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 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Well... the Obama/Clinton wing narrowly won over the Bernie wing of the Democratic party in the DNC leadership election:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/tom-perez-elected-as-first-latino-leader-of-democratic-party/2017/02/25/1fd76f52-fad7-11e6-9845-576c69081518_story.html?utm_term=.a5034d1f55b8

Boy... the DNC is making the "this was a one-term president" a patriotic slogan again.

Remember during the Obama Administration when hoping the President failed, and thus working to make him a one term President, was "treason" and "unpatriotic"?

Funnily enough, I don't. I remember people blasting the Republicans (and rightly so) for effectively holding the government hostage in order to try to make Obama a one-term president, which isn't nearly the same thing as you're claiming happened.

You mean the Democrats have not threatened to filibuster and otherwise hold up nominees to halt this Administration's plans?

 whembly wrote:
Don't see how he's going to able to reduce regulation 'by 75%'... but, any excise of over-regulations can be a good thing.

There's no such thing as too much or too little regulation. There is simply good regulation and bad regulation, quantity doesn't come in to it.

Think of it in these two very simplistic ways that strip mining might be regulated;

Option 1 has two rules - (1) You can't open a strip mine within 100 miles of a population centre, and (2) any mine must be fully restored to its previous condition once mining has stopped.

Option 2 has one rule - (1) You can't ever strip mine ever, it is banned.

By Trump's quantity metric, the first version is bad, and the second version is good, simply because there are less regulations. This is obviously a pretty stupid conclusion, because the total number of regulations aren't the issue, the quality of the regulations are.

I agree that we should always be on the look out to reform and in most cases reduce regulation. But that effort needs to look at the substance of regulations, whether they are serving industry and protecting the public, or just getting in the way. That question isn't answered by just counting the number of regulations.


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 whembly wrote:
Their methodologies are generally whacked, and even Nate Silvers & 538 crew mocks them endlessly.

No. PPP gets a B+. That puts them below the top tier, such as SurveyUSA, Quinnipiac, CBS/NYT or NBC/WSJ. But it puts them ahead of famous and high profile pollsters like Gallup. And it doesn't make them anything like the dozens of terrible polling groups that 538 has banned for being completely unreliable.

They're a middle tier pollster. I'm really not sure where you're getting your idea that PPP is bad from. Perhaps you're thinking of zogby, who 538 does skewer regularly?

If another reputable polling outfit/aggregate gives more than a passing glance at ppp, I'll reconsider.

No single poll is every going to be accurate enough to start drawing conclusions.

What I've found interesting is that Trump's numbers on almost every issue seem fixed around 40%. Nothing conclusive of course, but it does seem to be that we're looking, as always, at 40% who back the red team no matter what, and Trump having zero appeal outside of that.


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Rosebuddy wrote:
It is perfectly accurate to say that Perez was given the position over Ellison to prevent the Democratic Party from moving leftwards at all.

No, that's the simplistic narrative that people have concluded because Sanders' pick lost out. It's totally fething wrong, though.

In reality, both Perez and Ellison laid out near identical platforms, both called for decentralising the party, refocusing messaging and policy on more econonomic populism, and on making sure candidates and positioning in each state take in to account the politics of that particular state rather than the greater national situation.

And both candidates are well and truly on the left of the Democratic party. Ellison was a lot more left, probably to the left of 80 to 90% of the rest, while Perez is to the left of maybe 70%.


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 Kilkrazy wrote:
It just means everyone has to buy a few burner phones to do their leaking.

It's more Trump administration amateur hour stuff. Anyone who's competent enough to get to a position where they have access to information that's worth leaking knows you don't do it by text with your fething staff phone.

And anyone who knows what they're doing knows you don't clamp down on leaks by grabbing phones off everyone and checking them. Presuming everyone is guilty is the best way to produce more leaks, not less.


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Mario wrote:
Yup, the people in power (in the Democratic party) would rather stay in power inside the party (and have a harder time getting into governmental power) than try to revitalise the party by addressing the poor and working class better or even acknowledge that arguments from further left could be sensible.

What the actual feth? The final two candidates were from the left wing of the Democrats and the far left wing of the Democrats. Both ran on platforms that explicitly called for more economic populism, directly appealing to the poor and working class by promising them more stuff.

This wasn't a battle between the left of the party vs right, or even left vs the centre, the left had already won when these two were the final candidates. The only question remaining was how far left they would go.


