems to be missing the point by a long way.
whembly wrote: It's pointless to gnash your teeth that he puts someone there that is diametrically opposed to what the agencies have done in the past... the POTUS sets the agenda... the agencies ENACTS them.
It's our job as voters to hold him to account via the voting booth, or in warranted case, take him to court. (provided we have standing)
Would it shock anyone to learn this is a new belief among Republicans? In 2015 Senator Jeff Sessions, now about to be confirmed as Attorney General questioned Obama's nominee for Deputy Attorney General, Sally Yates. Sessions was very concerned about standing up against illegal orders.
Sessions: Well, you have to watch out because people will be asking you to do things, you just need to say no about. Do you think the Attorney General has a responsibility to say no to the President if he asks for something that's improper? A lot of people have defended the Lynch nomination, for example, by saying, ‘Well, he appoints somebody who's going to execute his views. What's wrong with that?’ But if the views a President wants to execute are unlawful, should the Attorney General or the Deputy Attorney General say no?
Yates: Senator, I believe that the Attorney General or the Deputy Attorney General has an obligation to follow the law and the Constitution and to give their independent legal advice to the President.
Sessions: Does the Office of Legal Counsel — which makes many of these opinions that impact policy — does it report through the deputy's office or directly to the Attorney General?
Yates: Well, when you look at the org chart, the Office of Legal Counsel reports to the deputy's office, but it's important that the Office of Legal Counsel also be independent because federal agencies across our government regularly come to the Office of Legal Counsel seeking advice and guidance about what is permissible and what isn't. And it's critically important that the OLC advice — the Office of Legal Counsel advice — be just that, advice, and that it not be advocacy.
Sessions: Well, that’s true. That’s true. And like any CEO, where the law firm —sometimes the lawyers have to tell the CEO, ‘Mr. CEO, you can’t do that, don’t do that. You’ll get us sued. It’s going to be in violation of the law. You’ll regret it. Please.’ No matter how headstrong they might be, do you feel like that’s the duty of the Attorney General’s office?
Yates: I do believe that that’s the duty of the attorney general’s office — to fairly and impartially evaluate the law and to provide the president and the administration with impartial legal advice.
This is the suckhole of hypocrisy that is the modern Republican party. Stop defending it.
We need to make colleges accountable for the employment of their students post-grad. It's a tricky problem and I don't know how to best approach it, but if we did that then US education would be in a much better place.
Byte wrote: Question for the Americans in the thread.
When the Hollywood types express their views and opinions do you think this sways or influence citizens to think similarly? Think recent headlines and events. Madonna, JLaw, etc.
I don't think they sway anyone but they might reinforce existing views. The problem is, everyone's diving off the deep end lately so it's only the cray-cray crowd who's views are being reinforced.
Speaking of the entertainment industry, the comedians have started pumping out the Winona Ryder skits and here's one that fits the general topic.
Yep, she's getting close to Sean Young level cray-cray.
NinthMusketeer wrote: We need to make colleges accountable for the employment of their students post-grad. It's a tricky problem and I don't know how to best approach it, but if we did that then US education would be in a much better place.
There are standards in place, authored by Senator Warren and passed in to law. Current education tsar* Betsy DeVos has been ambivalent about whether she'll enforce them.
*Are we still using that term, or was only a thing for Obama administrations?
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Just Tony wrote: The better solution is finding other uses for the coal in the mines.
First up, the problem with coal mine employment isn't declining production but new techniques that require less labour. Coal mine employment collapsed in the 70s with open cut mining, the decline in production is very recent.
Secondly, your argument here is much like saying at the beginning of the 20th century that the answer is to find other uses for horses and carts. This is not how it works, this is not how it could ever work. New technologies replace old technologies. Employment is found by shifting displaced labour from the old industries with products that aren't viable, to the new industries with products that have economic value.
This isn't a nice thing for people facing change, but it's been reality since some English nobles came up with the idea of enclosing their crop fields. And while things can be done to make change easier (retraining, government supported investment in affected areas), any effort to deny the overall change is likely to achieve nothing, or if it works only only achieve stagnation.
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Prestor Jon wrote: What is the proper role and function of the Dept of Education? Or the Dept of Energy? Or the Dept of Homeland Security? The Dept of Ed has only been operating since 1980, The Dept of Energy began operating in 1977, Homeland security started in 2002, HUD was formed in 1965. The majority of the cabinet departments are relatively new creations in US history, they're not mentioned in the constitution, their mission and proper function changes with every new president. What is the benchmark you're using to determine the efficacy and proper usage of these departments? Policies under Obama were different than under Clinton which were different than during the Reagan administration etc.
Departments shift focus with new presidents, but they don’t completely change role. To use a business analogy that I know conservatives are so fond of, Facebook has only been in business since 2004, but that’s long enough to develop expertise and processes within their niche. It would be considered utterly bonkers if Facebook came out tomorrow and announced they were stopping the social network thing and they were now a soft drink company. Even if they have a really great idea for a softdrink, they have no expertise in that, and would now be needed to dump all the expertise they have developed in social media.
The same is true of government agencies. You can’t just decide they should be something different from one day to the next. The people in the agency have set roles and set expertise that pushes them in a different direction. Strategic management is about working with the organisation as it is, guiding it to a new strategic direction while respecting the expertise and ability that already exists. And while that means you are unlikely to make a huge difference in the four years of your government, if the idea is a good one then the new government will be likely to just quietly accept the direction you put in place, and even if they don’t the public servants in the agency itself will be likely to continue that direction by themselves.
This, like everything so far in the Trump administration, is falling down not on ideology, but on the understanding of what government is and how it works.
whembly wrote: It's pointless to gnash your teeth that he puts someone there that is diametrically opposed to what the agencies have done in the past... the POTUS sets the agenda... the agencies ENACTS them.
It's our job as voters to hold him to account via the voting booth, or in warranted case, take him to court. (provided we have standing)
Would it shock anyone to learn this is a new belief among Republicans? In 2015 Senator Jeff Sessions, now about to be confirmed as Attorney General questioned Obama's nominee for Deputy Attorney General, Sally Yates. Sessions was very concerned about standing up against illegal orders.
Sessions: Well, you have to watch out because people will be asking you to do things, you just need to say no about. Do you think the Attorney General has a responsibility to say no to the President if he asks for something that's improper? A lot of people have defended the Lynch nomination, for example, by saying, ‘Well, he appoints somebody who's going to execute his views. What's wrong with that?’ But if the views a President wants to execute are unlawful, should the Attorney General or the Deputy Attorney General say no?
Yates: Senator, I believe that the Attorney General or the Deputy Attorney General has an obligation to follow the law and the Constitution and to give their independent legal advice to the President.
Sessions: Does the Office of Legal Counsel — which makes many of these opinions that impact policy — does it report through the deputy's office or directly to the Attorney General?
Yates: Well, when you look at the org chart, the Office of Legal Counsel reports to the deputy's office, but it's important that the Office of Legal Counsel also be independent because federal agencies across our government regularly come to the Office of Legal Counsel seeking advice and guidance about what is permissible and what isn't. And it's critically important that the OLC advice — the Office of Legal Counsel advice — be just that, advice, and that it not be advocacy.
Sessions: Well, that’s true. That’s true. And like any CEO, where the law firm —sometimes the lawyers have to tell the CEO, ‘Mr. CEO, you can’t do that, don’t do that. You’ll get us sued. It’s going to be in violation of the law. You’ll regret it. Please.’ No matter how headstrong they might be, do you feel like that’s the duty of the Attorney General’s office?
Yates: I do believe that that’s the duty of the attorney general’s office — to fairly and impartially evaluate the law and to provide the president and the administration with impartial legal advice.
This is the suckhole of hypocrisy that is the modern Republican party. Stop defending it.
Byte wrote: Question for the Americans in the thread.
When the Hollywood types express their views and opinions do you think this sways or influence citizens to think similarly? Think recent headlines and events. Madonna, JLaw, etc.
I doubt celebrities are effective at swaying anyone.
I think they are effective at bringing attention to things that might otherwise be overlooked. News tends to report what people want to read about, which can make... I don't know. Starving children in Africa (for example) generally isn't a major topic here. Not until some has been actor makes an ad, sets it to some horribly depressing song with even more horribly depressing pictures, and blasts it all over TV. At that point celebrities I think are being effective.
Issues where people just don't think about them are something they can do a lot about. Issues where people already have an opinion? Not so much.
whembly wrote: So what is it that you believe is hypocrisy?
I think it should be pretty obvious from the quote:
Sessions: Well, that’s true. That’s true. And like any CEO, where the law firm —sometimes the lawyers have to tell the CEO, ‘Mr. CEO, you can’t do that, don’t do that. You’ll get us sued. It’s going to be in violation of the law. You’ll regret it. Please.’ No matter how headstrong they might be, do you feel like that’s the duty of the Attorney General’s office?
Trump's AG pick openly says that the AG has an obligation to say "no, this isn't legal" instead of just rubber-stamping whatever the president orders, and he's still acceptable. Obama's AG pick says the same, and she's a traitor who should have resigned if she didn't want to follow the president's orders.
Just Tony wrote: The better solution is finding other uses for the coal in the mines.
Like what? Wishful thinking doesn't magically make coal useful for other things.
Might be inconvenient for some, and downright unacceptable to those that think coal is the Antichrist, but it beats throwing money the government doesn't have at the problem.
Better that than throwing money the government doesn't have at building a border wall that won't work.
Just Tony wrote: The better solution is finding other uses for the coal in the mines.
Like what? Wishful thinking doesn't magically make coal useful for other things.
Might be inconvenient for some, and downright unacceptable to those that think coal is the Antichrist, but it beats throwing money the government doesn't have at the problem.
Better that than throwing money the government doesn't have at building a border wall that won't work.
The only thing I can think of is re-opening out rare earth metal mines, as those are ever increasing in usage (with technology). Still have the problem of automation though, and I'm not sure they could compete with China, but it's something to look into I guess.
sebster wrote:
NinthMusketeer wrote: We need to make colleges accountable for the employment of their students post-grad. It's a tricky problem and I don't know how to best approach it, but if we did that then US education would be in a much better place.
There are standards in place, authored by Senator Warren and passed in to law. Current education tsar* Betsy DeVos has been ambivalent about whether she'll enforce them.
*Are we still using that term, or was only a thing for Obama administrations?
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Just Tony wrote: The better solution is finding other uses for the coal in the mines.
First up, the problem with coal mine employment isn't declining production but new techniques that require less labour. Coal mine employment collapsed in the 70s with open cut mining, the decline in production is very recent.
