US Politics: 2017 Edition

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**Just Tony**

CptJake wrote:
Prestor Jon wrote:

That's because the footage that Manning saw wasn't nearly as egregious as it was made out to be. Insurgents engaged US troops in a gunfight in an area full of civilians and consequently some civilians died I the fighting, it's inevitable and even desirable for the insurgency side that there are civilian casualties in urban guerilla warfare.

In fact, the footage showed the two journalist helping insurgents. For example, one clearly peeks around the corner and takes pictures, then shows the pictures to the insurgents. And the captured camera verified the pictures were of a hardtop hummer and US troops.

RPGs, AKs and other weapons were with the bodies.

The funny thing is that most people weren't over there seeing this stuff firsthand. Firing over the shoulder of a female in front of a mosque door and ducking inside before you could target them, lobbing explosives into a crowded market in the hope of blowing up a vehicle or soldier. Or, my personal favorite as far as insanely bad things done which put people in danger, cramming explosives up a dog's ass and having a CHILD walk it into the crowded street where the soldiers had a check point set up. The fact that civillian casualties were as low as they were is nothing short of a miracle. Also, no surprise about the media helping out the insurgents.

Rosebuddy wrote:
Ensis Ferrae wrote:

I strongly disagree mate.... The reason Manning was tried and convicted in the first place was because of the massive stack of paperwork showing behavioral issues. Manning's actions are very clearly a childish lashing out at her leadership and military service.

She was tried and convicted because she embarrassed the US armed forces by for example revealing videos of helicopters strafing vans full of civilians. That Obama chose now to commute her sentence proves that throwing her into solitary was only ever done out of political expediency.

Someone already addressed this above, and I added my two cents in except for this part:

Manning committed an act during wartime that would have led straight to the firing line, had it not been a highly publicized case with LGBT ties to make it more political. Had a cis het male soldier done that? His life would have lasted hours tops after the trial.

**Mozzyfuzzy**

Just Tony wrote:
CptJake wrote:
Prestor Jon wrote:

That's because the footage that Manning saw wasn't nearly as egregious as it was made out to be. Insurgents engaged US troops in a gunfight in an area full of civilians and consequently some civilians died I the fighting, it's inevitable and even desirable for the insurgency side that there are civilian casualties in urban guerilla warfare.

In fact, the footage showed the two journalist helping insurgents. For example, one clearly peeks around the corner and takes pictures, then shows the pictures to the insurgents. And the captured camera verified the pictures were of a hardtop hummer and US troops.

RPGs, AKs and other weapons were with the bodies.

The funny thing is that most people weren't over there seeing this stuff firsthand. Firing over the shoulder of a female in front of a mosque door and ducking inside before you could target them, lobbing explosives into a crowded market in the hope of blowing up a vehicle or soldier. Or, my personal favorite as far as insanely bad things done which put people in danger, cramming explosives up a dog's ass and having a CHILD walk it into the crowded street where the soldiers had a check point set up. The fact that civillian casualties were as low as they were is nothing short of a miracle. Also, no surprise about the media helping out the insurgents.

Rosebuddy wrote:
Ensis Ferrae wrote:

I strongly disagree mate.... The reason Manning was tried and convicted in the first place was because of the massive stack of paperwork showing behavioral issues. Manning's actions are very clearly a childish lashing out at her leadership and military service.

She was tried and convicted because she embarrassed the US armed forces by for example revealing videos of helicopters strafing vans full of civilians. That Obama chose now to commute her sentence proves that throwing her into solitary was only ever done out of political expediency.

Someone already addressed this above, and I added my two cents in except for this part:

Manning committed an act during wartime that would have led straight to the firing line, had it not been a highly publicized case with LGBT ties to make it more political. Had a cis het male soldier done that? His life would have lasted hours tops after the trial.

The US army still uses firing squads?

**Vaktathi**

Previous sentences for leaks have been generally 1-3 years in most cases, and Manning has spent as much or more behind bars already.