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 whembly wrote:
Yes it is. SCoTUS ruled Citizen United as violation over the 1st Amendment:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

They ruled such, 5-4 along party lines. This doesn't make the decision wrong, but it does mean saying that disagreeing with it automatically makes you a left winger is a particularly weak argument. What would have happened if Obama had got to appoint Scalia's replacement, and Citizens was re-examined and broke 5-4 the other way? Would everyone who agreed with the original ruling automatically become a right winger?


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 Compel wrote:
The graph is added evidence for one of the main things I've learned about American politics in the last 9 months or so.

And that is, there is perfectly rational, sane people in the Republican party. However, in order to make any progress to be nominated, they have to pretend to be utter lunatics (by my own standards).

You're then faced with a question of, what happens when they come up against someone who actually is one...

Yep, one example is Romney, who as governor produced a sensible, market driven reform to healthcare that proved such an effective template that it was picked up at the national level. Then when Romney ran for president, he now had to attack Obamacare as if it had nothing to do with his own signature policy. He attacked it as socialism despite knowing full well that it was a market driven solution that he had put in place in his own state.

Another example is the recent Republican primaries. Jeb Bush ran on the promise of a stupidly big tax cut, and said this would pay for itself because there would be massive amount of economic growth. His prediction for economic growth was basically figuring out how much there'd have to be to pay for his tax cut, then claiming that's how much growth there going to be. Trump came along and promised an even bigger tax cut, which would pay for itself because growth was going to be even bigger. Jeb was then left trying to say that Trump was irresponsible because he told a bigger lie, or something. Not really any surprise that a big liar smashed the small liar.


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 whembly wrote:
People who are acting with deliberate intent to end the babies lives via abortion procedures, is obviously and categorically different from the medical/biological things that happen in this world.

Of course they're different, but if you believe that the foetus is a human life then it doesn't matter whether the life was ended because of a deliberate act or a biological failure, you would care first and foremost that a human life has been lost. You would focus efforts not just on stopping the deliberate act, but also on expanding and improving medical services to make sure as few miscarriages as possible happen.

But not only do those efforts not happen, the idea isn't even discussed among abortion activists. Look at the responses in this thread, people have literally never even heard this argument before. This is because the idea doesn't occur to abortion activists, for the simple reason that despite all their rhetoric, they don't actually think of a foetus as a human life.

As I said earlier, this doesn't make any comment on the merit of abortion, for or against. Nor does it mean every abortion activist is bad or anything like that. But it does show us that by their own actions, the claim made by abortion activists that a foetus is a human life with all the same rights as any other is not a genuine belief. The truth is more complicated than that, even to people who are pretending it isn't.


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 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Yup. I remember posting in one of the politics threads (one of the ones during the actual election) that if Trump won, his positions and ideals (for want of a better word) would become the new Republican standard because it would demonstrate an ability to win the presidency (and so if people didn't want Trump to become the new standard for Republican politics they should do everything they could to ensure that he didn't win). So far I'm not seeing anything to suggest that isn't happening.

Yeah, I admit I expected a fair bit more conflict than we've seen. I think where I got it wrong wasn't so much with the Republican party as with the donor class. The party itself is a cynical exercise in saying and doing whatever it takes to get just enough voters that they can win power and deliver on what the donor class has paid them to do. What I didn't realise is how quickly the donor class will adapt to Trump's policies - sacred cows like international trade are now being dropped in favour of a new set of whitehouse picked winner and loser companies.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Well... the Obama/Clinton wing narrowly won over the Bernie wing of the Democratic party in the DNC leadership election:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/tom-perez-elected-as-first-latino-leader-of-democratic-party/2017/02/25/1fd76f52-fad7-11e6-9845-576c69081518_story.html?utm_term=.a5034d1f55b8

Boy... the DNC is making the "this was a one-term president" a patriotic slogan again.

Remember during the Obama Administration when hoping the President failed, and thus working to make him a one term President, was "treason" and "unpatriotic"?

Funnily enough, I don't. I remember people blasting the Republicans (and rightly so) for effectively holding the government hostage in order to try to make Obama a one-term president, which isn't nearly the same thing as you're claiming happened.

You mean the Democrats have not threatened to filibuster and otherwise hold up nominees to halt this Administration's plans?

Well if they don't then they are justifying Republicans strategy and are played like a fools so...

 whembly wrote:
Usually with the White House pool reporters.