Secondly, your argument here is much like saying at the beginning of the 20th century that the answer is to find other uses for horses and carts. This is not how it works, this is not how it could ever work. New technologies replace old technologies. Employment is found by shifting displaced labour from the old industries with products that aren't viable, to the new industries with products that have economic value.
This isn't a nice thing for people facing change, but it's been reality since some English nobles came up with the idea of enclosing their crop fields. And while things can be done to make change easier (retraining, government supported investment in affected areas), any effort to deny the overall change is likely to achieve nothing, or if it works only only achieve stagnation.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Prestor Jon wrote: What is the proper role and function of the Dept of Education? Or the Dept of Energy? Or the Dept of Homeland Security? The Dept of Ed has only been operating since 1980, The Dept of Energy began operating in 1977, Homeland security started in 2002, HUD was formed in 1965. The majority of the cabinet departments are relatively new creations in US history, they're not mentioned in the constitution, their mission and proper function changes with every new president. What is the benchmark you're using to determine the efficacy and proper usage of these departments? Policies under Obama were different than under Clinton which were different than during the Reagan administration etc.
Departments shift focus with new presidents, but they don’t completely change role. To use a business analogy that I know conservatives are so fond of, Facebook has only been in business since 2004, but that’s long enough to develop expertise and processes within their niche. It would be considered utterly bonkers if Facebook came out tomorrow and announced they were stopping the social network thing and they were now a soft drink company. Even if they have a really great idea for a softdrink, they have no expertise in that, and would now be needed to dump all the expertise they have developed in social media.
The same is true of government agencies. You can’t just decide they should be something different from one day to the next. The people in the agency have set roles and set expertise that pushes them in a different direction. Strategic management is about working with the organisation as it is, guiding it to a new strategic direction while respecting the expertise and ability that already exists. And while that means you are unlikely to make a huge difference in the four years of your government, if the idea is a good one then the new government will be likely to just quietly accept the direction you put in place, and even if they don’t the public servants in the agency itself will be likely to continue that direction by themselves.
This, like everything so far in the Trump administration, is falling down not on ideology, but on the understanding of what government is and how it works.
Just a few. Some of those strike me as uses that we could see easily ramping up with, especially with increases in infrastructure. However, all some people see when they look at coal is that it emits carbon dioxide. Kind of like every living thing on the planet. And CO2 isn't even the most eggregious greenhouse gas, if you swing with the Climate Change crowd.
As far as changes in industry, the precious metals mines are a great example of how we could employ displaced miners. "Don't have work at this mine? This company is coming in to dig up another resource in the area or within a reasonable commute." which makes a hell of a lot more sense than, AND is much more responsible than, footing subsistance and education costs onto an already strained US budget. I wonder if the Dems or Repubs would be opposed to cutting Congressional/federal pay in proportion to the entitlements handed out.
whembly wrote: So what is it that you believe is hypocrisy?
I think it should be pretty obvious from the quote:
Sessions: Well, that’s true. That’s true. And like any CEO, where the law firm —sometimes the lawyers have to tell the CEO, ‘Mr. CEO, you can’t do that, don’t do that. You’ll get us sued. It’s going to be in violation of the law. You’ll regret it. Please.’ No matter how headstrong they might be, do you feel like that’s the duty of the Attorney General’s office?
Trump's AG pick openly says that the AG has an obligation to say "no, this isn't legal" instead of just rubber-stamping whatever the president orders, and he's still acceptable. Obama's AG pick says the same, and she's a traitor who should have resigned if she didn't want to follow the president's orders.
Here's the problem... she didn't say "no, this isn't legal".
She said "I'm not convinced...". This was pure political grandstanding.
Having that "I'm not convinced" mindset, she should've reached out to her peers and WH to seek clarification. Failing that, she should've resigned.
Just a few. Some of those strike me as uses that we could see easily ramping up with, especially with increases in infrastructure.
Yes, of course there are uses for coal, but that wasn't the question. What are the new uses for coal that will bring the demand back? You can't just arbitrarily "ramp up" things like using coal in water filters without significantly increased demand for the final product. Unless you propose subsidizing the manufacturing of useless products just for the sake of using up as much coal as possible?
However, all some people see when they look at coal is that it emits carbon dioxide. Kind of like every living thing on the planet. And CO2 isn't even the most eggregious greenhouse gas, if you swing with the Climate Change crowd.
Are you serious? You can't possibly be saying this sincerely...
As far as changes in industry, the precious metals mines are a great example of how we could employ displaced miners. "Don't have work at this mine? This company is coming in to dig up another resource in the area or within a reasonable commute."
This assumes that an appropriate resource exists nearby, that sufficient demand for it exists to open a new mine, and that it can all be done profitably enough to justify doing so. Given that businesses tend to want to make money there probably aren't all that many unexploited resources waiting for that labor, if they were really such a great profit opportunity then the mining would be happening already. So you're still throwing in obscene amounts of government money, just in the form of subsidies to mining companies to encourage them to run unprofitable business and "create jobs".
You're listing uses of coal that are already established, as a means of saying what we should be doing with coal instead. Most of those uses have been in since before the war. The idea that you can suddenly restore the demand for coal by talking about stuff that it is already used makes no sense on any level.
Some of those strike me as uses that we could see easily ramping up with, especially with increases in infrastructure.
Maybe you should have backed Obama's $500b infrastructure bill. Or do these kinds of benefits only exist when there's a Republican in the whitehouse?
As far as changes in industry, the precious metals mines are a great example of how we could employ displaced miners. "Don't have work at this mine? This company is coming in to dig up another resource in the area or within a reasonable commute." which makes a hell of a lot more sense than, AND is much more responsible than, footing subsistance and education costs onto an already strained US budget.
Huh, if you remove the weird fixation on mining, and consider that people displaced by a declining mine production can go in other forms of work... then you end up with Clinton's clean energy plan for Pennsylvania.
whembly wrote: Having that "I'm not convinced" mindset, she should've reached out to her peers and WH to seek clarification.
Oh FFS, "I'm not convinced" is the polite way of saying "WTF is wrong with you, why are you doing something so stupid?" when you don't want to give someone justification to fire you for your language alone.
Failing that, she should've resigned.
Ah yes, resignation is of course appropriate when it's the Other Team's AG disagreeing with Your Team's president. When it's the other way around disagreement is entirely appropriate.
whembly wrote: Having that "I'm not convinced" mindset, she should've reached out to her peers and WH to seek clarification.
Oh FFS, "I'm not convinced" is the polite way of saying "WTF is wrong with you, why are you doing something so stupid?" when you don't want to give someone justification to fire you for your language alone.
Failing that, she should've resigned.
Ah yes, resignation is of course appropriate when it's the Other Team's AG disagreeing with Your Team's president. When it's the other way around disagreement is entirely appropriate.
Then please show me specifically the hypocrisy. No one has yet pointed out a law/regulation that would've rendered that EO illegal.
whembly wrote: Then please show me specifically the hypocrisy. No one has yet pointed out a law/regulation that would've rendered that EO illegal.
No, you don't get to move the goalposts like that.
I'm not moving the goal post.... as you can't provide the legal justification for her grandstanding.
That's because she NEVER PROVIDED one.
That acting AG's job is to defend the executive's legal order, full stop. Otherwise, if you can't, then you shouldn't be in such position in the first place.
The hypocrisy thing was Session's question to her confirmation as what role the AG should be in advising the President. So far, no one has explain the 'hypocrisy' part.
We can argue whether or not it was a good idea... that's fine. But, it totally wrong and unprofessional for her to "not enforce" a legal directive from the President.
It has been simultaneously struck down in around 6 courts or something like that, citing due process laws (specifically in relation to visas). Maybe she just, you know, accepted the rulings?
whembly wrote: I'm not moving the goal post.... as you can't provide the legal justification for her grandstanding.
I am not an AG. Nor am I a lawyer at all. But what we have here is a case of a lawyer saying, in polite terms, "WTF IS THIS " and questioning the legality of the order. Unless you're going to argue that she knew there's no case and was lying about everything she said then this clearly fits within the bounds of what Your Team's AG pick said is justified.
That acting AG's job is to defend the executive's legal order, full stop.
Not according to Your Team's AG pick. "Defend it unless you think the legal reasoning is flawed and the correct advice is 'don't do this'" is not "defend it, full stop".
So far, no one has explain the 'hypocrisy' part.
The hypocrisy is that Your Team's AG pick said that the AG's job is sometimes to say "no" instead of obeying the president's orders, but as soon as Their Team's AG says "no" to Your Team's president it's borderline treason and they should resign their job if they won't obey orders.
With regards to coal, coal really only has one use, repurposing a material just for its own sake to maintain inefficient employment just ends up being corporate welfare in the long run. Coal just isn't profitable is the fundamental issue. Regulations won't change that, Natural Gas is strangling Coal, and that's just the market doing its thing.
Now, there's something to be said for it being difficult to retrain older workers. That's absolutely a situation in which there's a role for government to step in not only with training but actual jobs programs. Got a bunch of older coal miners? Well, they have experience working underground, with heavy equipment, with respirators, with all sorts of safety regulations, and other such things. Retrain them and put them to work on infrastructure projects, tunnels, things like that. Have a jobs program that transports them to various infrastructure sites on special projects or pay/help pay for relocation to such areas. Have a government program to find them work with local utilities in laying underground wire and pipes and act as a ready-made employment agency with paths to full employment in place. Stuff like that. Society gets new infrastructure, workers get new jobs, old industries aren't kept on expensive life support that enriches only their owners, political tension is decreased, and everyone wins.
whembly wrote: I'm not moving the goal post.... as you can't provide the legal justification for her grandstanding.
That's because she NEVER PROVIDED one.
If she had gone in to the nitty gritty of explaining how the president's EO was incorrect, then you and the rest of the ever faithful conservatives would have attacked her for using her position to challenge the president. The only difference is you would have been right in that instance, because it would be wholly inappropriate to use the position of AG to actively make the case against a president's EO. That is not the purpose of the role, and Yates was entirely correct in ethics to refuse to enforce the order and leave the reasons why to be debated by politicians and pundits.
That acting AG's job is to defend the executive's legal order, full stop.
You've now invented a position where the AG should inform the president that a law is illegal, but then if the president decides to go ahead with the law anyway the AG should defend it.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: If say, 12-18 months down the line I was wrong, feel free to call me out on it.
Then again, it might be too late by then, and I might be battling a mutant horde for control of the world's last tin opener.