We're also not in a declared war, and even then it's highly unlikely that a death sentence would have been handed down. the US military hasn't executed someone in going on 60 years, and hasn't executed anyone for anything but first degree murder or rape with attempted first degree murder since the second world war (where most of those were for, you guessed it, murder). Of those on death row for crimes in the military, they're all for, again, first degree (premeditated) murder, and the oldest case has been waiting almost 30 years since sentencing.

Manning, nor any "cis het males", would have been put to death over this. On paper, sure it's a possibility, but not something that would have been on the table in practice.

That said, yes, people did try to make a social justice cause out of Manning's issues, probably in ways that weren't really appropriate.

**Gordon Shumway**

No, the us military doesn't use firing squads. Lethal injection is the only method legally recognized, though even that is questionable considering the last one was over 60 years ago and that was by hanging.

**sebster**

So Trump, through Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, is outlining his plan for expanding infrastructure. The idea is to give up $137b in tax credits in the belief that this will create $1t in new infrastructure from the private sector.

This is unbelievably stupid nonsense. The model used assumes that no tax credits will be going to projects that would have happened anyway. For instance, if enacted pile of this money will go to the Keystone pipeline. That’s a project that was seen as commercially viable and undertaken already, but now a bunch of tax credits will be handed over to a project already underway.

Meanwhile any project that doesn’t generate some kind of return on equity, so any road without a toll, or any project that loses money like a passenger train line will not happen under this deal. What you will see is tax credits given to projects that were already profitable and going to happen anyway – ie energy infrastructure.

And that’s before we get to addressing the reality that more than new infrastructure, what the US needs most is to maintain the infrastructure it already has. Repair the roads and bridges. But maintenance can’t be encourage d through this tax credit system – the most critical issue in US infrastructure will go completely unaddressed by the Trump plan.

It is just the most extraordinarily wrong headed approach to dealing with US infrastructure. And most tellingly, it isn’t something unique to Trump, it is straight out the playbook of the Republican party as a whole. Start with government giving money to large companies and very rich people, and then work backwards to figure out a way to justify that.

I think this is really my one observation and my one prediction for the Trump presidency. My observation is that while people have been fixated on all the ways in which Trump is different from other politicians, very few have noticed that in terms of the policies Trump appears to be really serious about Trump is actually a run of the mill Republican. And that leads to my one prediction for the next four years – Trump’s popularity will only get worse, and it will happen as he enacts the basic policies of the modern Republican party.

I think Democrats can absolutely take for granted that Trump will be sunk. What is important is to make sure that policies like the tax handout above are linked not just to Trump, but to the Republicans as a whole.

**Breotan**

After reading about how President Bush, Sr. and his wife were admitted to the hospital, I decided to do some trivia searching. It seems that Presidents Ford and Reagan are currently the record holders for longest lived former Presidents at 93 years each (President Ford is first by 45 days). Presidents Bush, Sr. and Carter are both alive and 92 (President Bush, Sr. is around 3 1/2 months older). That's right, four of our five longest lived Presidents held the office after 1970. I guess that says a lot about modern medicine.

With his health issues, I'm not confident President Bush, Sr. will beat out Presidents Ford and Reagan but President Carter will live to be 104 easy. He's like George Burns that way.

**Vaktathi**

Laffer curve insanity back at it again...

The sooner Art Laffer's ideas can fade from the collective consciousness, the better.

**Peregrine**

Just Tony wrote:
Manning committed an act during wartime that would have led straight to the firing line, had it not been a highly publicized case with LGBT ties to make it more political. Had a cis het male soldier done that? His life would have lasted hours tops after the trial.

Uh, no. For one thing she didn't come out and reveal those LGBT ties until after the trial. And regardless of her identity there's no way executing someone immediately after a trial, with no appeals permitted, for publishing classified information was going to be anything other than a political disaster.

**sebster**

Vaktathi wrote:
Previous sentences for leaks have been generally 1-3 years in most cases, and Manning has spent as much or more behind bars already.

Exactly. One noted development since the turn of the century is the drive in the US to increase punishment for information leaks. This reached its peak with Obama using the Espionage Act to prosecute government officials who leaked to the media (this had happened before, but nothing like how it happened under Obama).