2) It is not normal to pick only some media outlets to come to these meetings. It would be absurd to hold a gaggle to give out the next week's briefing & interview timetable, and only invite some of the media.

It's not normal... so what?

Here you are accepting that it isn't normal for the gaggle to pick and choose who attends.

Your previous post stated "This small "gaggle" is held in different area (?? why?) and it allows the press sec to choose the attendees. That's part isn't unusal."

So you claimed it wasn't unusual for the Whitehouse to pick who attends a gaggle, and then you accept it was unusual and move to a new argument of 'so what?'

What more can be done at this point to show you'll make up anything, accept anything, just to continue defending your team no matter what?

How would you know? Do you know how many people were invited and the size of Spicier's office?

The idea that this meeting could take place is Spicer's office and only in Spicer's office is obviously ridiculous. You pick a meeting room to suit the audience, not pick an audience to suit the meeting room you've already decided on.

I mean, what are you claiming here, that Spicer went to book the briefing room but it was already booked by the team organising Bannon's birthday morning tea or something like that, so Spicer just had to hold the meeting in his office and start cutting journalists who couldn't fit?

This is ridiculous mate.

No. Politico and TheHill.

Politico and The Hill got the details of a gaggle wrong, did they? Nope.

Would a die hard illegal alien hater and pro lifer be against an abortion of an pregnant illegal alien? :O

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Well... the Obama/Clinton wing narrowly won over the Bernie wing of the Democratic party in the DNC leadership election:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/tom-perez-elected-as-first-latino-leader-of-democratic-party/2017/02/25/1fd76f52-fad7-11e6-9845-576c69081518_story.html?utm_term=.a5034d1f55b8

Boy... the DNC is making the "this was a one-term president" a patriotic slogan again.

Remember during the Obama Administration when hoping the President failed, and thus working to make him a one term President, was "treason" and "unpatriotic"?

Funnily enough, I don't. I remember people blasting the Republicans (and rightly so) for effectively holding the government hostage in order to try to make Obama a one-term president, which isn't nearly the same thing as you're claiming happened.

You mean the Democrats have not threatened to filibuster and otherwise hold up nominees to halt this Administration's plans?

Get back to us when the Democrats refuse to hold a nomination hearing for the Supreme Court or refuse to increase the budget ceiling unless their demands are met.

 whembly wrote:
People who are acting with deliberate intent to end the babies lives via abortion procedures, is obviously and categorically different from the medical/biological things that happen in this world.

I agree. Genocide is different from pandemia. But if you care only about, say, a few murders, but not at all about huge scale pandemia, there's something phony happening.
“Oh no, you see, all those little babies dying from natural diseases are okay, it's perfectly fine that all those humans dies because it's not the result of someone trying to kill them so tons of human babies dying is perfectly fine and nothing bad that we should try to stop, let's enjoy it together!“

 sebster wrote:

 BigWaaagh wrote:
Trump's CPAC speech highlight: The president also spent a large part of his keynote address going after another popular target of his: the press. Trump doubled down on his claim that the "FAKE NEWS media" is the "enemy of the American people," this time saying he plans to "do something about it."

The biggest story out of CPAC is the one that's been barely reported - the conservatives assembled there gave enthusiastic support to both Bannon and Trump. Trump has assumed leadership of conservatism and they've cheered him along in taking it.

I remember when people said it was okay that Trump was a lunatic with lunatic ideas, because conservatives and liberals would both fight him. I knew it was ridiculous to think conservatives would fight Trump, but I still underestimated how quickly and tamely they would fall in line.

It's one of the things that's surprised me the most.

As an outsider, I've assumed that the US party politics were a lot more individually driven, with the parties being more loose congregations than in many european political realities; where in actuality there's really not much point in having parliaments with hundreds of seats. It would be enough with one seat per party and let that seat get a number of votes corresponding to the election results since no one is expected to do anything of note that's not ordered from party headquarters anyway.