There's no need and indeed it's wrong to wait before calling politicians for bad decisions.
Politics make good decisions, you praise them for that. They make bad decision, you give them hell for it. It's as simple as that. Waiting serves no purpose and doing good does not excuse bad. President does 99 good decisions and 1 decision you give praise for the 99 and give him hell for the 1. And you do it _right away_. You don't wait for either. You give them it right away.
It really is as simple as that. Bad decision doesn't change into good decision just because you wait.
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crimsondave wrote: "Winning the election doesn't mean one "won" the debates, and in fact one can become president with only about a quarter of the popular vote and potentially fewer than one in fifteen americans casting a vote for that candidate. Winning the election is a much different thing, as most votes are effectively pointless and only a relatively small handful of voted in a small number of places actually have a decisive impact."
A quarter? One in fifteen?
Clinton: 48.2%
Trump: 46.1%
He was pointing out how one doesn't need to win debates to be president. And pointing out possible scenario. I'm going to drive it even further. You really don't need more than couple DOZEN voters vs opponents 100M+ if vote distribution is right. Okay that's not realistically happening but shows you don't need to be most popular nor win debates(which Trump lost) to be president.
Trump's result in voter difference was particularly bad. Usually losing candinates don't lose popular vote as much as he did.
And as it is even Trump voters generally don't seem to agree with his policies seeing approval ratings for his decisions tend to be around 30-40%...
Relapse wrote: The people who counted were persuaded by his stirring oratory, though, putting him in office. I call that a win.
Let's not pretend that Trump actually did anything to earn his votes. Trump won because ~60 million people will reflexively vote for anyone with an R next to their name, no matter how obviously terrible.
Yeah. He could have promised to launch nuclear attack on the first day and there would be millions who would STILL have voted him. Only election where such promise could have backfired would have been primaries.
Though to be fair same goes for dems. Huge swathes of them will vote for whoever happens to have D next to their name.
This may have been mentionned before, but monday afternoon, Spicer mentionned the Quebec City mosque attack as a justification for the new immigration policies.
Despite the fact that this horror was committed by a white french-canadian man.
And that not a single person murdered or in attendance originated from any of the seven countries targeted.
There's a certain level of foot-to-mouth that induces serious cringe. For me, this is it.
tneva82 wrote: Though to be fair same goes for dems. Huge swathes of them will vote for whoever happens to have D next to their name.
While this is true, the difference between turnout for a strong Democrat and turnout for a weak Democrat is much more pronounced. When Democrats ran the grey blur John Kerry, he got 59m votes. Obama got 69m vote just 4 years later.
In comparison, when Republicans ran a good candidate in John McCain, he got 60m votes. Romney ran after that, and without the headwind that McCain suffered... and he managed 61m votes. Then this last election the great orange disaster managed 63m votes.
This why the old adage holds true - Democrats have to fall in love, Republicans fall in line. Democrats have a much bigger base, maybe 15 to 20% bigger, but turnout is much more fickle.
Kovnik Obama wrote: This may have been mentionned before, but monday afternoon, Spicer mentionned the Quebec City mosque attack as a justification for the new immigration policies.
Despite the fact that this horror was committed by a white french-canadian man.
And that not a single person murdered or in attendance originated from any of the seven countries targeted.
There's a certain level of foot-to-mouth that induces serious cringe. For me, this is it.
Well that's Trump. Sprouting whatever BS he thinks sounds good without checking for facts.
Some more of his alternative facts. He's probably soon going to claim shooter was somalian or something.
tneva82 wrote: Though to be fair same goes for dems. Huge swathes of them will vote for whoever happens to have D next to their name.
While this is true, the difference between turnout for a strong Democrat and turnout for a weak Democrat is much more pronounced. When Democrats ran the grey blur John Kerry, he got 59m votes. Obama got 69m vote just 4 years later.
In comparison, when Republicans ran a good candidate in John McCain, he got 60m votes. Romney ran after that, and without the headwind that McCain suffered... and he managed 61m votes. Then this last election the great orange disaster managed 63m votes.
This why the old adage holds true - Democrats have to fall in love, Republicans fall in line. Democrats have a much bigger base, maybe 15 to 20% bigger, but turnout is much more fickle.
Yes I know. But didn't want to look like I was claiming that wouldn't happen for dems as well. That would be pretty dishonest.
Out of the ~130M-140M or so that votes wonder how much are actually floating? Ie can either decide to not vote or switch between parties? That would be interesting to know.
tneva82 wrote: He was pointing out how one doesn't need to win debates to be president. And pointing out possible scenario. I'm going to drive it even further. You really don't need more than couple DOZEN voters vs opponents 100M+ if vote distribution is right. Okay that's not realistically happening but shows you don't need to be most popular nor win debates(which Trump lost) to be president.
The bigger issue on debates is that 'winning' is fairly meaningless if the audience is already decided. I mean, on any sensible level Trump made a fool of himself, he rambled, blathered and generally acted like a highschool kid trying to give a book report when the only thing he read was the title.
But, like the analogy I gave earlier, when the barflies crowd around and hear a story from the fattest drunkest saddest amongst them that he totally slept with two supermodels last night, it isn't because the story was convincing. It's because people can convince themselves to believe all kinds of nonsense when they want to believe it.
Conservatives saw the debate, or at least would have seen the highlights (lowlights), and they decided to pretend to themselves that Trump wasn't a grossly incompetent idiot. And now, as Trump is throwing out EOs and random policies then taking them back, and then doubling down again, as he's got his staffers out there doubling down on stupid, meaningless lies just to protect his ego, they're still pretending this isn't an embarrassment for conservatism, a humiliation for a party that once called itself the party of adults.
The question now is whether four years of this nonsense will break the back of the collective delusion that is holding conservative politics in the US together.
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Kovnik Obama wrote: This may have been mentionned before, but monday afternoon, Spicer mentionned the Quebec City mosque attack as a justification for the new immigration policies.
Despite the fact that this horror was committed by a white french-canadian man.
And that not a single person murdered or in attendance originated from any of the seven countries targeted.
There's a certain level of foot-to-mouth that induces serious cringe. For me, this is it.
Post fact world. An incident in which the Muslims are victims means muslims should be seen as terrorists.
I mean feth it, this is a government that put out an EO for security that banned majority muslim countries who's members have committed no terrorism in the US, but has no ban against Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, or any of the countries who's citizens have actually committed terror in the US.
None of this makes any sense at all and Trump doesn't care. And nor it seems, do his Republican supporters.
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tneva82 wrote: Yes I know. But didn't want to look like I was claiming that wouldn't happen for dems as well. That would be pretty dishonest.
Yeah, there is certainly a died in the wool Democrat base as well. It's just that it's probably somewhat smaller than the Republican base, but this is offset by a larger block of voters who will turn out if mood/candidate is strong enough.
Out of the ~130M-140M or so that votes wonder how much are actually floating? Ie can either decide to not vote or switch between parties? That would be interesting to know.
It's unknown, but its generally believed the swing vote has massively declined in the last couple of decades. A few elections ago most campaigning was based around winning over those precious swing voters, but these days both parties are focusing more and more on targeting their bases, in the belief that swing voters have massively declined and have poor turnout.
Come on guys, in the States people are upset about Trump's EO against migration from rogue states.
And here in Germany there was a police raid against the islamistic scene with 1,100 police men this night.
wuestenfux wrote: Come on guys, in the States people are upset about Trump's EO against migration from rogue states.
And here in Germany there was a police raid against the islamistic scene with 1,100 police men this night.
I think the problem with Muslimaphobia will be much worse in Germany than the US, since Angry Merkle opened the countries borders to everyone, now the state police are over paranoid about hunting potential terrorists down to protect people. I know it hasn't helped with the Christmas market attack, but if a terrorist wants to get into a country they will find a way, no matter what. If I may pose a hypothetical question, the E.O plan was drawn up by the Obama administration. If Obama or say Clinton had given it the go ahead, would we still see the same levels of opposition?
wuestenfux wrote: Come on guys, in the States people are upset about Trump's EO against migration from rogue states.
And here in Germany there was a police raid against the islamistic scene with 1,100 police men this night.
I think the problem with Muslimaphobia will be much worse in Germany than the US, since Angry Merkle opened the countries borders to everyone, now the state police are over paranoid about hunting potential terrorists down to protect people. I know it hasn't helped with the Christmas market attack, but if a terrorist wants to get into a country they will find a way, no matter what. If I may pose a hypothetical question, the E.O plan was drawn up by the Obama administration. If Obama or say Clinton had given it the go ahead, would we still see the same levels of opposition?
I think we see an overreaction of Americans who haven't voted for Trump.
The Trump administration should be given at least 100 days.
wuestenfux wrote: The Trump administration should be given at least 100 days.
Why? That's 99 more than we need to see that Trump is doing exactly what everyone expected.
I think many of us didn't expect this actually. He is doing what he said he would, but personally I assumed that most of his outlandish claims were just bluster and cynical bs to pander to those wanting to hear it. It seems as if Trump actually believe he things he said during the campaign . Which is probably more frightening than if he'd just said crazy gak he knew was crazy. I prefer a cynical liar to someone who believes his own fantasies.
I agree that it's ridiculous to demand some 100 days or 1 year honeymoon though. Trump is doing what he said he would. People called him out on those things being stupid before he did them, and there's no reason to stop once they've started to transform into actions.
Sentinel1 wrote: If Obama or say Clinton had given it the go ahead, would we still see the same levels of opposition?
I think we see an overreaction of Americans who haven't voted for Trump.
The Trump administration should be given at least 100 days.
Obama (and almost certainly Clinton. I guess we will never know for sure) would never have issues such wide sweeping, poorly thought out dictates.
Trump is treating EO's like he is a medieval feudal king issuing commands from on high, and his supporters are treating his election like the divine right. Anyone who disagrees with him is being told "he's the president" or "he won the election. Get over it". That is simply not the way a democracy works. He is the most powerful man in the world. There is no slack, no wait and see. A functioning democracy requires that every action and every choice of the government be open to free criticism and question. No, he should not be given 100 days. Before the election we had "lets see what he does when he is elected". After the election it was "wait until he is in office". Now "its give him AT LEAST 100 days"? I accept a grace period if you are waiting for something to be implemented that was promised, but there is no grace period on policy that has been set and implemented.
wuestenfux wrote: The Trump administration should be given at least 100 days.
Why? That's 99 more than we need to see that Trump is doing exactly what everyone expected.
