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BaronIveagh wrote: I hate to mention this, but I seem to recall some international treaties expressly forbidding well, THIS.
Huh? I thought we couldn't put WMDs in space...
Article IV of the Outer Space treaty prohibits so much as conducting maneuvers on other celestial bodies and expressly limits them to peaceful purposes. Trump's Space Force would only be able to operate around Earth, and cannot deploy WMDs, so.....
Fate is in heaven, armor is on the chest, accomplishment is in the feet. - Nagao Kagetora
The Trump administration reportedly will not follow an Obama-era executive order that requires it to release a yearly report on the number of civilians and enemy fighters killed by U.S. anti-terrorism strikes.
Even under Obama those numbers were rather suspicious when every male over 15 is kinda/sorta classified as a enemy combatant (or whatever the loosening of the definition meant). If I remember correctly–from some independent reports–then Trump had increase drone attacks immensely (and was more indiscriminate) and was nearing Obama yearly numbers in civilian deaths his first three months (or something like that). It's all just horrifying and depressing.
They will do everything to avoid a personal interview, but in the end declining will only make matters look worse. Trump himself seemed less phased by it in the past than his lawyers.
He probably doesn't even know what exactly that means, just that it's a hassle and maybe a threat to him in some vague way. And an interview, he'd probably think that he can argue his way out of any problem better than anybody else and actually just agree to do it because he has quite a high opinion of his intellect.
Frazzled wrote:
Vaktathi wrote: So it looks like one of the complications with Trump's legal team setting up a possible interview with Mueller is that much of the material in question seemingly requires a security clearance...but the last lawyer on Trump's team to have a security clearance left two months ago
Apparently they are trying to get Sekulow a clearance, but he does not have one as yet.
There will be no interview. That's about the most stupid move anyone could possibly do. Even Trump would have to see that.
I want to say "wanna bet?" but I have a strange feeling that I might accidentally win before hitting the Submit button. Trump is not a smart man and quite impulsive.
The smallest branch of the 7 Uniformed Services has 379 officers. The 2nd smallest branch (mine) has around 6,500.
Once you get to the Armed Forces, the smallest of them (Coast Guard) has ~42,000 personnel.
Unless we are going to start creating an enlisted force of Space Infantry to occupy the moon or some stupid idea like that, there is simply no reason to create a Space Force. The Air Force is already running programs such as the Boeing X-37, and NASA is running the rest of the Space Program. If anything I could maybe see the creation of an 8th Uniformed Service and call it the NASA Commissioned Corps. But there is no need to have an armed Space Force until the aliens attack.
And honestly, can anybody really picture Trump giving this speech?
Edit:
At least we will always have the memes:
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/05/02 23:02:52
Guess I was the only one that played COD: Advanced Warfare? They make drop pods to insert response teams from high orbit. Under a proper administration, that would be pretty badass.
feeder wrote: Frazz's mind is like a wiener dog in a rabbit warren. Dark, twisting tunnels, and full of the certainty that just around the next bend will be the quarry he seeks.
Inquisitor Lord Bane wrote: Guess I was the only one that played COD: Advanced Warfare? They make drop pods to insert response teams from high orbit. Under a proper administration, that would be pretty badass.
Yeah, SUSTAIN has been a thing for years with the Marines and DARPA, but when DARPA did Hot Eagle they discovered that you had this problem with the men being liquefied when you did that. Fortunately they did the math before they tried it with something living.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/05/03 00:11:41
Fate is in heaven, armor is on the chest, accomplishment is in the feet. - Nagao Kagetora
BaronIveagh wrote: I hate to mention this, but I seem to recall some international treaties expressly forbidding well, THIS.
Huh? I thought we couldn't put WMDs in space...
Article IV of the Outer Space treaty prohibits so much as conducting maneuvers on other celestial bodies and expressly limits them to peaceful purposes. Trump's Space Force would only be able to operate around Earth, and cannot deploy WMDs, so.....
Article IV States Parties to the Treaty undertake not to place in orbit around the Earth any objects carrying nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction, install such weapons on celestial bodies, or station such weapons in outer space in any other manner.
The Moon and other celestial bodies shall be used by all States Parties to the Treaty exclusively for peaceful purposes. The establishment of military bases, installations and fortifications, the testing of any type of weapons and the conduct of military maneuvers on celestial bodies shall be forbidden. The use of military personnel for scientific research or for any other peaceful purposes shall not be prohibited. The use of any equipment or facility necessary for peaceful exploration of the Moon and other celestial bodies shall also not be prohibited.
...so long as we don't put WMDs in space, nor use the moon (or celestial bodies) for non-research or non-peaceful purposes, should be kosher...no?
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2018/05/03 02:27:58
THat's a direct quote. I went to grab the video, but I couldn't check if the video was him saying it, or people talking about him saying it, because I can't run the video at work.
The jellyfish are really out in force for this admin. And I can't believe the association folded so quickly, they think they were being too rude about people who engage in racism and falsehoods on a daily basis. Is having your one day in the sun so important you will just bend over at the first hint of critique? These really are unbelievable times. Each day we go further down the rabbit hole of insanity.