It seems now that (at least in the case of the Repuplicans), the "party-tyranny" is just as much a factor in the US as in the european systems. As soon as trump is elected, the party swings it's whip and everyone falls in line.
.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-39099680

The father of a US Navy Seal killed in a raid on a suspected al-Qaeda compound in Yemen last month has said that he refused to meet US President Donald Trump when his son's body arrived home.
"I'm sorry, I don't want to see him," he said he told a chaplain at the time.
The raid on 28 January was the first such operation authorised by Mr Trump.
Bill Owens, whose son William "Ryan" Owens was killed, told the Miami Herald that "the government owes my son an investigation".
"Why at this time did there have to be this stupid mission when it wasn't even barely a week into his administration? Why?" he said in an interview with the newspaper published on Sunday.
"For two years prior, there were no boots on the ground in Yemen - everything was missiles and drones - because there was not a target worth one American life. Now, all of a sudden we had to make this grand display?''

The raid - approved by President Trump just six days after he took office - is believed to have killed several civilians, including children.
Three other Americans were wounded in the raid, planning for which began under the Obama administration.
A report in the New York Times alleged that the mission had been compromised early on - something the commandos knew from intercepted communications, the paper said.
"They kind of knew they were screwed from the beginning," it quoted a former Seal Team 6 official as saying.
But the military disputed this, saying there was no evidence the mission was compromised.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said on Sunday that she believed President Trump would support an investigation.
"The mission has a lot of different critics, but it did yield a substantial amount of very important intel and resources that helped save American lives and other lives,'' she said.
Mr Owens said he was told that his son was killed early on in a fierce gunfight that erupted with AQAP militants.
A flag-draped casket bearing his body was flown to Dover Air Base on 1 February for a private ceremony. Mr Owens said he only learned that President Trump and his daughter Ivanka were on their way when he was already there.
"I told them I didn't want to make a scene about it, but my conscience wouldn't let me talk to him," he said.
A military veteran, he told the Miami Herald that Mr Trump's comments during the presidential campaign about the family of a dead Muslim US soldier had disturbed him.
He said that the White House should not "hide behind" his son's death to ignore criticism of the raid.
William "Ryan" Owens, a 36-year-old married father of three, was a member of the elite Seal Team 6.

is there any reason not to hold an inquest here ?

The same reason why Trump hasn't provided more than a cursory investigation into any of the other allocations which question his actions...

is there any reason not to hold an inquest here ?

We don't cotton to no five dollar words like "inquest" round these parts!

I am sure they have internally reviewed it in detail. Missions have casualties and no reason to politicize them unless...well unless there's an actual reason.

 Zywus wrote:

 sebster wrote:

 BigWaaagh wrote:
Trump's CPAC speech highlight: The president also spent a large part of his keynote address going after another popular target of his: the press. Trump doubled down on his claim that the "FAKE NEWS media" is the "enemy of the American people," this time saying he plans to "do something about it."

The biggest story out of CPAC is the one that's been barely reported - the conservatives assembled there gave enthusiastic support to both Bannon and Trump. Trump has assumed leadership of conservatism and they've cheered him along in taking it.

I remember when people said it was okay that Trump was a lunatic with lunatic ideas, because conservatives and liberals would both fight him. I knew it was ridiculous to think conservatives would fight Trump, but I still underestimated how quickly and tamely they would fall in line.

It's one of the things that's surprised me the most.

As an outsider, I've assumed that the US party politics were a lot more individually driven, with the parties being more loose congregations than in many european political realities; where in actuality there's really not much point in having parliaments with hundreds of seats. It would be enough with one seat per party and let that seat get a number of votes corresponding to the election results since no one is expected to do anything of note that's not ordered from party headquarters anyway.

It seems now that (at least in the case of the Repuplicans), the "party-tyranny" is just as much a factor in the US as in the european systems. As soon as trump is elected, the party swings it's whip and everyone falls in line.
.

That'sthe two-party system here.

See 2008-2010... Democrats held the WH, House and Senate... and pushed through their agendas.

That is the thing about Libertarian and GOP Pro-Lifers. They just want you to give birth to the kid. Afterward you are on your own to take care of it. Until they are ready to enlist for the armed services. Then after that they are done with you again and to gak with any healthcare.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 whembly wrote:
People who are acting with deliberate intent to end the babies lives via abortion procedures, is obviously and categorically different from the medical/biological things that happen in this world.

I agree. Genocide is different from pandemia. But if you care only about, say, a few murders, but not at all about huge scale pandemia, there's something phony happening.
“Oh no, you see, all those little babies dying from natural diseases are okay, it's perfectly fine that all those humans dies because it's not the result of someone trying to kill them so tons of human babies dying is perfectly fine and nothing bad that we should try to stop, let's enjoy it together!“

Why I will always SMH at the Anti-vaxxers and the people who don't want tougher restrictions on guns like stopping them from getting into the hands of mentally ill people.