Manning committed a crime, no argument there. But what led to the original 35 year sentence is that he committed his crime at a time the US was really freaking out about information security. With the commuting of his sentence his time will be reduced to a much more sensible 7 years, something that is still much harsher than previous leakers have received.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Vaktathi wrote:
Laffer curve insanity back at it again...

The sooner Art Laffer's ideas can fade from the collective consciousness, the better.

One of the important things to remember about Laffer is that outside of his famously terrible idea about tax and revenue, he's also a completely terrible economist in lots of other ways.

But this is why Laffer's idea won't fade. For people like Laffer giving a fig leaf justification to something that rich and powerful people are lobbying for is a sweet, high paying gig, much better paying than being an obscure, failed economist. And for the rich and powerful and the politicians who work for them, it doesn't matter that Laffer's idea doesn't work and is really obviously stupid - what matters is finding some kind of justification for a thing they wanted to do anyway.

Another example is the right's attempt to discredit stimulus spending - the idea that a sudden influx of government spending can stimulate an economy suffering a shortage of demand. Despite stimulus spending working to end the Great Depression, the idea was politically unpopular. Eventually Milton Friedman came up with a very imaginative but very stupid argument that because consumers are rational they will know that any one off bit of government spending can't be counted on and so any money they receive from it will be assessed across the whole of their lives, and so won't be spent straight away, and therefore won't create stimulus. This was wrong based on empirical observations (on micro and macro levels we had seen money spread through the economy), and it was wrong in its expectation of human behaviour (when you are considering whether you can afford to go out, do you look at your bank balance, or do you form an estimate of all future expected income for the rest of your life?). Despite this, it became as essential part of most economic models and directly led to the rejection of Keynesian stimulus spending by many economists. Now, finally, decades later, behavioural economists have actually tested the theory by looking at the spending habits of people on unemployment benefits - and they show the big reduction spending only happens when benefits are finally lost - showing it is immediate cashflow, not future income that dictates spending.

But it really doesn't matter. Friedman's idea didn't catch on because it sounded right (it was always at odds with our understanding of people and with our economic observations), it caught on because it provided an argument for something a lot of people wanted to believe. Now that its proven completely wrong... well those same people still want to believe the same things so they'll keep using Friedman's idea.

**LordofHats**

sebster wrote:
I think Democrats can absolutely take for granted that Trump will be sunk. What is important is to make sure that policies like the tax handout above are linked not just to Trump, but to the Republicans as a whole.

I think we can assume this is Obama's thinking when he told his party to make the Republicans "own" the repeal of the ACA. It seems the most viable strategy for them right now. Sit back. Don't do the things the Republicans spent all 8 of Obama's years in office doing, and let the Republicans sink their own boat.

**whembly**

LordofHats wrote:
sebster wrote:
I think Democrats can absolutely take for granted that Trump will be sunk. What is important is to make sure that policies like the tax handout above are linked not just to Trump, but to the Republicans as a whole.

I think we can assume this is Obama's thinking when he told his party to make the Republicans "own" the repeal of the ACA. It seems the most viable strategy for them right now. Sit back. Don't do the things the Republicans spent all 8 of Obama's years in office doing, and let the Republicans sink their own boat.

I don't think they can... they should, for sure.

There are 8 (I think) redstate Democrats who's looking at an uphill battle, particularly over the ACA.

Furthermore, Trump is the worst GOP candidate to call for "unity" and "cross the aisle" as he's been so combative.

You'll know this when he nominates William Pryor.... just watch the Dems go ape gak.

**sebster**

LordofHats wrote:
I think we can assume this is Obama's thinking when he told his party to make the Republicans "own" the repeal of the ACA. It seems the most viable strategy for them right now. Sit back. Don't do the things the Republicans spent all 8 of Obama's years in office doing, and let the Republicans sink their own boat.