The problem is the correspondents association is built around the working relationship between the White House and the reporters. It's always been about treading a line between maintaining a balance between keeping an objective position in reporting on the White House, while also maintaining a healthy relationship not only to get privileged access but even just to make sure the daily events of the White House are covered sufficiently.
It's a reality that every White House for decades has manipulated that, and encouraged the media to give more favourable reporting than really should be the case. To an extent you just have to live with that. Between a White House with an overt political cause, and a reporting corps trying to find a balance between objectivity and access, the natural state will always be reporting that favours the administration.
But that question takes on a whole new frame when the White House is occupied by Trump and his collection of liars. How neutral can reporters be when dealing with out and out lies from the administration, and still be giving any kind of value to the public? And what's the point of maintaining access to the pres secretary, when all she does is stonewall, lie and attack the media? And what's the point in even getting a list of admin staffers who are available for interview on each day, when we all know they're going to lie freely when interviewed?
I honestly don't know the answer.
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Da Boss wrote: I just wanted to comment on the Michele Wolf thing - it's pretty funny to see supporters of a president who has crudely insulted many women, veterans, the disabled and whoever else get so upset over a comedian making some edgy jokes.
The hypocrisy is pretty delicious. I thought left wing people were the snowflakes?!
Republican hypocrites? Whatever could you mean?
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/05/03 02:40:13
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
THat's a direct quote. I went to grab the video, but I couldn't check if the video was him saying it, or people talking about him saying it, because I can't run the video at work.
The jellyfish are really out in force for this admin. And I can't believe the association folded so quickly, they think they were being too rude about people who engage in racism and falsehoods on a daily basis. Is having your one day in the sun so important you will just bend over at the first hint of critique? These really are unbelievable times. Each day we go further down the rabbit hole of insanity.
The problem is the correspondents association is built around the working relationship between the White House and the reporters. It's always been about treading a line between maintaining a balance between keeping an objective position in reporting on the White House, while also maintaining a healthy relationship not only to get privileged access but even just to make sure the daily events of the White House are covered sufficiently.
It's a reality that every White House for decades has manipulated that, and encouraged the media to give more favourable reporting than really should be the case. To an extent you just have to live with that. Between a White House with an overt political cause, and a reporting corps trying to find a balance between objectivity and access, the natural state will always be reporting that favours the administration.
But that question takes on a whole new frame when the White House is occupied by Trump and his collection of liars. How neutral can reporters be when dealing with out and out lies from the administration, and still be giving any kind of value to the public? And what's the point of maintaining access to the pres secretary, when all she does is stonewall, lie and attack the media? And what's the point in even getting a list of admin staffers who are available for interview on each day, when we all know they're going to lie freely when interviewed?
I honestly don't know the answer.
The answer is simply call balls and strike... and make clear what is news vs. punditry. Too many folks conflate the two...
As for the WH correspondents association dinner... keep doing that, but cut out the "roasting" your ideological opponents... the tradition of this roast was done between friends more often than not.
whembly wrote: Why are you ignoring that Senate Democrats can easily stop anything their counter parts wishes to pass?
Because 'can' isn't 'are'. Theoretically, Democrats could be running filibuster on issue after issue, and truth is if Republicans actually had policy getting up Democrats would probably block most of it and it would like a lot like much of the Obama administration, but with the roles reversed. But Democrats aren't blocking anything, because there's nothing getting up for an actual vote. Stuff like DREAMER reform fell over, but it failed to get to a straight majority, and it wasn't even that close, the preferred Trump (really John Kelly plan) got to 46 votes, with no-one even looking like they might be won over to the case. In contrast the bi-partisan bill that McConnell refused to put on the floor had 56 confirmed votes, and would have produced a Republican filibuster.
The argument that the legislative block is due to any Democratic tactics is pure fantasy. It's "both sides" as nothing but an argument of blind faith, with no reality behind it.
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Gen. Lee Losing wrote: So Iran has been lying and kept an active Nuclear program... but the US (specifically Republicans) are the vile evil morons?
Iran had a weapons program, which ended 15 years ago, and which has been known about and even made part of official IAEA reports and analysis in the years subsequent.
So Netanyahu turning up on FOX & Friends to lobby to talk about whether we can trust Iran because they once had a secret program we learned about years ago is pure trash, and anyone who falls for it badly lacks for critical analysis. Because the framing Netanyahu puts on the issue is obvious bunk, the Iran deal isn't built around blind faith in Iran, it's built around a massive team of inspectors constantly reviewing Iranian activities.
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“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
BaronIveagh wrote: I hate to mention this, but I seem to recall some international treaties expressly forbidding well, THIS.
Huh? I thought we couldn't put WMDs in space...
Article IV of the Outer Space treaty prohibits so much as conducting maneuvers on other celestial bodies and expressly limits them to peaceful purposes. Trump's Space Force would only be able to operate around Earth, and cannot deploy WMDs, so.....