He is doing what he promised he would do, the things that he promised that got him elected by the tiny voter pool that bothered to vote (CNN claims 55% of eligible voters). now he has put forward a judge who is ideologically somehow like scalia despite living in the peoples republic of boulder.
Obama (and almost certainly Clinton. I guess we will never know for sure) would never have issues such wide sweeping, poorly thought out dictates.
Probably. But what has Obama achieved during the last four years? Obamacare? Too expensive. The Republicans have blocked some of his initiatives. I would say not very much.
wuestenfux wrote: Probably. But what has Obama achieved during the last four years? Obamacare? Too expensive. The Republicans have blocked some of his initiatives. I would say not very much.
At this point accomplishing nothing would be a major step forward from what we're getting from Trump.
Obama (and almost certainly Clinton. I guess we will never know for sure) would never have issues such wide sweeping, poorly thought out dictates.
Probably. But what has Obama achieved during the last four years? Obamacare? Too expensive. The Republicans have blocked some of his initiatives. I would say not very much.
Rather debatable, but I am not sure what Obama's failing to do anything in the last 4 years (which I disagree with) has to do with Trump's kingly pronouncements. Are you suggesting that dictatorship is preferable to democracy because things get done, even if those things are poorly thought out, arbitrary and self serving?
Sentinel1 wrote: If Obama or say Clinton had given it the go ahead, would we still see the same levels of opposition?
I think we see an overreaction of Americans who haven't voted for Trump.
The Trump administration should be given at least 100 days.
Obama (and almost certainly Clinton. I guess we will never know for sure) would never have issues such wide sweeping, poorly thought out dictates.
Trump is treating EO's like he is a medieval feudal king issuing commands from on high, and his supporters are treating his election like the divine right. Anyone who disagrees with him is being told "he's the president" or "he won the election. Get over it". That is simply not the way a democracy works. He is the most powerful man in the world. There is no slack, no wait and see. A functioning democracy requires that every action and every choice of the government be open to free criticism and question. No, he should not be given 100 days. Before the election we had "lets see what he does when he is elected". After the election it was "wait until he is in office". Now "its give him AT LEAST 100 days"? I accept a grace period if you are waiting for something to be implemented that was promised, but there is no grace period on policy that has been set and implemented.
It is an oddity I've spotted in what I see about the American Electorate.
Republican President SUPPORT OR YOU'RE NOT A TRUE AMERICAN!
Democrat President OBSTRUCT OR YOU'RE NOT A TRUE AMERICAN!
As I said, I can only go off what I see in the media - I make no claim to this be an accurate portrayal
I think many of us didn't expect this actually. He is doing what he said he would, but personally I assumed that most of his outlandish claims were just bluster and cynical bs to pander to those wanting to hear it. It seems as if Trump actually believe he things he said during the campaign . Which is probably more frightening than if he'd just said crazy gak he knew was crazy. I prefer a cynical liar to someone who believes his own fantasies.
I think he is cynical more than a true believer. He is making a show of keeping his promises but the underlying reality is a con job.
Look at his muslim ban - he picked countries with no history of exporting terrorists to the US. Muslim countries that have sent terrorists to the US but also have Trump investments... they're not in the ban.
Or look at his work on jobs. A bunch of announcments made with various CEOs, all show about a few thousand jobs that in most cases weren't even a change in company policy.
The only place I can see any conviction is to his stupid wall. And honestly I think thar might be just because people made fun of him for his stupid idea, so now his ego demands he do it.
Probably. But what has Obama achieved during the last four years? Obamacare? Too expensive. The Republicans have blocked some of his initiatives. I would say not very much.
Obamacare was passed 6 years ago, in Obama's first term. Not within the last 4 years. And saying you don't like it because its expensive makes no sense - it was passed as a zero cost bill - revenues from taxes on high end plans and cost savings offset the cost of subsidies on new plans. To individual consumers ACA has coincided with much reduced premium increases.
You can't make technological progress illegal. You're not putting the automation genie back in the bottle.
Inquisitor Bob from the Imperium of Man would like to have a word with you. Would you like your brain encased in a blue servitor model or a red servitor model?...
esterday, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones suggested that the deadly attack on the Islamic Cultural Centre of Quebec City was a false flag, which doesn’t come as a surprise as Jones has also claimed that tragedies like 9/11, the Oklahoma City bombing and mass shootings in Newtown, Connecticut and Charleston, South Carolina were also false flag operations.
While speaking with right-wing author Matt Bracken, Jones seized on early reports naming Alexandre Bissonnette and Mohamed el Khadir as suspects in the attack that left six dead. The police have since said that Khadir was actually a witness, and named Bissonnette, who was known for having far-right views, as the sole suspect. Conservative media outlets and the Trump administration, however, seized on the early and since retracted reports to stoke anti-Muslim sentiment.
Jones and Bracken appeared to quickly jump to the conclusion that Khadir was mastermind of the attack and that he used Bissonnette as a patsy.
Jones, who claimed that “Muslims are leading, in this country, an insurrection” through the protests against President Trump’s ban on refugees and people from several predominantly Muslim countries, called the Quebec City attack “jihadis killing other Muslims.” He also wondered if George Soros was involved in the attack in an attempt to rile up anti-Trump demonstrators.
“If you’re going to run a false flag against Muslims, you obviously have Muslims do it,” he said.
Bracken concluded that the mosque attack was “a fubar false flag operation” because Khadir and Bissonnette were arrested. He said Bissonnette possibly converted to Islam in secret while Khadir set him up as “the patsy, the white guy found at the scene.”
While Jones’ claims are often conspiratorial and bizarre, he has found a fan and supporter in Trump.
You can't make technological progress illegal. You're not putting the automation genie back in the bottle.
Inquisitor Bob from the Imperium of Man would like to have a word with you. Would you like your brain encased in a blue servitor model or a red servitor model?...
The thinking machines are bad, we may have to have a worm infested godemperor save us..on a desert planet :(
wuestenfux wrote: Come on guys, in the States people are upset about Trump's EO against migration from rogue states.
And here in Germany there was a police raid against the islamistic scene with 1,100 police men this night.
I think the problem with Muslimaphobia will be much worse in Germany than the US, since Angry Merkle opened the countries borders to everyone, now the state police are over paranoid about hunting potential terrorists down to protect people. I know it hasn't helped with the Christmas market attack, but if a terrorist wants to get into a country they will find a way, no matter what. If I may pose a hypothetical question, the E.O plan was drawn up by the Obama administration. If Obama or say Clinton had given it the go ahead, would we still see the same levels of opposition?
I think we see an overreaction of Americans who haven't voted for Trump.
The Trump administration should be given at least 100 days.
Why? Bad orders don't become bad orders because days pass.
You give feedback right away. They do right, you let them know. They do wrong, you let them know. Doesn't matter what relation there is. 99 good thing and 1 bad thing doesn't excuse them for the 1 bad thing. They need to be told it's bad.
That's how democracy is supposed to work. Not politicians having blanket right to do anything and you are supposed to just accept it.
Bad decisions can and should be given feedback RIGTH AWAY. Similarly good decisions need to be given appropriate feedback as well.
Simple as that.
If there's only critics about Trump's decision that's because he keeps making bad decisions.
sebster wrote: [
Obamacare was passed 6 years ago, in Obama's first term. Not within the last 4 years. And saying you don't like it because its expensive makes no sense - it was passed as a zero cost bill - revenues from taxes on high end plans and cost savings offset the cost of subsidies on new plans. To individual consumers ACA has coincided with much reduced premium increases.
Um....yeah, it was supposed to be a zero cost bill, but isn't there a massive build-up of debt in the not too distant future? Also, I don't have a high-end policy (Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield), and I still have seen an 86% increase in my premiums in the last 5 years, with a raise in deductibles, all while having ZERO claims. One of my employees also has stated that yes, he now has health care, but it's virtually useless. The cost and deductibles he has means it would only ever be better than nothing if he was in some kind of major life-threatening and prolonged injury.
Zywus wrote: I think many of us didn't expect this actually. He is doing what he said he would, but personally I assumed that most of his outlandish claims were just bluster and cynical bs to pander to those wanting to hear it. It seems as if Trump actually believe he things he said during the campaign . Which is probably more frightening than if he'd just said crazy gak he knew was crazy. I prefer a cynical liar to someone who believes his own fantasies.
I agree that it's ridiculous to demand some 100 days or 1 year honeymoon though. Trump is doing what he said he would. People called him out on those things being stupid before he did them, and there's no reason to stop once they've started to transform into actions.
Nah he doesn't neccessarily believe them. He's ego narsistic. He does whatever it does to boost his ego and wealth and that means lying without issues.
He knew Mexico won't pay the wall. He doesn't care. He just wants to boost his ego. He knows he won't bring production back because it's not possible. He just wanted to get into power and says whatever he thinks gets him there.
Zywus wrote: I think many of us didn't expect this actually. He is doing what he said he would, but personally I assumed that most of his outlandish claims were just bluster and cynical bs to pander to those wanting to hear it. It seems as if Trump actually believe he things he said during the campaign . Which is probably more frightening than if he'd just said crazy gak he knew was crazy. I prefer a cynical liar to someone who believes his own fantasies.
I agree that it's ridiculous to demand some 100 days or 1 year honeymoon though. Trump is doing what he said he would. People called him out on those things being stupid before he did them, and there's no reason to stop once they've started to transform into actions.
Nah he doesn't neccessarily believe them. He's ego narsistic. He does whatever it does to boost his ego and wealth and that means lying without issues.
He knew Mexico won't pay the wall. He doesn't care. He just wants to boost his ego. He knows he won't bring production back because it's not possible. He just wanted to get into power and says whatever he thinks gets him there.
I don't see such a problem with the whole 'wall issue'. The fact is it was already being built in certain places by previous administrations. It makes sense to link it up, 1) to justify money spent, 2)as a moral boost, 3) employment and prosperity of building contractors, 4) to serve as a border protection service. Of course you could argue well people could climb over or dig under it, but it would be a better use of public money than night time patrols over large areas that have a hit and miss chance of catching anyone. It will if anything make it harder for the illegal drug trade to ruin peoples lives, and to a lesser extent those dubious characters that won't get a visa. So I think the wall is a good thing.
As for Mexico paying for it, It will cost a lot of money and anyway of getting some is understandable. I imagine this is a jibe at the Ford company wanting to build the Focus cheaper cross border and then re-import it. Personally I have a problem with companies doing this from any nation. They should have a moral obligation to stay where they are based, as over time little by little the draw of build cheaper overseas and re-import takes hold. What you are left with is designed in X home country but manufactured elsewhere.