Yep. Make Republicans own every single thing that they are looking to push through. In 2008 Republicans somehow escaped by making Bush's policies seem like they were just Bush things. Bush put through two tax cuts, with most of the benefit going to the very rich. He tried to argue the tax cuts would provide economic stimulus, in denial of the most basic studies on the subject. Reality worked as predicted and the tax cuts did nothing but increase debt and make rich people richer. Somehow this got buried in among the Iraq debacle and the GFC, so it was either forgotten or simply assigned to Bush alone. Democrats failed to make that kind of failure a key example of what Republicans do and why they suck.

Hopefully this time around the new tax cut, the plan to cut ACA with no replacement, and the infrastructure bill, and all the rest will stick the Republicans as a whole, not just to Trump. But given Trump already has a reputation as a maverick, I suspect his failure will end up being carried by him alone.

**BigWaaagh**

The proverbial Eye of Sauron is upon our soon-to-be POTUS. As Flounder states in Animal House, "Boy is this great!" I'm not trying to be overly partisan, but I'm betting the potential skeletons that are in this guy's closet are going to be something to behold.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/anonymous-to-trump-you-will-regret-the-next-4-years/ar-AAlZeJW?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=ASUDHP

**sebster**

The confirmation hearings have been fairly interesting so far, as examples of how to give 'yes' sounding answers while absolutely not saying yes.

Get a load of this nonsense from Betsy DeVos;

Tim Kaine: Do you think k-12 schools that receive federal funding should meet the same accountability standards, outcome standards?
DeVos: All schools that receive public funding should be accountable, yes.
Kaine: Should meet the same accountability standards?
DeVos: Yes, although you have different accountability standards between traditional public schools and charter schools.
Kaine: But I'm really interested in this, should everybody be on a level playing field? So public, charter, or private K-12 schools, if they receive taxpayer funding, they should meet the same accountability standards?
DeVos: Yes, they should be very transparent with the information. And parents should have that information first and foremost.
Kaine: And, if confirmed, will you insist upon that equal accountability in any K-12 school or educational program that receives federal funding whether public charter or private?
DeVos: I support accountability.
Kaine: Equal accountability for all schools that receive federal funding?
DeVos: I support accountability.
Kaine: Okay, is that a yes or a no?
DeVos: That's a "I support accountability"
Kaine: Do you want to answer my question?
DeVos: I support accountability.

The laughs from DeVos' political blather side, the pattern here is pretty clear - she wants to give funding to private entities, which is fine in some contexts, but then she doesn't seem too fussed about ensuring that the organisations that money goes to are providing decent returns, which is disastrous, especially given the issues with private colleges in the US that just started to be pulled back in Obama's second term. It is amazing that DeVos is so indifferent on the issue, unless, like with the tax handout called an infrastructure program, we start to see the pattern emerging - this whole thing has Berlusconi Mk II written all over it. If that sounds a little dramatic, remember the president elect ran this exact same scam himself.

Anyway, here's the exchange on making colleges that receive federal money accountable.

Elizabeth Warren: So what I want to know is, will you commit to enforcing these rules to ensure that no career college receives federal funds unless they can prove that they are actually preparing their students for gainful employment and not cheating them?
DeVos: Senator, I will commit to ensuring that institutions which receive federal funds are actually serving their students well.
Warren: And so you will enforce the gainful employment rule to ensure that these career colleges are not cheating students?
DeVos: We will certainly review that rule.
Warren: You'll review it? You won't actually commit to enforce it?
DeVos: And see that it is actually achieving what the intentions are.

**LordofHats**

I for one look very forward to the education policy of a man who scammed thousands of people out of millions of dollars through a university that amounted to little more than a pep speech from glorious leader on DVD

And by look very forward to I mean "am terrified of."

**tneva82**

sebster wrote:
This is unbelievably stupid nonsense. The model used assumes that no tax credits will be going to projects that would have happened anyway. For instance, if enacted pile of this money will go to the Keystone pipeline. That’s a project that was seen as commercially viable and undertaken already, but now a bunch of tax credits will be handed over to a project already underway.

And people surprised by this are...Who?-)

There's never been any shadow of doubt that Trump would be disaster as a president. Best you can hope is that he doesn't start a war with all his sabre rattling. Either way USA president for the next 4 years will be a laughing stock.