Article IV
States Parties to the Treaty undertake not to place in orbit around the Earth any objects carrying nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction, install such weapons on celestial bodies, or station such weapons in outer space in any other manner.
The Moon and other celestial bodies shall be used by all States Parties to the Treaty exclusively for peaceful purposes. The establishment of military bases, installations and fortifications, the testing of any type of weapons and the conduct of military maneuvers on celestial bodies shall be forbidden. The use of military personnel for scientific research or for any other peaceful purposes shall not be prohibited. The use of any equipment or facility necessary for peaceful exploration of the Moon and other celestial bodies shall also not be prohibited.
...so long as we don't put WMDs in space, nor use the moon (or celestial bodies) for non-research or non-peaceful purposes, should be kosher...no?
Indeed. Military Ships and Space Stations are 100% ok, provided they only have conventional weapons. Bases on moons and planets are not.
Cato Sicarius, after force feeding Captain Ventris a copy of the Codex Astartes for having the audacity to play Deathwatch, chokes to death on his own D-baggery after finding Calgar assembling his new Eldar army.
whembly wrote: However, the House passed a feth tons of bills over the years, it's the Senate that's the stick in the mud.
Nonsense argument, and you know it's a nonsense argument. The House passes bills knowing they will die in the Senate. Claiming that's productive is the opposite of reality.
But, don't forget the Democrats are utilizing every procedural tool to slow down the Senate, as it's their prerogative.
They're definitely doing that and it's had some impact in slowing judicial appointments. But it hasn't produced any impact on legislation at all. If it did, you'd be able to name a bill sitting in senate with 50+1 votes that the Democrats are fillibustering. But you can't, because there's not one.
Mitch would fully have to go nuclear (meaning no more 60th vote), which he doesn't want to do. Otherwise, the minority holds considerable sway whether or not a bill gets to the floor.
To pass what? What bill is currently sitting in the senate with 50+1 votes, that Democrats are filibustering?
Dude... it confirms all the critic's suspicions. (provided its not made up).
What? It confirms the suspicions of no-one, because there is literally not one knew bit of new info. The weapons programs he listed are more than a decade old, and have been not just known about in the West, they've been known to the public for a long time, even included in previous IAEA reports on Iranian activity.
It is a a big pile of who gives a crap. But Netanyahu isn't actually engaging in a public debate on this, instead speaking to an audience of one by going on FOX & Friends and looking to manipulate the President in to doing something that would advantage Netanyahu and probably no-one else on the planet.
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
Ouze wrote: CNN is reporting that Trump paid back Cohen the $130K in hush money.
It's hard to find a way to explain this in a way that doesn't violate campaign finance law.
Giuliani actually went on national TV and blabbed that gem...
THE. BEST. PEOPLE.
IRON WITHIN, IRON WITHOUT.
New Heavy Gear Log! Also...Grey Knights! The correct pronunciation is Imperial Guard and Stormtroopers, "Astra Militarum" and "Tempestus Scions" are something you'll find at Hogwarts.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Thing is, Bush is strongly associated with the 2008 crash. And while it's far from his fault exclusively it's also pretty fair to make that connection. And when people are making that connection, those tax cuts are what comes to mind first. People still remember that recession keenly, especially millenials who are still being screwed by it. It's also a more direct slap in the face when the wealthy get permanent cuts while the ones for the rest of us are temporary (and it's well known).
Do the tax cuts come to mind first? I would have thought banking regulation comes to mind more freely, and most Obama era banking regs are being dismantled with little fanfare. I mean, it might sound like I'm doubting your analysis but I'm not, I'm genuinely asking the question. While I think I'm across most things in US politics, one thing being an Australian means is that I don't have contact with regular people, I don't get a feel for stuff like how keenly the GFC is felt there and how much it impacts people's ideas on policies to
I think perhaps there are some other likely explanations, which all link together, also link to your explanation. The first is that Republicans have been running this con for almost four decades. The first time, under Reagan, it benefited greatly from happening to coincide with a short, sharp boom (which was actually due to monetary policy, not the tax cut), so people saw Reagan pass the tax cut, then he saw jobs and wages grow. But then each iteration since saw growth that was only standard, or even slower than average. Even this round is already shaping as a bust, there's been no increase in business investment, and job growth is actually slowing (though that's more likely due to the economy finally returning to capacity). People are starting to notice the much promised boom never actually eventuates.
The second issue is that we've just come off 8 years of Republicans banging on about the deficit daily, and claiming it was the biggest national issue. Almost by mistake, Republicans might have actually trained voters to realise that when you cut revenue, then sooner or later you have to pay for it, either with higher taxes later on, or with spending cuts. So when Republicans just weeks after their tax cut switched to claiming the deficit is a problem and there needs to be fixed by cutting the social safety net, people are connecting those issues.
The last is that there really is bugger all in this bill for people who aren't very rich, and most of it is temporary. People might be swayed to ignore the rich getting a trillion in benefits when their own take home pay goes up a few hundred a week, but when its going up a couple of dollars are week it's very different.