Never mind the cost or dubious use, the environmental impact will be huge. Animals don't respect boarders and the impact will be huge, whilst migrants and smugglers will just find other ways round. Either using the sea, or air, or the same old just going through the checkpoints.
The patrols will still happen, as they do currently on the stretches that exist. The wall will make no difference, whilst having a huge environmental and economic cost.
I don't see such a problem with the whole 'wall issue'. The fact is it was already being built in certain places by previous administrations. It makes sense to link it up, 1) to justify money spent, 2)as a moral boost, 3) employment and prosperity of building contractors, 4) to serve as a border protection service. Of course you could argue well people could climb over or dig under it, but it would be a better use of public money than night time patrols over large areas that have a hit and miss chance of catching anyone. It will if anything make it harder for the illegal drug trade to ruin peoples lives, and to a lesser extent those dubious characters that won't get a visa. So I think the wall is a good thing.
As for Mexico paying for it, It will cost a lot of money and anyway of getting some is understandable. I imagine this is a jibe at the Ford company wanting to build the Focus cheaper cross border and then re-import it. Personally I have a problem with companies doing this from any nation. They should have a moral obligation to stay where they are based, as over time little by little the draw of build cheaper overseas and re-import takes hold. What you are left with is designed in X home country but manufactured elsewhere.
It's billions paid by US poor&middle class. This will result in less spending which in turn will result less works. It archieves nothing but boost Trump's ego. Which is his goal. He doesn't care about good of US. He cares his ego and US can go to hell.
And Mexico won't be paying. That's the point. Bill will be paid by US citizens. Specifically poor&middle class. While accomplishing nothing but help Trump's ego.
And FYI wall doesn't help with jobs moving elsewhere. In fact effect for work in US will be negative since spending goes down due to poor&middle class in US having less money to spend which will result layovers which hurts poor&middle class more.
Oh and the patrols? They will stay too so no help there either. Wall without patrols is useless. Wall without patrols worked in china wall because china wall was built to stop herds. That's not applicable here...
d-usa wrote: Considering that Trump's gonna get impeached soon, should we let him pick a Justice in the last year of his presidency?
Heh... #TheMcConnellRule eh?
Imma steal that....
Automatically Appended Next Post:
wuestenfux wrote: Come on guys, in the States people are upset about Trump's EO against migration from rogue states.
And here in Germany there was a police raid against the islamistic scene with 1,100 police men this night.
1,100 police? o.O
I don't think the Ferguson riots in Missouri had over 500 police...
All the American cable news stations are guilty of pushing certain narratives/agendas but Fox News has been pushing a far right bias for a long time and is the most deliberate at being bias of the big three (CNN, MSNBC, Fox News). That being said MSNBC has really upped their bias ga,e in the last few years while CNN's political leaning is often outweighed by their general ineptitude at journalism or programming. Feels like 9/11 was the Slaaneshi like birth of instant gratification news media with the booming headlines and 24/7 "Breaking News".
Vankraken wrote: All the American cable news stations are guilty of pushing certain narratives/agendas but Fox News has been pushing a far right bias for a long time and is the most deliberate at being bias of the big three (CNN, MSNBC, Fox News). That being said MSNBC has really upped their bias ga,e in the last few years while CNN's political leaning is often outweighed by their general ineptitude at journalism or programming. Feels like 9/11 was the Slaaneshi like birth of instant gratification news media with the booming headlines and 24/7 "Breaking News".
I'd lean more to Nurgle...the news is going to gak!
I've been around long enough to remember the time when broadcast news was a loss-leader for the networks. For the most part, it was boring, straight-forward and there wasn't much distinction between the news venues. Nowadays, with dedicated news networks, social media and all the "spawn" passing for news sites on the internet, we have access to more news and connectivity than at any time in history and that has had some wonderful results, but it also has created some absolute abominations. Part of me sometimes longs for the boring days.
Vankraken wrote: All the American cable news stations are guilty of pushing certain narratives/agendas but Fox News has been pushing a far right bias for a long time and is the most deliberate at being bias of the big three (CNN, MSNBC, Fox News). That being said MSNBC has really upped their bias ga,e in the last few years while CNN's political leaning is often outweighed by their general ineptitude at journalism or programming. Feels like 9/11 was the Slaaneshi like birth of instant gratification news media with the booming headlines and 24/7 "Breaking News".
Didn't CNN have reporters actually colluding with the Clinton campaign? Wouldn't that indicate a hell of a bias?
Why? Bad orders don't become bad orders because days pass.
Here in Germany we have no such orders. They cannot agree on an upper bound of migrants coming in during one year.
Gefährder (persons that likely threaten public safety, likely islamic context) will eventually get ankle bracelets in the near future. Maybe.
Vankraken wrote: All the American cable news stations are guilty of pushing certain narratives/agendas but Fox News has been pushing a far right bias for a long time and is the most deliberate at being bias of the big three (CNN, MSNBC, Fox News). That being said MSNBC has really upped their bias ga,e in the last few years while CNN's political leaning is often outweighed by their general ineptitude at journalism or programming. Feels like 9/11 was the Slaaneshi like birth of instant gratification news media with the booming headlines and 24/7 "Breaking News".
Didn't CNN have reporters actually colluding with the Clinton campaign? Wouldn't that indicate a hell of a bias?
Did it? I remember a lot of noise from fringe sites about collusion but I didn't see anything of substance.
Vankraken wrote: All the American cable news stations are guilty of pushing certain narratives/agendas but Fox News has been pushing a far right bias for a long time and is the most deliberate at being bias of the big three (CNN, MSNBC, Fox News). That being said MSNBC has really upped their bias ga,e in the last few years while CNN's political leaning is often outweighed by their general ineptitude at journalism or programming. Feels like 9/11 was the Slaaneshi like birth of instant gratification news media with the booming headlines and 24/7 "Breaking News".
Lets be real. CNN has been "all Trump hate all the time" since Trump was nominated. Since the election they've just utterly lost their minds, to the extent I can't even watch them any more.
Frankly its annoying. I have a truckload of news cites on cable, but since they took off AJ I can only watch BBC, and I really could care less about soccer...;-)
White Supremacist Richard Spencer Hails Trump's 'de-Judaification' of Holocaust
The leader of the so-called 'alt-right' dismisses criticism of Trump's Holocaust Day statement that left out Jews as 'kvetching.'
Vankraken wrote: All the American cable news stations are guilty of pushing certain narratives/agendas but Fox News has been pushing a far right bias for a long time and is the most deliberate at being bias of the big three (CNN, MSNBC, Fox News). That being said MSNBC has really upped their bias ga,e in the last few years while CNN's political leaning is often outweighed by their general ineptitude at journalism or programming. Feels like 9/11 was the Slaaneshi like birth of instant gratification news media with the booming headlines and 24/7 "Breaking News".
Didn't CNN have reporters actually colluding with the Clinton campaign? Wouldn't that indicate a hell of a bias?
Did it? I remember a lot of noise from fringe sites about collusion but I didn't see anything of substance.
Donna Brazile isn't a journalist she was just a paid contributor/analyst but she did collude with Hillary's campaign by sending them debate questions in advance.
Vankraken wrote: All the American cable news stations are guilty of pushing certain narratives/agendas but Fox News has been pushing a far right bias for a long time and is the most deliberate at being bias of the big three (CNN, MSNBC, Fox News). That being said MSNBC has really upped their bias ga,e in the last few years while CNN's political leaning is often outweighed by their general ineptitude at journalism or programming. Feels like 9/11 was the Slaaneshi like birth of instant gratification news media with the booming headlines and 24/7 "Breaking News".
Lets be real. CNN has been "all Trump hate all the time" since Trump was nominated.
TBF, most of America has been "all Trump hate all the time"...
Vankraken wrote: All the American cable news stations are guilty of pushing certain narratives/agendas but Fox News has been pushing a far right bias for a long time and is the most deliberate at being bias of the big three (CNN, MSNBC, Fox News). That being said MSNBC has really upped their bias ga,e in the last few years while CNN's political leaning is often outweighed by their general ineptitude at journalism or programming. Feels like 9/11 was the Slaaneshi like birth of instant gratification news media with the booming headlines and 24/7 "Breaking News".
Didn't CNN have reporters actually colluding with the Clinton campaign? Wouldn't that indicate a hell of a bias?
Did it? I remember a lot of noise from fringe sites about collusion but I didn't see anything of substance.
Donna Brazile isn't a journalist she was just a paid contributor/analyst but she did collude with Hillary's campaign by sending them debate questions in advance.
Vankraken wrote: All the American cable news stations are guilty of pushing certain narratives/agendas but Fox News has been pushing a far right bias for a long time and is the most deliberate at being bias of the big three (CNN, MSNBC, Fox News). That being said MSNBC has really upped their bias ga,e in the last few years while CNN's political leaning is often outweighed by their general ineptitude at journalism or programming. Feels like 9/11 was the Slaaneshi like birth of instant gratification news media with the booming headlines and 24/7 "Breaking News".
Lets be real. CNN has been "all Trump hate all the time" since Trump was nominated.
TBF, most of America has been "all Trump hate all the time"...
Vankraken wrote: All the American cable news stations are guilty of pushing certain narratives/agendas but Fox News has been pushing a far right bias for a long time and is the most deliberate at being bias of the big three (CNN, MSNBC, Fox News). That being said MSNBC has really upped their bias ga,e in the last few years while CNN's political leaning is often outweighed by their general ineptitude at journalism or programming. Feels like 9/11 was the Slaaneshi like birth of instant gratification news media with the booming headlines and 24/7 "Breaking News".
Didn't CNN have reporters actually colluding with the Clinton campaign? Wouldn't that indicate a hell of a bias?
Did it? I remember a lot of noise from fringe sites about collusion but I didn't see anything of substance.
Donna Brazile isn't a journalist she was just a paid contributor/analyst but she did collude with Hillary's campaign by sending them debate questions in advance.
Vankraken wrote: All the American cable news stations are guilty of pushing certain narratives/agendas but Fox News has been pushing a far right bias for a long time and is the most deliberate at being bias of the big three (CNN, MSNBC, Fox News). That being said MSNBC has really upped their bias ga,e in the last few years while CNN's political leaning is often outweighed by their general ineptitude at journalism or programming. Feels like 9/11 was the Slaaneshi like birth of instant gratification news media with the booming headlines and 24/7 "Breaking News".
Lets be real. CNN has been "all Trump hate all the time" since Trump was nominated.