**reds8n**

http://www.charismanews.com/politics/opinion/62482-anti-trump-republicans-deserve-to-be-blacklisted

During the recent presidential campaign, a strangely disparate group of Republicans set themselves apart from the conservative-populist majority to establish what became known by its social media handle as #NeverTrump.

Some questioned Donald Trump's fitness for the highest office in the land from a strict application of their own standards of public decorum and personal rectitude and just couldn't bring themselves to vote for a candidate that did not live by their personal moral code.

Others looked at the evolution of Donald Trump's positions on various issues, such as the right-to-life and the Second Amendment and decided, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that Trump could not be trusted to pursue a conservative agenda—even when the alternative was the election of Hillary Clinton.

And more than a few revealed that their brand of "conservatism" looked a whole lot more like Hillary Clinton's view of the world and the failed Big Government Republicanism and neo-con policies of George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush than they did the conservatism of Ronald Reagan, Phyllis Schlafly, Barry Goldwater and William F. Buckley Jr.

Among the most prominent and outspoken of the #NeverTrump crowd were neo-con and Bush-era Republicans who had worked in the national security field.

They set themselves outside the conservative-populist wave that swept Trump into office by signing one or both of two public "Never Trump" letters during the campaign, declaring they would not vote for Trump and calling his candidacy a danger to the nation.

One letter, with 122 names, was published by War on the Rocks, a website devoted to national security commentary, during the primary season in March. The other, with 50 names, including some repeat signatories, was published by the New York Times during the general-election campaign in August.

Among those who signed at least one of the letters are Tom Ridge and Michael Chertoff, the first two secretaries of the Department of Homeland Security; two former U.S. trade ambassadors, Carla Hills and Robert Zoellick; two former heads of U.S. intelligence agencies, John Negroponte and retired Air Force Gen. Michael V. Hayden.

In other words, the people who perpetrated the disastrous Bush policies on trade and national security against which Trump campaigned.

And let's be clear, the letters were personal, attacking Trump's character and temperament, asserting that he "lacks self-control and acts impetuously," and had demonstrated "erratic behavior" and is "fundamentally dishonest."

And most importantly, they attacked the policies that won Trump the Republican nomination for President and defeated Hillary Clinton: denouncing Trump's pledge to build a wall along the border with Mexico, his plans to stop the importation of jihad and Muslim terrorism and his professed desire for better relations with Russia.

And now these people want jobs or advisory positions in Donald Trump's administration?

We weren't for Trump during the primaries, and said so. But when the choice was between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, that was no choice at all—we were for Trump and did everything we could to help secure his victory.

However, yesterday, the Washington Post's David Nakamura detailed the complaints of some of the "Never Trump" letters signers who fear they are at the bottom of the pecking order in the new D.C. order Donald Trump and his outsider administration are creating.

The hardest question facing the broader conservative movement in the aftermath of Trump's victory is what place do those individuals who spoke and worked and acted in ways that advanced the election of Hillary Clinton have in the new conservative world that is slowly evolving from Donald Trump's victory.

That the millions of voters who elected Donald Trump would want their advice or want them in positions of influence in the government seems unlikely—at least without some acknowledgement that they missed the validity of the reasons for the great tidal wave that swept Trump into office.

What's more, in some case their conduct was so egregious—for example openly supporting Hillary Clinton by signing the New York Times letter—that it put the future of constitutional liberty in such jeopardy that grass-roots conservatives won't want them back, no matter how distinguished is their past government service.

Those individuals showed themselves to be political opportunists and elitists, not committed limited-government, constitutional conservatives, and if the Trump team has a blacklist, as far as millions of grass-roots conservatives are concerned, that's OK, because their exile should be permanent.

A govt. list of the ~~unclean~~ disloyal.

Bodes well.

lest we forget :

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/10-right-wing-predictions-about-obama-that-never-came-true/

5) Obama Will Create A Personal Brownshirt Army

Ret. Gen. Jerry Boykin, who now serves as the executive vice president of the Family Research Council, repeatedly predicted that Obama planned to “establish a constabulary force” through the Affordable Care Act that would “control the population in America” much in the same way that Adolf Hitler used the Brownshirts to consolidate power, basing his accusation on a debunked myth about the health care law.