The great irony is how the wealthy are cultivating their own demise. Like gun advocates but on a much bigger scale.
That's a really good point. The rich and gun owners have such strong institutional places in the system, they could carry on forever doing very nicely for themselves. But instead they push, and push, and invite a backlash that will see them lose enormously.
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Vaktathi wrote: On the topic of shootings, schools, etc, may I suggest that perhaps the issue is neither guns nor security measures, but something else?
My grandfather brought firearms to school on a regular basis and just stacked them in the corner of the room to go plinking or rodent hunting after class. He could mail order machineguns to his door via the USPS without background checks or age requirements or NFA paperwork. His schools had no resource officers, and teachers were not armed. And yet...nobody walked through school hallways or nightclubs trying to kill as many people as possible.
What has changed in society, such that some people find that committing such acts to be acceptable recourse to their grievances?
Whether its stalking the halls of a high school with an AR15 or running people down with a rental truck in the streets, why do outliers see this course of action as viable and desireable, when in previous eras they did not? Especially when average levels of daily violence have been decreasing for decades.
I suspect that addressing that question may prove far more productive than gun bans or security measures or whatnot. That said, there is unlikely to be a simple compelling solution that fits into preexisting narratives, but if we really want to see a change, I feel thats where we should look first.
Your mistake is in assuming there is a single factor, not a combination of factors. Consider instead that the pressures that might cause shootings in the US might also exist in other developed countries, but elsewhere those pressures don't happen to exist alongside routine gun ownership and large sections of society immersed in a gun culture.
Think of it this way - when a person tells a health worker they have suicidal impulses to jump off a cliff to their death, the health worker will tell them to move away from their house on a cliff, and stop driving along the mountain road. The first and best way to prevent people dealing with those impulses is to remove the environmental factors that might trigger more instances of those impulses, and might cause them to act on them. A famous example is the Israeli army, which had a serious problem with soldier suicide. The IDF just stopped soldiers taking their guns home on weekends, and suicides dropped 40% immediately.
So now consider a situation where all the pressures of modern life and modern highschool exist, but in one country a troubled kid goes home to a house full of guns, and in another country a kid goes home to a house that's never had a gun, to a lifestyle where the kid has seen a gun maybe two or three times in his life. Which kid has triggers encouraging the fantasy of shooting up his school, and which kid doesn't? So which kid is more likely to actually do it?
Now, all of that doesn't come with a conclusion that gun bans must happen or anything like that. But given all the above, it's basically undeniable that gun proliferation is a major factor in the US's uniquely high rate of murder compared to the rest of the developed world. That's the real starting point for a conversation on this issue.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/05/03 04:28:37
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
d-usa wrote: So who knows what the real story is with the “raid” by Team Trump on his precious doctor and taking the medical records. But based on my understanding, even though those records are about Trump they don’t belong to Trump. We don’t own our own medical records, they belong to whatever provider and/or organization created them. Did I get this concept messed up in my head?
Pretty sure you have the right to a copy of your records but the actual record is the property of whatever the medical place is, because they are required by law to keep the records for so long after you stop being a patient.
We're finally going to have a SPACE MARINE branch!!???!?!?!?!
It was my understanding that we already had a military branch for space. Two, actually. I thought the Air Force and the Marines both covered it. I could be wrong though.
Fun fact for the day - a majority of US Muslims support gay marriage, 51 to 34. At the same time white US evangelicals oppose gay marriage, 58% oppose.
Second thing, Mike Pence just held a rally, and called Joe Arpaio up on stage, saying he was a champion of the rule of law. When people like Pence talk about the rule of law, they're not talking about, you know, people and government being constrained by the rule of law, otherwise it would have occurred to them that it's obviously ridiculous to celebrate a guy like Arpaio when the man has been convicted for directly refusing to obey the rule of law. So is it finally clear to everyone that when the right talks about stuff like 'law and order', it doesn't actually involve any actual support for the rule of law? Once we take the word 'law' out, what we're left with is what they're really talking, 'order'. As in the social order, the hierarchy of power. What they want is people who'll pledge to keep the existing order as it is. And what order is that? Well, in addition to criminal contempt of court, Arpaio also has a long history abuse against minorities. That's the order these people crave.
Lastly, does anyone remember December last year, when the Trump admin changed the policy towards supplies to the Ukraine, and started providing weapons in addition to other support? Back then it was presented by Trump supporters as proof that Trump wasn't in Putin's pocket, and the best explanation the anti-Trump side came up with was that it was a way for the Trump camp to claim it doesn't have debts to Putin. Now a more clear explanation has emerged. With the receipt of military aid, we've also seen a sudden end to Ukrainian intel being given to the Mueller investigation. Remember it was Ukrainian information on Manafort, including his ledgers of payments, that was one of the first big discoveries in the Trump/Russia scandal. Ukrainian officials aren't even pretending, here's the NYT quote of one lawmaker, "“In every possible way, we will avoid irritating the top American officials... We shouldn’t spoil relations with the administration.” So the weapons were given to buy off a potential witness. And no-one even considered that at the time, really because we hadn't really got our heads around the depths of corruption in the Trump White House.