TBF, most of America has been "all Trump hate all the time"...
Vankraken wrote: All the American cable news stations are guilty of pushing certain narratives/agendas but Fox News has been pushing a far right bias for a long time and is the most deliberate at being bias of the big three (CNN, MSNBC, Fox News). That being said MSNBC has really upped their bias ga,e in the last few years while CNN's political leaning is often outweighed by their general ineptitude at journalism or programming. Feels like 9/11 was the Slaaneshi like birth of instant gratification news media with the booming headlines and 24/7 "Breaking News".
Didn't CNN have reporters actually colluding with the Clinton campaign? Wouldn't that indicate a hell of a bias?
Did it? I remember a lot of noise from fringe sites about collusion but I didn't see anything of substance.
Donna Brazile isn't a journalist she was just a paid contributor/analyst but she did collude with Hillary's campaign by sending them debate questions in advance.
Unacceptable behavior, to be sure, but not quite the network collusion implied though.
Not a big deal? This is way worse than biased reporting. I find it hard to think of a better way for a News agency to influence an election.
And it was more than Brazile:
From CNN: Brianna Keilar, Gloria Borger, John Berman, and Kate Bolduan.
... The nascent Clinton campaign invited Jeff Zucker and Phil Griffin, the presidents of CNN and MSNBC, respectively. Zucker declined while Griffin RSVPed “yes.” Wikileaks’ release of emails from the Democratic National Committee showed then-DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz scheduled or attempted to schedule private meetings with both executives.
Rand Paul’s presidential campaign slammed CNN on Wednesday after emails were released that the campaign claimed showed a reporter “colluding” with a Hillary Clinton aide to “attack” the Kentucky senator.
The CNN global affairs correspondent, Elise Labott, already has been suspended over a separate incident – a tweet last week criticizing a House bill limiting Syrian refugees. But her communications with then-Clinton State Department official Philippe Reines turned up Tuesday in a batch of emails obtained and published by Gawker.
In those January 2013 emails, Reines appears to give Labott suggestions for tweets. Phil Kerpen, president of the conservative American Commitment, first flagged the exchange about Paul.
I'm sure that Breitbart and Steven Bannon's relationship with the Trump campaign was absolutely squeaky clean.
As apparently using reddit as a source is now a thing then I submit this:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Scotland/comments/5r2pe3/antitrump_protest_sign_in_glasgow_tonight/ On the grounds that it is by far the funniest thing that I have ever read on Reddit. Basically some goons from R/The_Donald attempt to invade a thread in R/Scotland about an interesting women's march sign and get obliterated. Lots of swearing of course, or as we say in Scotland 'words'.
Vankraken wrote: All the American cable news stations are guilty of pushing certain narratives/agendas but Fox News has been pushing a far right bias for a long time and is the most deliberate at being bias of the big three (CNN, MSNBC, Fox News). That being said MSNBC has really upped their bias ga,e in the last few years while CNN's political leaning is often outweighed by their general ineptitude at journalism or programming. Feels like 9/11 was the Slaaneshi like birth of instant gratification news media with the booming headlines and 24/7 "Breaking News".
Lets be real. CNN has been "all Trump hate all the time" since Trump was nominated.
TBF, most of America has been "all Trump hate all the time"...
Vankraken wrote: All the American cable news stations are guilty of pushing certain narratives/agendas but Fox News has been pushing a far right bias for a long time and is the most deliberate at being bias of the big three (CNN, MSNBC, Fox News). That being said MSNBC has really upped their bias ga,e in the last few years while CNN's political leaning is often outweighed by their general ineptitude at journalism or programming. Feels like 9/11 was the Slaaneshi like birth of instant gratification news media with the booming headlines and 24/7 "Breaking News".
Didn't CNN have reporters actually colluding with the Clinton campaign? Wouldn't that indicate a hell of a bias?
Did it? I remember a lot of noise from fringe sites about collusion but I didn't see anything of substance.
Donna Brazile isn't a journalist she was just a paid contributor/analyst but she did collude with Hillary's campaign by sending them debate questions in advance.
Unacceptable behavior, to be sure, but not quite the network collusion implied though.
Not a big deal? This is way worse than biased reporting. I find it hard to think of a better way for a News agency to influence an election.
And it was more than Brazile:
From CNN: Brianna Keilar, Gloria Borger, John Berman, and Kate Bolduan.
...
The nascent Clinton campaign invited Jeff Zucker and Phil Griffin, the presidents of CNN and MSNBC, respectively. Zucker declined while Griffin RSVPed “yes.” Wikileaks’ release of emails from the Democratic National Committee showed then-DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz scheduled or attempted to schedule private meetings with both executives.
Rand Paul’s presidential campaign slammed CNN on Wednesday after emails were released that the campaign claimed showed a reporter “colluding” with a Hillary Clinton aide to “attack” the Kentucky senator.
The CNN global affairs correspondent, Elise Labott, already has been suspended over a separate incident – a tweet last week criticizing a House bill limiting Syrian refugees. But her communications with then-Clinton State Department official Philippe Reines turned up Tuesday in a batch of emails obtained and published by Gawker.
In those January 2013 emails, Reines appears to give Labott suggestions for tweets. Phil Kerpen, president of the conservative American Commitment, first flagged the exchange about Paul.
Most of that (with the exception of the allegation of passing the Colton team the debate questions.) seems to be normal journalist/politician relationship. Politicians court news outlets for posative editorial coverage. As long as journalists declare it I don't see any issue, and I can't see any alligation that they didn't. Editorial bias is well known and accepted. It is not the same as "fake news" where people were deliberately publishing lies to try and influence opinion.
Prestor Jon wrote: What is the proper role and function of the Dept of Education? Or the Dept of Energy? Or the Dept of Homeland Security? The Dept of Ed has only been operating since 1980, The Dept of Energy began operating in 1977, Homeland security started in 2002, HUD was formed in 1965. The majority of the cabinet departments are relatively new creations in US history, they're not mentioned in the constitution, their mission and proper function changes with every new president. What is the benchmark you're using to determine the efficacy and proper usage of these departments? Policies under Obama were different than under Clinton which were different than during the Reagan administration etc.
Departments shift focus with new presidents, but they don’t completely change role. To use a business analogy that I know conservatives are so fond of, Facebook has only been in business since 2004, but that’s long enough to develop expertise and processes within their niche. It would be considered utterly bonkers if Facebook came out tomorrow and announced they were stopping the social network thing and they were now a soft drink company. Even if they have a really great idea for a softdrink, they have no expertise in that, and would now be needed to dump all the expertise they have developed in social media.
The same is true of government agencies. You can’t just decide they should be something different from one day to the next. The people in the agency have set roles and set expertise that pushes them in a different direction. Strategic management is about working with the organisation as it is, guiding it to a new strategic direction while respecting the expertise and ability that already exists. And while that means you are unlikely to make a huge difference in the four years of your government, if the idea is a good one then the new government will be likely to just quietly accept the direction you put in place, and even if they don’t the public servants in the agency itself will be likely to continue that direction by themselves.
This, like everything so far in the Trump administration, is falling down not on ideology, but on the understanding of what government is and how it works.
You are giving Trump and the Cabinet Secretaries too much credit. The federal depts were created by Congress and can only be fundamentally changed by Congress. Let's look at the Dept of Esd for example. Sure Betsy Devos is very different politically and in terms of her education philosophy than Obamas appointee Arne Duncan so she'll give different speeches and advocate different approaches. However just like Duncan her ability to actually affect public education in the US will be severely limited. Congress created the Dept of Ed and only Congress can dismantle it. Congress determines the funding for the Dept of Ed and Congress passes the federal laws that create the federal programs that determine how that funding is allocated. All the Dept of Ed does is administrate the federal laws created by Congress. Devos can't change public education in the US with a memo. At best she can make changes to operational guidelines. It's a caretaker position because the president needs somebody to delegate to that can report on the efficacy and enforcement of Federal education laws and programs. The Dept of Ed pretty much just sends federal money to the states and provides token oversight and record keeping. The Dept of Ed has 5000 employees, the state of CA alone has over 10000 public schools for K-12 education the Ed Sec has at best/worst a minimal impact on the US public school system.
of course you don't, and thats why polling of trustworthiness of the media are often in the single digits.
Just because its not "fake" doesn't mean its not slanted. Just choosing what to cover slants the news.
if it didn't no one would give a about Trans restroom issues (on either side) because its a statistical nonevent.
Vankraken wrote: All the American cable news stations are guilty of pushing certain narratives/agendas but Fox News has been pushing a far right bias for a long time and is the most deliberate at being bias of the big three (CNN, MSNBC, Fox News). That being said MSNBC has really upped their bias ga,e in the last few years while CNN's political leaning is often outweighed by their general ineptitude at journalism or programming. Feels like 9/11 was the Slaaneshi like birth of instant gratification news media with the booming headlines and 24/7 "Breaking News".
Lets be real. CNN has been "all Trump hate all the time" since Trump was nominated.
TBF, most of America has been "all Trump hate all the time"...
Vankraken wrote: All the American cable news stations are guilty of pushing certain narratives/agendas but Fox News has been pushing a far right bias for a long time and is the most deliberate at being bias of the big three (CNN, MSNBC, Fox News). That being said MSNBC has really upped their bias ga,e in the last few years while CNN's political leaning is often outweighed by their general ineptitude at journalism or programming. Feels like 9/11 was the Slaaneshi like birth of instant gratification news media with the booming headlines and 24/7 "Breaking News".
Didn't CNN have reporters actually colluding with the Clinton campaign? Wouldn't that indicate a hell of a bias?
Did it? I remember a lot of noise from fringe sites about collusion but I didn't see anything of substance.
Donna Brazile isn't a journalist she was just a paid contributor/analyst but she did collude with Hillary's campaign by sending them debate questions in advance.
Vankraken wrote: All the American cable news stations are guilty of pushing certain narratives/agendas but Fox News has been pushing a far right bias for a long time and is the most deliberate at being bias of the big three (CNN, MSNBC, Fox News). That being said MSNBC has really upped their bias ga,e in the last few years while CNN's political leaning is often outweighed by their general ineptitude at journalism or programming. Feels like 9/11 was the Slaaneshi like birth of instant gratification news media with the booming headlines and 24/7 "Breaking News".
Lets be real. CNN has been "all Trump hate all the time" since Trump was nominated.
TBF, most of America has been "all Trump hate all the time"...