Boykin wasn’t alone in predicting that Obama would create such an army.

Another former military official, Ret. Army Major General Jerry Curry, warned that the Obama administration might “arm illegal immigrants” to begin killing Americans, with a focus on assassinating members of the armed forces.

Then-Republican Rep. Paul Broun of Georgia similarly warned in 2008 that Obama’s proposed expansion of national service programs was “exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany” and “exactly what the Soviet Union did.” Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, claimed in 2013 that Obama’s “secret security force” was already in existence.

Lawrence C. Mackin, a conservative writer, warned that Obama was bent on creating a “private internal army” including “illegal aliens” and Middle Eastern terrorists, and William Gheen of Americans for Legal Immigration PAC said Obama would give immigrants “a badge and a gun” in order to target the “Christian, heterosexual male” population. Far-right activist Jim Garrow thought Obama would fake contact with aliens in order to justify the creation of his own army.

Convinced that President Obama was set to wage an anti-white race war, radio host Michael Savage said that Obama intended to arm and “deputize” members of the Crips and Bloods gangs and turn them into his “shock troops.” He also claimed that Black Lives Matter supporters would be “Obama’s shock troops” and “secret private army” much like “the Brownshirts that Hitler had.”

presumably the gun that goes with the badge would from the ones he confiscated -- just after the invasion of Texas.

**Ahtman**

I'm sure this will come as a shock to many, so hold onto your monocles, but Assange is back peddling on turning himself.

**tneva82**

Ahtman wrote:
I'm sure this will come as a shock to many, so hold onto your monocles, but Assange is back peddling on turning himself.

Well he's Assange. What's to be expected?

**Mr. Burning**

tneva82 wrote:
Ahtman wrote:
I'm sure this will come as a shock to many, so hold onto your monocles, but Assange is back peddling on turning himself.

Well he's Assange. What's to be expected?

Is their a US warrant for extradition? I though it was Sweden that wanted him for Rape?

**Rosebuddy**

LordofHats wrote:

I think we can assume this is Obama's thinking when he told his party to make the Republicans "own" the repeal of the ACA. It seems the most viable strategy for them right now. Sit back. Don't do the things the Republicans spent all 8 of Obama's years in office doing, and let the Republicans sink their own boat.

I don't think that the Democrats hanging back and letting the Republicans do whatever they want instead of fighting them tooth and nail will build much loyalty from the voters. I wouldn't want to vote for a bunch of smug feths who expected people to come crawling back despite not doing anything.

**reds8n**

Spoiler:

is it too early to start campaigning yet ?

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/18/us/politics/rick-perry-energy-secretary-donald-trump.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0

WASHINGTON — When President-elect Donald J. Trump offered Rick Perry the job of energy secretary five weeks ago, Mr. Perry gladly accepted, believing he was taking on a role as a global ambassador for the American oil and gas industry that he had long championed in his home state.

In the days after, Mr. Perry, the former Texas governor, discovered that he would be no such thing — that in fact, if confirmed by the Senate, he would become the steward of a vast national security complex he knew almost nothing about, caring for the most fearsome weapons on the planet, the United States’ nuclear arsenal.

Two-thirds of the agency’s annual $30 billion budget is devoted to maintaining, refurbishing and keeping safe the nation’s nuclear stockpile; thwarting nuclear proliferation; cleaning up and rebuilding an aging constellation of nuclear production facilities; and overseeing national laboratories that are considered the crown jewels of government science.

“If you asked him on that first day he said yes, he would have said, ‘I want to be an advocate for energy,’” said Michael McKenna, a Republican energy lobbyist who advised Mr. Perry’s 2016 presidential campaign and worked on the Trump transition’s Energy Department team in its early days. “If you asked him now, he’d say, ‘I’m serious about the challenges facing the nuclear complex.’ It’s been a learning curve.”