Relapse wrote: I think it's quite apt since we have students walking out of school in order to protest gun violence and ignoring the fact that alcohol is responsible for around 3400 deaths of children per year and 120,000 being sent the ER per year.
For something not designed to kill, alcohol does a pretty good job of killing people.
No, it's a trash argument for a simple reason that has been explained to you many times before - you cannot look at the cost of some product purely in terms of its negative impacts, you need to weigh that against the benefit. Alcohol is used consumed weekly by 56% of adults. In contrast, less than a third of Americans households have a gun in them, when you factor in multiple adult households we're talking less than a quarter, and of that less than a third report using that gun regularly (whether that's weekly or monthly or user defined I can't remember). So we're talking about around 8% of adults using a gun in any context on a regular basis, and even that figure might be a little inflated by the respondent's understanding of the political impact.
So with greater control on alcohol we're talking about policies that would impact 56% of adults. With greater control on guns we're talking about something that impacts 8% of adults. And even then there's an additional point that most suggested reforms don't actually impact what most of that 8% does with guns on a regular basis, so the number of people negatively impacted is even smaller.
Can you just, please, finally, understand this, and stop raising that factoid now? Because there is actually a decent point buried in the gun death stat, and that's about society needing to accept on some level that people do die, that processed meat causes cancer, alcohol is a poison and guns will be used to shoot people who don't deserve to be shot, and there will be some level of avoidable deaths that society should accept it can't prevent, because individual freedom also matters.
But you bury that point in a very transparently bad argument that pretends a simple death toll comparison means anything, and even when the failing of that argument is explained in thread after thread, you just keep on bringing it up unchanged, over and over again.
A Town Called Malus wrote: And then consider the portrayals in film of both Billy and Dillinger. The modern spree shooter is never going to have such a romanticised depiction of themselves or their crimes in Hollywood as either of those two have had. The way that the media examines and reacts to that kind of violence has actually shifted against the spree shooter.
There's been a half dozen John Dillinger movies, going back to the 40s. The most recent, Public Enemies, is the only version that doesn't romantacise who Dillinger was and what he did.
whembly wrote: The answer is simply call balls and strike... and make clear what is news vs. punditry. Too many folks conflate the two...
That's not really the complexity I'm getting at. Forget punditry, that's an irrelevant distraction, both to this issue and in general
Instead just look at the daily job of being a White House correspondent. Much of the job is actually just routine, receiving official announcements from the White House, often just on administrative stuff like what the president's schedule is on any given day, or what staff are available for interviews. It isn't necessarily going to win anyone a Pulitzer, but its stuff that needs to be done to just get a basic level understanding of what the White House is doing on any given day. Then on top of that there's hanging out in the halls, asking questions to staff as they pass by, and of course building relationships and using that to secure rumours and leaks. All that stuff relies on there being a good relationship between the White House and the press corps. Typically, that relationship has been managed by both sides, both sides working to help the other, in the expectation they'll get helped as well. That's always had a problematic element, close relationships make it more likely for reporters to follow the White House lead on an issue.
But under Trump that relationship has gone from possibly problematic in a certain sense, to completely dysfunctional. This is a White House that routinely makes plainly false statements to the press, and routinely attacks the press, but it is also a White House that constantly leaks incredible stuff to reporters. It's a completely different and deeply weird dynamic, and despite that the press corps has itself pretty much kept on acting like it always has, as if this was another normal administration following the same rules as always.
As for the WH correspondents association dinner... keep doing that, but cut out the "roasting" your ideological opponents... the tradition of this roast was done between friends more often than not.
Did you listen to Wolf's routine? She roasted everyone, the media, the Democrats and the Republicans. It's just the hits on the Republicans landed hardest, because right now there is a Republican president who just happens to be an historically bad president and a genuinely awful human being.
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Vaktathi wrote: Giuliani actually went on national TV and blabbed that gem...
THE. BEST. PEOPLE.
The only way I can make sense of this is they thought if Cohen was going to be repaid then it doesn't break campaign finance laws. But that would mean Trump and his team of legal eagles that decided on this plan didn't bother to read the bit about needing to report loans as well as donations.
It's like Watergate, if Nixon and all his staff were really lazy idiots.
This message was edited 10 times. Last update was at 2018/05/03 06:41:17
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
Can anyone come up with a rational explanation of the Trump-Stormy Daniels-Cohen nexus which doesn't mean Trump had an affair with Daniels and she was paid $130,000 to keep quiet about it?
Kilkrazy wrote: Can anyone come up with a rational explanation of the Trump-Stormy Daniels-Cohen nexus which doesn't mean Trump had an affair with Daniels and she was paid $130,000 to keep quiet about it?
No, that is a given. The second Hanoi Hannah (played by Sarah Sanders in this production), claimed that the case had been won in arbitration, she confirmed that.