Vankraken wrote: All the American cable news stations are guilty of pushing certain narratives/agendas but Fox News has been pushing a far right bias for a long time and is the most deliberate at being bias of the big three (CNN, MSNBC, Fox News). That being said MSNBC has really upped their bias ga,e in the last few years while CNN's political leaning is often outweighed by their general ineptitude at journalism or programming. Feels like 9/11 was the Slaaneshi like birth of instant gratification news media with the booming headlines and 24/7 "Breaking News".
Didn't CNN have reporters actually colluding with the Clinton campaign? Wouldn't that indicate a hell of a bias?
Did it? I remember a lot of noise from fringe sites about collusion but I didn't see anything of substance.
Donna Brazile isn't a journalist she was just a paid contributor/analyst but she did collude with Hillary's campaign by sending them debate questions in advance.
Unacceptable behavior, to be sure, but not quite the network collusion implied though.
Not a big deal? This is way worse than biased reporting. I find it hard to think of a better way for a News agency to influence an election.
And it was more than Brazile:
From CNN: Brianna Keilar, Gloria Borger, John Berman, and Kate Bolduan.
... The nascent Clinton campaign invited Jeff Zucker and Phil Griffin, the presidents of CNN and MSNBC, respectively. Zucker declined while Griffin RSVPed “yes.” Wikileaks’ release of emails from the Democratic National Committee showed then-DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz scheduled or attempted to schedule private meetings with both executives.
Rand Paul’s presidential campaign slammed CNN on Wednesday after emails were released that the campaign claimed showed a reporter “colluding” with a Hillary Clinton aide to “attack” the Kentucky senator.
The CNN global affairs correspondent, Elise Labott, already has been suspended over a separate incident – a tweet last week criticizing a House bill limiting Syrian refugees. But her communications with then-Clinton State Department official Philippe Reines turned up Tuesday in a batch of emails obtained and published by Gawker.
In those January 2013 emails, Reines appears to give Labott suggestions for tweets. Phil Kerpen, president of the conservative American Commitment, first flagged the exchange about Paul.
Most of that (with the exception of the allegation of passing the Colton team the debate questions.) seems to be normal journalist/politician relationship. Politicians court news outlets for posative editorial coverage. As long as journalists declare it I don't see any issue, and I can't see any alligation that they didn't. Editorial bias is well known and accepted. It is not the same as "fake news" where people were deliberately publishing lies to try and influence opinion.
Here's the difference.... it's not "fake news"... but, it's deceptively bias'ed.
The Clinton Campaign WANTED Trump to be the GOP nominee during the primary, believing that he'd be the weakest opponent for Clinton. Those wikileak showing the campaign collaboration with the medai (since they were never denounced as false) supports that assertion.
Hence why, Trump got something like $2 Billion dollars of "favorable free airtime" during the primary, that effectively drowned out the other candidates. Hence, the Clintons chose their form of destructor, poorly:
tneva82 wrote: Though to be fair same goes for dems. Huge swathes of them will vote for whoever happens to have D next to their name.
While this is true, the difference between turnout for a strong Democrat and turnout for a weak Democrat is much more pronounced. When Democrats ran the grey blur John Kerry, he got 59m votes. Obama got 69m vote just 4 years later.
In comparison, when Republicans ran a good candidate in John McCain, he got 60m votes. Romney ran after that, and without the headwind that McCain suffered... and he managed 61m votes. Then this last election the great orange disaster managed 63m votes.
This why the old adage holds true - Democrats have to fall in love, Republicans fall in line. Democrats have a much bigger base, maybe 15 to 20% bigger, but turnout is much more fickle.
Yes I know. But didn't want to look like I was claiming that wouldn't happen for dems as well. That would be pretty dishonest.
Out of the ~130M-140M or so that votes wonder how much are actually floating? Ie can either decide to not vote or switch between parties? That would be interesting to know.
Party affiliation of the voter doesn't matter in presidential elections or mid term elections either. Every voter in the district gets the same ballot with the same choices on it. For presidential elections everyone in their respective state has the same president and Vice President candidates to choose from regardless of the voter's affiliation, Democrat, Republican, Independemt or 3rd party. The fastest growing political affiliation is registered Independent but Independents are still less numerous than the 2 big parties and win an Independent doesn't reflect your voting record. A voter can be an Independent and still consistently vote for one particular party's candidates, being Independent just means they're not an official Party member.
Vankraken wrote: All the American cable news stations are guilty of pushing certain narratives/agendas but Fox News has been pushing a far right bias for a long time and is the most deliberate at being bias of the big three (CNN, MSNBC, Fox News). That being said MSNBC has really upped their bias ga,e in the last few years while CNN's political leaning is often outweighed by their general ineptitude at journalism or programming. Feels like 9/11 was the Slaaneshi like birth of instant gratification news media with the booming headlines and 24/7 "Breaking News".
Lets be real. CNN has been "all Trump hate all the time" since Trump was nominated.
TBF, most of America has been "all Trump hate all the time"...
Vankraken wrote: All the American cable news stations are guilty of pushing certain narratives/agendas but Fox News has been pushing a far right bias for a long time and is the most deliberate at being bias of the big three (CNN, MSNBC, Fox News). That being said MSNBC has really upped their bias ga,e in the last few years while CNN's political leaning is often outweighed by their general ineptitude at journalism or programming. Feels like 9/11 was the Slaaneshi like birth of instant gratification news media with the booming headlines and 24/7 "Breaking News".
Didn't CNN have reporters actually colluding with the Clinton campaign? Wouldn't that indicate a hell of a bias?
Did it? I remember a lot of noise from fringe sites about collusion but I didn't see anything of substance.
Donna Brazile isn't a journalist she was just a paid contributor/analyst but she did collude with Hillary's campaign by sending them debate questions in advance.
Unacceptable behavior, to be sure, but not quite the network collusion implied though.
Not a big deal? This is way worse than biased reporting. I find it hard to think of a better way for a News agency to influence an election.
And it was more than Brazile:
From CNN: Brianna Keilar, Gloria Borger, John Berman, and Kate Bolduan.
...
The nascent Clinton campaign invited Jeff Zucker and Phil Griffin, the presidents of CNN and MSNBC, respectively. Zucker declined while Griffin RSVPed “yes.” Wikileaks’ release of emails from the Democratic National Committee showed then-DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz scheduled or attempted to schedule private meetings with both executives.
Rand Paul’s presidential campaign slammed CNN on Wednesday after emails were released that the campaign claimed showed a reporter “colluding” with a Hillary Clinton aide to “attack” the Kentucky senator.
The CNN global affairs correspondent, Elise Labott, already has been suspended over a separate incident – a tweet last week criticizing a House bill limiting Syrian refugees. But her communications with then-Clinton State Department official Philippe Reines turned up Tuesday in a batch of emails obtained and published by Gawker.
In those January 2013 emails, Reines appears to give Labott suggestions for tweets. Phil Kerpen, president of the conservative American Commitment, first flagged the exchange about Paul.
Nice sources. Had to dig a bit to find those? In light of the subject, gak examples to support wholly inappropriate. But let's keep focus on the meat of the matter, here. I posted an article showing Faux News outright tweeting fake news. That is a million miles away from a reporter "framing" a story with a bent. Unfortunately this is what things have come to and neither are a benefit to the public's need for unbiased information, but they're miles apart.
Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote: Saudi Arabia is much, much more of a hotbed of “sharia-supremacism (aka, Radical Islamism)” (WTF dude, do you have even basic notion of what you are talking about? What's that “sharia-supremacism” you are talking about even?) than Iran. They are not impacted by the ban. Let me quote my previous message on Iran:
Sentinel1 wrote: All the countries involved with his E.O are yes Muslim, but each country is a complete and utter mess of political extremist opposites and government coups. The problem is you let one family in, they need a home, social security, language lessons, education lessons, school places etc and then said family want their 50 other relatives to join them in the same area. That makes a huge logistical nightmare through paper work and public funding.
That's very ignorant. Not ignorant as in “You are a filthy racist and you should feel bad about yourself”, no, I really mean that this is very ill-informed and far from the facts. Iran (it's the country I know best, I can't answer for others) has a pretty stable (unfriendly and unlikable as it is) regime, opposition that is mostly very moderate and friendly to the US, as a fairly good education system, and Iranian in the US (mostly concentrated around Los Angeles) are described as follow by Wikipedia:
Iranian Americans are among the highest educated people in the United States. They have historically excelled in business, academia, the sciences, arts, and entertainment – but have traditionally shied away from participating in American politics and other civic activities.
Quite recently, an Iranian-born woman working at Standford University, Maryam Mirzakhani, won the Fields medal (i.e. basically the Nobel Price in Mathematics). Now I guess she may have to move away from the US, but I'm sure she won't have too much trouble to get a position in the EU. It's all good for Europe really if the US decide to make such stupid, knee-jerk decision to satisfy the bigotry of it's uneducated masses. I'm still sad about this because being basically forced out of a country must be a quite traumatic experience, but I'll really reveal in schadenfreude when Trump's elector will see the new Apple, Google and co come out of Europe rather than the US.
As much as I hate the IRI, banning Iranians from entering the US was the dumbest move ever. If anything, it actually strengthen the regime, as Iranian Americans won't be able to visit their families in Iran anymore and bring outer news and ideas. And really, look up for the number of Iranian terrorists in the US to see how many terror attack this will prevent, but it's basically none at all.
This message will likely get me a new temporary ban but it was 100% worth it . This kind of information needs to be spread as far and wide as possible imo. Though some people will NEVER accept it, on purely ideological grounds.
The Iranian Islamists stay in Iran because they already have the Islamist government they want at home, and they work there to keep it Islamist despite popular pressure. Because they can do so without risk. Most Iranian emigrants are “liberal educated elite”. That's why you will have a hard time finding Iranian terrorists in the US. Those guys can't push for their government to be less Islamist without risk, they don't want to end up in Evin. But hey, who cares about facts that are not “alternate” these days?
tneva82 wrote: People get radicalized when they get detached from society. Lack of work, lack of social contacts, lack of feeling of being welcome. That's been common point with pretty much every terrorist so far.
That's plain out false. Trump will definitely feed the radical Islamist narrative that there is a war between infidels and muslims, sure, but that part I quoted is “alternate fact”, as in entirely, absolutely not true.
Just like cult don't need that. See how many rich people are part of scientology…
The only reason why Iran was on that list is because the huge majority of US citizen are completely uneducated on this and believe in stupid, harmful stereotypes. Idiocracy at its finest.
wuestenfux wrote: The Trump administration should be given at least 100 days.