 Vash108 wrote:
That is the thing about Libertarian and GOP Pro-Lifers. They just want you to give birth to the kid. Afterward you are on your own to take care of it. Until they are ready to enlist for the armed services. Then after that they are done with you again and to gak with any healthcare.

Vs. the Pro abortionists who skip the whole healthcare issue right at the start?
Are Pro-Life Democrats no longer welcomes into the Democratic Party?

Jehan-reznor wrote:Would a die hard illegal alien hater and pro lifer be against an abortion of an pregnant illegal alien? :O

There's no dichotomy here. Deport the pregnant illegal alien and let their home country deal with their abortion. I'm not sure what you're getting at here, unless you're trying to imply people wanting all the illegals dead, which isn't a viewpoint that I think we'll ever see on this board.

Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 whembly wrote:
People who are acting with deliberate intent to end the babies lives via abortion procedures, is obviously and categorically different from the medical/biological things that happen in this world.

I agree. Genocide is different from pandemia. But if you care only about, say, a few murders, but not at all about huge scale pandemia, there's something phony happening.
“Oh no, you see, all those little babies dying from natural diseases are okay, it's perfectly fine that all those humans dies because it's not the result of someone trying to kill them so tons of human babies dying is perfectly fine and nothing bad that we should try to stop, let's enjoy it together!“

Who says we only care about one or the other? People who believe in the sanctity of life believe in it no matter what, with the notable exceptions of punishment for a severe crime or enemy combatants, which is still not something that ANYONE wants to see a severe rise in. And if you want to go the murder route, society as a whole works hard to try to prevent ALL murders, through cultural changes, sometimes regulations, even something as simple as people watching what's in their "everyday" for possible threats. The issue, when it comes down to it, is that most abortions are preventable from the start because most pregnancies are preventable from the start. I would say all, but someone would mention rape, and I'd have to mention armed people with training on how to use their firearms don't tend to get raped as often as unarmed people, but that would start a whole different liberal vs. conservative debate.

One thing NinthMusketeer pointed out that stuck with me was about a woman being inconvenienced by their pregnancy. Most of you that are pro-choice are also atheists, so I will assume you don't believe in immaculate conception. Therefore, when you get right down to it, there's a surefire way to ensure there IS NO inconvenient pregnancy. Barring that, depo provera is still an option for anyone not allergic to it. There are TONS of options, and those options should be the ones being pursued. Also, if inconvenience is the issue, what about the single mother working a low income job who has a two year old that she can't take care of and is inconvenienced by, should she be allowed to euthanize that child? To the pro-life crowd, there is no difference between the two. And yes, I'm aware adoption is the immediate answer to the latter. It should be the immediate answer to the former, as well.

 Frazzled wrote:


Vs. the Pro abortionists who skip the whole healthcare issue right at the start?

How are they skipping the "Whole Healthcare" issue?

 whembly wrote:

 Zywus wrote:

 sebster wrote:

 BigWaaagh wrote:
Trump's CPAC speech highlight: The president also spent a large part of his keynote address going after another popular target of his: the press. Trump doubled down on his claim that the "FAKE NEWS media" is the "enemy of the American people," this time saying he plans to "do something about it."

The biggest story out of CPAC is the one that's been barely reported - the conservatives assembled there gave enthusiastic support to both Bannon and Trump. Trump has assumed leadership of conservatism and they've cheered him along in taking it.

I remember when people said it was okay that Trump was a lunatic with lunatic ideas, because conservatives and liberals would both fight him. I knew it was ridiculous to think conservatives would fight Trump, but I still underestimated how quickly and tamely they would fall in line.

It's one of the things that's surprised me the most.

As an outsider, I've assumed that the US party politics were a lot more individually driven, with the parties being more loose congregations than in many european political realities; where in actuality there's really not much point in having parliaments with hundreds of seats. It would be enough with one seat per party and let that seat get a number of votes corresponding to the election results since no one is expected to do anything of note that's not ordered from party headquarters anyway.

It seems now that (at least in the case of the Repuplicans), the "party-tyranny" is just as much a factor in the US as in the european systems. As soon as trump is elected, the party swings it's whip and everyone falls in line.
.

That'sthe two-party system here.

See 2008-2010... Democrats held the WH, House and Senate... and pushed through their agendas.

Yeah, that Obamacare got pushed right through with no opposition at all...