Of course, it should be the political death-kneel of a Republican president........but it isn't - because you don't actually have to practice what you preach, when you are a moral-high-horse-grapping political party supposedly representing Christian family values.
You just have to say you are, and count on the fact that your supporters aren't bright enough to notice.
-------------------------------------------------------
"He died because he had no honor. He had no honor and the Emperor was watching."
Kilkrazy wrote: Can anyone come up with a rational explanation of the Trump-Stormy Daniels-Cohen nexus which doesn't mean Trump had an affair with Daniels and she was paid $130,000 to keep quiet about it?
No, that is a given. The second Hanoi Hannah (played by Sarah Sanders in this production), claimed that the case had been won in arbitration, she confirmed that.
Of course, it should be the political death-kneel of a Republican president........but it isn't - because you don't actually have to practice what you preach, when you are a moral-high-horse-grapping political party supposedly representing Christian family values.
You just have to say you are, and count on the fact that your supporters aren't bright enough to notice.
Not really, an affair with a pornstar might still have been relevant in the campaign to candidate Trump. But those people already knew they were voting for a man with multiple divorces, affairs and a less than low regard for women. Now though? Its just problem number 577 and the affair doesn't even matter to anyone. What matters is what happened after the affair.
Sorry for my spelling. I'm not a native speaker and a dyslexic.
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Kilkrazy wrote: Can anyone come up with a rational explanation of the Trump-Stormy Daniels-Cohen nexus which doesn't mean Trump had an affair with Daniels and she was paid $130,000 to keep quiet about it?
No, that is a given. The second Hanoi Hannah (played by Sarah Sanders in this production), claimed that the case had been won in arbitration, she confirmed that.
Of course, it should be the political death-kneel of a Republican president........but it isn't - because you don't actually have to practice what you preach, when you are a moral-high-horse-grapping political party supposedly representing Christian family values.
You just have to say you are, and count on the fact that your supporters aren't bright enough to notice.
Not really, an affair with a pornstar might still have been relevant in the campaign to candidate Trump. But those people already knew they were voting for a man with multiple divorces, affairs and a less than low regard for women. Now though? Its just problem number 577 and the affair doesn't even matter to anyone. What matters is what happened after the affair.
Indeed. The legal issue isn't whether the President had an affair with a porn star. Cheating on your wife shortly after her having given birth to their son is not an actual crime.
Some people might consider it sinful or immoral, and an indication of the person doing the cheating is a crappy individual, but it isn't actually a crime.
The legal issue is, if campaign funds was used in the pay off agreement, to ensure the supporters of the party and the president wouldn't have to deal with the resulting cognitive dissonance.
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Kilkrazy wrote: Can anyone come up with a rational explanation of the Trump-Stormy Daniels-Cohen nexus which doesn't mean Trump had an affair with Daniels and she was paid $130,000 to keep quiet about it?
No, that is a given. The second Hanoi Hannah (played by Sarah Sanders in this production), claimed that the case had been won in arbitration, she confirmed that.
Of course, it should be the political death-kneel of a Republican president........but it isn't - because you don't actually have to practice what you preach, when you are a moral-high-horse-grapping political party supposedly representing Christian family values.
You just have to say you are, and count on the fact that your supporters aren't bright enough to notice.
Not really, an affair with a pornstar might still have been relevant in the campaign to candidate Trump. But those people already knew they were voting for a man with multiple divorces, affairs and a less than low regard for women. Now though? Its just problem number 577 and the affair doesn't even matter to anyone. What matters is what happened after the affair.
Indeed. The legal issue isn't whether the President had an affair with a porn star. Cheating on your wife shortly after her having given birth to their son is not an actual crime.
Some people might consider it sinful or immoral, and an indication of the person doing the cheating is a crappy individual, but it isn't actually a crime.
The legal issue is, if campaign funds was used in the pay off agreement, to ensure the supporters of the party and the president wouldn't have to deal with the resulting cognitive dissonance.
Yes, it should have mattered to a good deal of his own party and perhaps it did, right up to the second he won the nomination from the party and all the moral issues were unceremoniously dumped overboard.
The legal issue must be close to coming to a head, with Giuliano going on Fox like that. Nevertheless, the real repercussions to Trump is what this case opens in regards to individuals blabbing and further cover ups. If he doesn't manage to kneecap himself with yet another dumb comment beforehand.
Sorry for my spelling. I'm not a native speaker and a dyslexic.
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Kilkrazy wrote: Can anyone come up with a rational explanation of the Trump-Stormy Daniels-Cohen nexus which doesn't mean Trump had an affair with Daniels and she was paid $130,000 to keep quiet about it?
As others have noted, that stuff is just the beginning. It's been basically undeniable since Stormy Daniel's lawyer Michael Avenatti found a legal way to make the non-disclosure deal a public document. From then the denials of an affair weren't believed by anyone, no person on earth honestly believed Cohen just paid $130k to silence Daniels about an affair that didn't happen.