I think Dakka's moderation team should give me at least a dozen years before banning me for calling you a
Ahaha I won't say anything but I'll still get banned Dakka is wonderful . But still serves as a good example that this is not how things actually work. You don't give people “more time” to prove how awful they are when they have already proved it beyond any reasonable doubt.
Prestor Jon wrote: You're a coal miner in your early 40s and the mine you work at in W Va shuts down and lays you off. Pres Hillary Clinton gets legislation passed through congress that qualifies you for a college scholarship for retraining. You have a wife, 2 kids and a mortgage, what happens while you're enrolled at college for the next 2-4 or even 6-8 years? Where do they live? What do they eat? How do you pay your bills? Getting a scholarship doesn't take away a laid off coal miner's responsibilities and dependents.
Are you arguing for more welfare state? That's exactly why welfare is needed: something things get ugly and it's not your fault. As a society we think this is not a good thing so we want to mitigate this. But of course when things are fine it's easy to say you don't want to pay for others and pretend that it's their own responsibility to find a way to survive.
Voting Trump for better welfare? I think you were looking for Sanders or something.
Vankraken wrote: All the American cable news stations are guilty of pushing certain narratives/agendas but Fox News has been pushing a far right bias for a long time and is the most deliberate at being bias of the big three (CNN, MSNBC, Fox News). That being said MSNBC has really upped their bias ga,e in the last few years while CNN's political leaning is often outweighed by their general ineptitude at journalism or programming. Feels like 9/11 was the Slaaneshi like birth of instant gratification news media with the booming headlines and 24/7 "Breaking News".
Lets be real. CNN has been "all Trump hate all the time" since Trump was nominated.
TBF, most of America has been "all Trump hate all the time"...
Vankraken wrote: All the American cable news stations are guilty of pushing certain narratives/agendas but Fox News has been pushing a far right bias for a long time and is the most deliberate at being bias of the big three (CNN, MSNBC, Fox News). That being said MSNBC has really upped their bias ga,e in the last few years while CNN's political leaning is often outweighed by their general ineptitude at journalism or programming. Feels like 9/11 was the Slaaneshi like birth of instant gratification news media with the booming headlines and 24/7 "Breaking News".
Didn't CNN have reporters actually colluding with the Clinton campaign? Wouldn't that indicate a hell of a bias?
Did it? I remember a lot of noise from fringe sites about collusion but I didn't see anything of substance.
Donna Brazile isn't a journalist she was just a paid contributor/analyst but she did collude with Hillary's campaign by sending them debate questions in advance.
Unacceptable behavior, to be sure, but not quite the network collusion implied though.
Not a big deal? This is way worse than biased reporting. I find it hard to think of a better way for a News agency to influence an election.
And it was more than Brazile:
From CNN: Brianna Keilar, Gloria Borger, John Berman, and Kate Bolduan.
...
The nascent Clinton campaign invited Jeff Zucker and Phil Griffin, the presidents of CNN and MSNBC, respectively. Zucker declined while Griffin RSVPed “yes.” Wikileaks’ release of emails from the Democratic National Committee showed then-DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz scheduled or attempted to schedule private meetings with both executives.
Rand Paul’s presidential campaign slammed CNN on Wednesday after emails were released that the campaign claimed showed a reporter “colluding” with a Hillary Clinton aide to “attack” the Kentucky senator.
The CNN global affairs correspondent, Elise Labott, already has been suspended over a separate incident – a tweet last week criticizing a House bill limiting Syrian refugees. But her communications with then-Clinton State Department official Philippe Reines turned up Tuesday in a batch of emails obtained and published by Gawker.
In those January 2013 emails, Reines appears to give Labott suggestions for tweets. Phil Kerpen, president of the conservative American Commitment, first flagged the exchange about Paul.
Nice sources. Had to dig a bit to find those? In light of the subject, gak examples to support wholly inappropriate. But let's keep focus on the meat of the matter, here. I posted an article showing Faux News outright tweeting fake news. That is a million miles away from a reporter "framing" a story with a bent. Unfortunately this is what things have come to and neither are a benefit to the public's need for unbiased information, but they're miles apart.
I'm not defending Fox in that particular instance but I do think it's fair to point out that across the media spectrum we're seeing speed being prioritized over accuracy. Something newsworthy happens and everybody wants to be the first to report on it so they tweet and make reports that are very dubious in terms of accuracy but that's better than waiting for the facts to come out and getting "scooped." News agencies also tend to favor any narrative that supports an agenda over waiting to see what the facts show. If the media is going to willfully throw any gal out there and just hope it turns out to be true then people are going to distrust the media. It takes more work to be an informed citizen but it's very easy to be an affirmed citizen.
Well, there was that time CNN deliberatley cut the video feed from one of its guests when they brought up inconveinient (yet very on-topic) facts about Clinton during one of their broadcasts.
Also, hasn't the Washington Post recently published a handful of strait-out WRONG articles, then doubled down by insisting they are right? I think my favorite example was a writer insisting that subsonic 22LR ammo was a devistating round used by the military.
Also, refresh my memory here, but didn't someone get fired for unethical behavior, then immeidiately get hired by the Clinton Campaign in a rather cushy position?
Vankraken wrote: All the American cable news stations are guilty of pushing certain narratives/agendas but Fox News has been pushing a far right bias for a long time and is the most deliberate at being bias of the big three (CNN, MSNBC, Fox News). That being said MSNBC has really upped their bias ga,e in the last few years while CNN's political leaning is often outweighed by their general ineptitude at journalism or programming. Feels like 9/11 was the Slaaneshi like birth of instant gratification news media with the booming headlines and 24/7 "Breaking News".
Lets be real. CNN has been "all Trump hate all the time" since Trump was nominated.
TBF, most of America has been "all Trump hate all the time"...
Vankraken wrote: All the American cable news stations are guilty of pushing certain narratives/agendas but Fox News has been pushing a far right bias for a long time and is the most deliberate at being bias of the big three (CNN, MSNBC, Fox News). That being said MSNBC has really upped their bias ga,e in the last few years while CNN's political leaning is often outweighed by their general ineptitude at journalism or programming. Feels like 9/11 was the Slaaneshi like birth of instant gratification news media with the booming headlines and 24/7 "Breaking News".
Didn't CNN have reporters actually colluding with the Clinton campaign? Wouldn't that indicate a hell of a bias?
Did it? I remember a lot of noise from fringe sites about collusion but I didn't see anything of substance.
Donna Brazile isn't a journalist she was just a paid contributor/analyst but she did collude with Hillary's campaign by sending them debate questions in advance.
Unacceptable behavior, to be sure, but not quite the network collusion implied though.
Not a big deal? This is way worse than biased reporting. I find it hard to think of a better way for a News agency to influence an election.
And it was more than Brazile:
From CNN: Brianna Keilar, Gloria Borger, John Berman, and Kate Bolduan.
...
The nascent Clinton campaign invited Jeff Zucker and Phil Griffin, the presidents of CNN and MSNBC, respectively. Zucker declined while Griffin RSVPed “yes.” Wikileaks’ release of emails from the Democratic National Committee showed then-DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz scheduled or attempted to schedule private meetings with both executives.
Rand Paul’s presidential campaign slammed CNN on Wednesday after emails were released that the campaign claimed showed a reporter “colluding” with a Hillary Clinton aide to “attack” the Kentucky senator.
The CNN global affairs correspondent, Elise Labott, already has been suspended over a separate incident – a tweet last week criticizing a House bill limiting Syrian refugees. But her communications with then-Clinton State Department official Philippe Reines turned up Tuesday in a batch of emails obtained and published by Gawker.
In those January 2013 emails, Reines appears to give Labott suggestions for tweets. Phil Kerpen, president of the conservative American Commitment, first flagged the exchange about Paul.
Nice sources. Had to dig a bit to find those? In light of the subject, gak examples to support wholly inappropriate. But let's keep focus on the meat of the matter, here. I posted an article showing Faux News outright tweeting fake news. That is a million miles away from a reporter "framing" a story with a bent. Unfortunately this is what things have come to and neither are a benefit to the public's need for unbiased information, but they're miles apart.
I'm not defending Fox in that particular instance but I do think it's fair to point out that across the media spectrum we're seeing speed being prioritized over accuracy. Something newsworthy happens and everybody wants to be the first to report on it so they tweet and make reports that are very dubious in terms of accuracy but that's better than waiting for the facts to come out and getting "scooped." News agencies also tend to favor any narrative that supports an agenda over waiting to see what the facts show. If the media is going to willfully throw any gal out there and just hope it turns out to be true then people are going to distrust the media. It takes more work to be an informed citizen but it's very easy to be an affirmed citizen.
It is a statement of the times, no doubt. I posted earlier that I remember the pre-dedicated news network days where broadcast news was boring, pretty much cookie cutter in relative comparison across the networks and the loss leader for said entities. Nowadays, it's viewership-hungry bottom lines driving sensationalism and expediency over accuracy and impartiality. When you have to go to 3 or 4 sites to vet a story, then there's a problem. I love what Canada did in the instance I noted.
Prestor Jon wrote: [it's fair to point out that across the media spectrum we're seeing speed being prioritized over accuracy. Something newsworthy happens and everybody wants to be the first to report on it so they tweet and make reports that are very dubious in terms of accuracy but that's better than waiting for the facts to come out and getting "scooped." News agencies also tend to favor any narrative that supports an agenda over waiting to see what the facts show. If the media is going to willfully throw any gal out there and just hope it turns out to be true then people are going to distrust the media. It takes more work to be an informed citizen but it's very easy to be an affirmed citizen.
The more I see "reporting" like the UVA rape case (that never happened) being hyped by once-legitimate news sources the less faith I have. In that paticular case it was shown that the reporter knew the reporting was wrong before publishing, and Rolling Stone itself knew it was wrong before they republished it, twice.
Either way we should agree that news casters should be bias and what they are both doing is wrong and should not be tolerates by the public. But giving one a pass because the other one did is also not helpful.
This whole this is now getting out of hand and we the people as a whole are suffering for it that news is now being withheld/blocked.
The only reason why Iran was on that list is because the huge majority of US citizen are completely uneducated on this and believe in stupid, harmful stereotypes. Idiocracy at its finest.
That whole "death to America" thing and launching missiles against treaties might have a little something to do with it too.
Of course, US public universities should be exclusively for US citizens.
. This kind of information needs to be spread as far and wide as possible 
. Which is probably more frightening than if he'd just said crazy gak he knew was crazy. I prefer a cynical liar to someone who believes his own fantasies.