Whembly, it's like you're from an alternate dimension.

This is a damn good read, if a little terrifying. Ties together the whole Trump / Bannon / Breitbart / FAKE NEWS thing rather scarily...

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/26/robert-mercer-breitbart-war-on-media-steve-bannon-donald-trump-nigel-farage

 Vash108 wrote:
That is the thing about Libertarian and GOP Pro-Lifers. They just want you to give birth to the kid. Afterward you are on your own to take care of it. Until they are ready to enlist for the armed services. Then after that they are done with you again and to gak with any healthcare.

Ooooh, can I quote George Carlin and be off-base as well? First off, nobody is ever "on their own" unless they choose to be, or unless every single family member and friend they have gets slaughtered and they have some sort of colossal behavioral disorder that prevents them from making new friends. Second, do you have any idea how well insured military personnel are? By that nice blanket party-line statement, I'll assume you don't. I have access to either Tricare or insurance provided by Caterpillar. I chose Tricare because of how much better it was over Cat's, and Cat's isn't some low tier program. Third, and finally, the issue isn't that we don't want healthcare available for everyone, the issue is that we don't want to pay for everyone else's healthcare. It's the same principle as subsidizing someone's car insurance, some people would try their best to pay the most they could and not burden the system, but far more would simply upgrade to the best insurance and leave the bill to the mass of people forced to pay the taxes to cover it. Healthcare shouldn't be run like that at all. Treatment is still accessible for everyone, so that card can't be played. There are even clinics paid for by donation for people to get to, all it takes is googling where they are. And since welfare cell phones are a thing (Still can't believe that...), there's no excuse.

 Vash108 wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:


Vs. the Pro abortionists who skip the whole healthcare issue right at the start?

How are they skipping the "Whole Healthcare" issue?

No healthcare required.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 Zywus wrote:

 sebster wrote:

 BigWaaagh wrote:
Trump's CPAC speech highlight: The president also spent a large part of his keynote address going after another popular target of his: the press. Trump doubled down on his claim that the "FAKE NEWS media" is the "enemy of the American people," this time saying he plans to "do something about it."

The biggest story out of CPAC is the one that's been barely reported - the conservatives assembled there gave enthusiastic support to both Bannon and Trump. Trump has assumed leadership of conservatism and they've cheered him along in taking it.

I remember when people said it was okay that Trump was a lunatic with lunatic ideas, because conservatives and liberals would both fight him. I knew it was ridiculous to think conservatives would fight Trump, but I still underestimated how quickly and tamely they would fall in line.

It's one of the things that's surprised me the most.

As an outsider, I've assumed that the US party politics were a lot more individually driven, with the parties being more loose congregations than in many european political realities; where in actuality there's really not much point in having parliaments with hundreds of seats. It would be enough with one seat per party and let that seat get a number of votes corresponding to the election results since no one is expected to do anything of note that's not ordered from party headquarters anyway.

It seems now that (at least in the case of the Repuplicans), the "party-tyranny" is just as much a factor in the US as in the european systems. As soon as trump is elected, the party swings it's whip and everyone falls in line.
.

That'sthe two-party system here.

See 2008-2010... Democrats held the WH, House and Senate... and pushed through their agendas.

Yeah, that Obamacare got pushed right through with no opposition at all...

Whembly, it's like you're from an alternate dimension.

Except of course his statement has little to do with yours. It was passed over Republican objection.

I don't understand what the issue is. Steal the Canadian plan. Scratch out all the extra "u"s and "Canadia" at the top, and Insert "America HURR!" and there you go.

* Did you know old bottles of lighter fluid can surprisingly just shatter and spray all over you and the barbecue? Did you know when you are suddenly drenched in lighter fluid while holding a lighter you may in fact scream like a little girl? After this weekend Frazzled knows...

 Frazzled wrote:

 Vash108 wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:


Vs. the Pro abortionists who skip the whole healthcare issue right at the start?

How are they skipping the "Whole Healthcare" issue?

No healthcare required.

What are you talking about Frazz?

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 Vash108 wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:


Vs. the Pro abortionists who skip the whole healthcare issue right at the start?

How are they skipping the "Whole Healthcare" issue?

No healthcare required.

What are you talking about Frazz?

Er... if you're aborted you no longer require healthcare.

 Frazzled wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 Vash108 wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:


Vs. the Pro abortionists who skip the whole healthcare issue right at the start?