Thing is, when we're just talking about the affair, it really has no political cost to Trump. Remember, this is a guy who first came to prominence in NY by trying to get himself in the gossip pages of the NY rags by contacting them himself, often pretending to be his own press agent, to give them stories about all the women he slept with. He's got five kids to three different wives, but now he runs bits in his campaign events about immigrants coming to America and 'breeding'. This doesn't create a second's pause for anyone involved, because its different when Trump does it, because he's white, rich and powerful. He should be able to do what he wants. Trump doing what he wants, saying whatever comes to mind, abusing whoever he wants, sleeping with whoever he wants, this is the fantasy that is so appealing to so many of his voters. It's how they like to pretend they could live if they were rich. That he slept with a pornstar and gave her money to make her go away isn't a Trump problem, it's essential to his 'I do what I want' brand. As for the rest of the Trump voters, well they're partisan to the point where they'd vote for zombie Bin Laden if he's the candidate the Republicans put forward - when Trump bragging about molesting women didn't turn them away, consensual extra-marital sex won't.
What matters now, I think, is the payments that were made to Daniels. There's all kinds of campaign laws those payments violated, and Trump's team have tried to move around those in such an obviously deceitful way that it is now basically impossible for them to manage a coherent defense of the payments. "Okay, the first five explanations were all knowing, willful lies, but you'v gotta believe me with this explanation" is not what any lawyer wants to take to court. I doubt that Trump's breach of these laws will impact him personally, but it will mean jail time for Cohen. Which means Mueller has something to dangle over Cohen's head, to get him to flip on a whole bunch of other stuff. It's all that stuff that really matters, because alongside Russia there is likely a whole lot of business dealings so crooked that it could finally strip away the hardcore partisan Republicans.
That's where the game is at. I suspect that's what Giuliani was trying to do with that nonsense about Trump repaying Cohen, he thought bringing the violation back on to Trump would be okay because Trump can weather it, and it would take the threat away from Cohen. But Giuliani didn't realise the payment made by Cohen was still in breach of the law even if it was a loan, so all he did was confirm Trump knew about the payment. Which ended up making Cohen's position much, much worse.
It almost make it seem like hiring lawyers based on seeing them on FOX News is a bad idea.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/05/03 09:37:46
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
Kilkrazy wrote: Can anyone come up with a rational explanation of the Trump-Stormy Daniels-Cohen nexus which doesn't mean Trump had an affair with Daniels and she was paid $130,000 to keep quiet about it?
Trump was concerned about Stormy Daniel's soul and place in heaven, so this was money to pay off her debts, and pay for an airline ticket to the nearest convent, so she could live out the rest of her life as a Nun and atone for her 'sins.'
Trump kept quiet about the payment so that non-Christian Americans wouldn't get upset, because they don't like Nuns or something...
In all honesty, give me a million pounds and 6 months to think about it, and I'd struggle to come up with anything to explain this away.
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deaths and the sun will be swept from the sky. But is it true?" - Tom Kirby, CEO, Games Workshop Ltd
Kilkrazy wrote: Can anyone come up with a rational explanation of the Trump-Stormy Daniels-Cohen nexus which doesn't mean Trump had an affair with Daniels and she was paid $130,000 to keep quiet about it?
Trump was concerned about Stormy Daniel's soul and place in heaven, so this was money to pay off her debts, and pay for an airline ticket to the nearest convent, so she could live out the rest of her life as a Nun and atone for her 'sins.'
Trump kept quiet about the payment so that non-Christian Americans wouldn't get upset, because they don't like Nuns or something...
In all honesty, give me a million pounds and 6 months to think about it, and I'd struggle to come up with anything to explain this away.
You have to go for something involving his ego, he spends fortunes on his ego and its the only thing he really cares about to keep it simple. So either Stormy mailed him jars of her pee or did his secret hair transplant. Boom, reason for Trump to want to hush things up while not being an affair
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2018/05/03 10:33:38
Sorry for my spelling. I'm not a native speaker and a dyslexic.
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Kilkrazy wrote: Can anyone come up with a rational explanation of the Trump-Stormy Daniels-Cohen nexus which doesn't mean Trump had an affair with Daniels and she was paid $130,000 to keep quiet about it?
Trump was concerned about Stormy Daniel's soul and place in heaven, so this was money to pay off her debts, and pay for an airline ticket to the nearest convent, so she could live out the rest of her life as a Nun and atone for her 'sins.'
Trump kept quiet about the payment so that non-Christian Americans wouldn't get upset, because they don't like Nuns or something...
In all honesty, give me a million pounds and 6 months to think about it, and I'd struggle to come up with anything to explain this away.
You have to go for something involving his ego, he spends fortunes on his ego and its the only thing he really cares about to keep it simple. So either Stormy mailed him jars of her pee or did his secret hair transplant. Boom, reason for Trump to want to hush things up while not being an affair
Going through the list of American Presidents, Andrew Jackson regretting not hanging his vice-President and Nixon's criminality are obviously amongst some of the worst actions or attempted actions, but Trump is definitely heading for that same company.