How are they skipping the "Whole Healthcare" issue?

No healthcare required.

What are you talking about Frazz?

Er... if you're aborted you no longer require healthcare.

...

Huh? And that's supposed to mean what?

 sebster wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:
So, would everyone agree that a one-time ban for a bunch of news outlets is about the same as a permanent ban on one network?

Would everyone agree that Trump actually did exclude news agencies, while Obama was merely accused of such by one dishonest news agency?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 skyth wrote:
http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/eduardo-caraballo-puerto-rico-deportion-94795779.html

US citizen held and threatened to be deported as an illegal even though he showed his birth certificate and ID. Doubt this would have happened if he wasn't brown...

Australian children's author Mem Fox was held and aggressively questioned for two hours. She's a 70 year old white woman.

Many people find the idea of being an donkey-cave for no reason and getting away with it really appealing. It was a big part of Trump's appeal in the first place. Its what attracts some people to jobs like border security.

Put those two things together and you get a whole lot of people getting treated very badly because there is a missing figure on their visa. Racism is almost inevitably going to tied up with that, but it isn't all about racism.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Prestor Jon wrote:

 BigWaaagh wrote:
This is bad. Every administration tries to control the narrative and get their message out through favorable media outlets but this kind of behavior goes far beyond that. In the short term I don't think the public really lost out on anything in this particular briefing but it's not good for this kind of hard line stance to be taken this early.

I actually think the story here is less about a threat against free press, and more a story of an increasingly incompetent president. You don't control the narrative by making hostile gestures against the people who will be delivering your message to the public. This is 'the beatings will continue until morale improves' kind of stuff.

It was wrong when the Obama administration banned Fox News but at least there was a lengthy build up to it and a show of solidarity against it.

Seriously, this didn't fething happen. FOX didn't get an interview with a treasury official, because they didn't ask for one. FOX then said 'actually we meant to ask for an interview', and Treasury responded 'well then you shoulda asked for one'. FOX complained, and were granted an interview. FOX then told a big story about how they were banned, and only got access when the rest of the media threatened walk out, which was complete fiction.

Incredibly, in the years after the event instead of the truth slowly being established the story has become more fantastical. It's actually grown so that instead of being about that one time an interview was denied an interview by treasury, it's now become a story about the whole of FOX news being blocked from access to Obama or something.

BW: Sebs, you might want to edit your quotes there, old boy. I didn't actually say anything posted here.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 Vash108 wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:


Vs. the Pro abortionists who skip the whole healthcare issue right at the start?

How are they skipping the "Whole Healthcare" issue?

No healthcare required.

What are you talking about Frazz?

Er... if you're aborted you no longer require healthcare.

...

Huh? And that's supposed to mean what?

Someone had posted that Pro-Lifers ignore your healthcare needs after you are born. Its a strange comment admittedly to have to respond to.

Crispy78 wrote:
This is a damn good read, if a little terrifying. Ties together the whole Trump / Bannon / Breitbart / FAKE NEWS thing rather scarily...

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/26/robert-mercer-breitbart-war-on-media-steve-bannon-donald-trump-nigel-farage

I mean, if that's true, we're screwed. Right?

Even if there was a group of ultra-rich sociopaths on the far left with the same kind of agenda, these people are so far ahead and apparently so entrenched that the only way to counter them would be to engineer the death of social media as a platform entirely.

See, this is why we can't have nice things in the OT.

Can we please step away from the whole abortion angle? Invariably, no one will change their minds and it just gets more and more contentious.

Back to politics, today Republicans get back to dismantling Obamacare, despite blistering town halls and popular opposition. Oh, and no real alternatives. So far, the proposed solution seems to be tax credits that favor the wealthy. Because why not?

Finally something everyone can criticise Trump for without any partisan lines getting in the way:

http://www.avclub.com/article/president-trump-orders-his-steak-well-done-ketchup-251081?utm_content=Main&utm_campaign=SF&utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=SocialMarketing

President Trump orders his steak well done with ketchup

What donkey-cave goes out to dinner at one of the nation capital’s most-acclaimed steakhouses, orders a 30-day dry aged New York strip, then asks the chef to cook it well done? And if that’s not enough, eats it with ketchup like a 5-year-old?

We’ll give you one guess.

As if trump wasn't a monster already he now orders steaks like that

...

there's no real/significant difference between ketchup and catsup right ?