"Our crops will wither, our children will die piteous
deaths and the sun will be swept from the sky. But is it true?" - Tom Kirby, CEO, Games Workshop Ltd
NinthMusketeer wrote: Thing is, Bush is strongly associated with the 2008 crash. And while it's far from his fault exclusively it's also pretty fair to make
The great irony is how the wealthy are cultivating their own demise. Like gun advocates but on a much bigger scale.
That's a really good point. The rich and gun owners have such strong institutional places in the system, they could carry on forever doing very nicely for themselves. But instead they push, and push, and invite a backlash that will see them lose enormously.
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Vaktathi wrote: On the topic of shootings, schools, etc, may I suggest that perhaps the issue is neither guns nor security measures, but something else?
My grandfather brought firearms to school on a regular basis and just stacked them in the corner of the room to go plinking or rodent hunting after class. He could mail order machineguns to his door via the USPS without background checks or age requirements or NFA paperwork. His schools had no resource officers, and teachers were not armed. And yet...nobody walked through school hallways or nightclubs trying to kill as many people as possible.
What has changed in society, such that some people find that committing such acts to be acceptable recourse to their grievances?
Whether its stalking the halls of a high school with an AR15 or running people down with a rental truck in the streets, why do outliers see this course of action as viable and desireable, when in previous eras they did not? Especially when average levels of daily violence have been decreasing for decades.
I suspect that addressing that question may prove far more productive than gun bans or security measures or whatnot. That said, there is unlikely to be a simple compelling solution that fits into preexisting narratives, but if we really want to see a change, I feel thats where we should look first.
Your mistake is in assuming there is a single factor, not a combination of factors. Consider instead that the pressures that might cause shootings in the US might also exist in other developed countries, but elsewhere those pressures don't happen to exist alongside routine gun ownership and large sections of society immersed in a gun culture.
Think of it this way - when a person tells a health worker they have suicidal impulses to jump off a cliff to their death, the health worker will tell them to move away from their house on a cliff, and stop driving along the mountain road. The first and best way to prevent people dealing with those impulses is to remove the environmental factors that might trigger more instances of those impulses, and might cause them to act on them. A famous example is the Israeli army, which had a serious problem with soldier suicide. The IDF just stopped soldiers taking their guns home on weekends, and suicides dropped 40% immediately.
So now consider a situation where all the pressures of modern life and modern highschool exist, but in one country a troubled kid goes home to a house full of guns, and in another country a kid goes home to a house that's never had a gun, to a lifestyle where the kid has seen a gun maybe two or three times in his life. Which kid has triggers encouraging the fantasy of shooting up his school, and which kid doesn't? So which kid is more likely to actually do it?
Now, all of that doesn't come with a conclusion that gun bans must happen or anything like that. But given all the above, it's basically undeniable that gun proliferation is a major factor in the US's uniquely high rate of murder compared to the rest of the developed world. That's the real starting point for a conversation on this issue.
Interesting theory and while having the means available to commit suicide or murder has to factor in somehow the actual scenario you describe really doesn’t fit the majority of mass shootings. It works with Sandy Hook but doesn’t align with what happened at Columbine, Va Tech, Fort Hood, San Bernardino, Orlando or Parkland. I don’t recall enough info about the Vegas shooter’s background to know if he fits that profile. The majority of shooters didn’t grow up in a gun owning household in the US. They decided to commit mass murder and then proceeded to acquire guns since it was the easiest path to achieving their goal. Other attacks that occurred in locales where acquiring guns would have taken more time or been more difficult led to the use of explosives instead at the Boston Marathon and the Times Square car bomb attempt. If someone’s mental health deteriorates to the point that they are determined to kill a bunch of people they’ll be able to find a way to do it because free societies will always be bulnerable to bad actors within its members.
Guns have always been readily accessible to people in the US and life has always had stressors and difficulties but mass shootings haven’t always been prevalent so clearly some aspects of our current society are contributing to people choosing to be mass murderers. Some kind of massive restriction of guns would have an impact on the ability to commit spree killings but it would do nothing to address the root cause of why people are choosing to be spree killers.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2018/05/03 12:18:48
Interesting theory and while having the means available to commit suicide or murder has to factor in somehow the actual scenario you describe really doesn’t fit the majority of mass shootings. It works with Sandy Hook but doesn’t align with what happened at Columbine, Va Tech, Fort Hood, San Bernardino, Orlando or Parkland. I don’t recall enough info about the Vegas shooter’s background to know if he fits that profile. The majority of shooters didn’t grow up in a gun owning household in the US. They decided to commit mass murder and then proceeded to acquire guns since it was the easiest path to achieving their goal. Other attacks that occurred in locales where acquiring guns would have taken more time or been more difficult led to the use of explosives instead at the Boston Marathon and the Times Square car bomb attempt. If someone’s mental health deteriorates to the point that they are determined to kill a bunch of people they’ll be able to find a way to do it because free societies will always be bulnerable to bad actors within its members.
So why doesn't it happen to the same extent in other comparable countries?
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/05/03 12:38:04
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