Mr. Perry, who once called for the elimination of the Energy Department, will begin the confirmation process Thursday with a hearing before the Senate Energy Committee. If approved by the Senate, he will take over from a secretary, Ernest J. Moniz, who was chairman of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology physics department and directed the linear accelerator at M.I.T.’s Laboratory for Nuclear Science. Before Mr. Moniz, the job belonged to Steven Chu, a physicist who won a Nobel Prize.

For Mr. Moniz, the future of nuclear science has been a lifelong obsession; he spent his early years working at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. Mr. Perry studied animal husbandry and led cheers at Texas A&M University.

...ohh.. America

**d-usa**

Color me shocked that Perry didn't know what the department he wanted to abolish actually does.

Meanwhile I'm sitting at the dealership to get 2 separate recalls addressed on my American made car, and FoxNews is playing on the TV. In 7 minutes they already covered "Hamilton cast cheered Terrorist", "Obama hates America", "Celebrities
Hate America", "Celebrities Disrespect Our Flag", and at least 20 variations of the word "patriot/patriotic".

**BigWaaagh**

d-usa wrote:
Color me shocked that Perry didn't know what the department he wanted to abolish actually does.

Meanwhile I'm sitting at the dealership to get 2 separate recalls addressed on my American made car, and FoxNews is playing on the TV. In 7 minutes they already covered "Hamilton cast cheered Terrorist", "Obama hates America", "Celebrities
Hate America", "Celebrities Disrespect Our Flag", and at least 20 variations of the word "patriot/patriotic".

8 years of that gak network, broadcasting that gak non-stop and some wonder how America got Trump...

**Frazzled**

If you believe thats why America got Trump you are living in a bubble and haven't learned anything from the election.

Trump is a direct chain reaction response to the 2008 downturn, just as Obama was a hope and change candidate and Sanders received such support. People have been voting for change for almost two decades and have not been heard-at least to their satisfaction,which accelerated with the downturn. With each election the electorate decides to choose a more extreme version. Its a logical reaction. they will continue to elect stronger and stronger candidates to kick over all the ant piles until they get what they want.

Unless there are real changes, expect the new slew of candidates to be even more extreme.

**whembly**

reds8n wrote:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/18/us/politics/rick-perry-energy-secretary-donald-trump.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0

WASHINGTON — When President-elect Donald J. Trump offered Rick Perry the job of energy secretary five weeks ago, Mr. Perry gladly accepted, believing he was taking on a role as a global ambassador for the American oil and gas industry that he had long championed in his home state.

In the days after, Mr. Perry, the former Texas governor, discovered that he would be no such thing — that in fact, if confirmed by the Senate, he would become the steward of a vast national security complex he knew almost nothing about, caring for the most fearsome weapons on the planet, the United States’ nuclear arsenal.

Two-thirds of the agency’s annual $30 billion budget is devoted to maintaining, refurbishing and keeping safe the nation’s nuclear stockpile; thwarting nuclear proliferation; cleaning up and rebuilding an aging constellation of nuclear production facilities; and overseeing national laboratories that are considered the crown jewels of government science.

“If you asked him on that first day he said yes, he would have said, ‘I want to be an advocate for energy,’” said Michael McKenna, a Republican energy lobbyist who advised Mr. Perry’s 2016 presidential campaign and worked on the Trump transition’s Energy Department team in its early days. “If you asked him now, he’d say, ‘I’m serious about the challenges facing the nuclear complex.’ It’s been a learning curve.”

Mr. Perry, who once called for the elimination of the Energy Department, will begin the confirmation process Thursday with a hearing before the Senate Energy Committee. If approved by the Senate, he will take over from a secretary, Ernest J. Moniz, who was chairman of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology physics department and directed the linear accelerator at M.I.T.’s Laboratory for Nuclear Science. Before Mr. Moniz, the job belonged to Steven Chu, a physicist who won a Nobel Prize.

For Mr. Moniz, the future of nuclear science has been a lifelong obsession; he spent his early years working at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. Mr. Perry studied animal husbandry and led cheers at Texas A&M University.

...ohh.. America

That's a hacktastic article where the author provides ZERO evidence in supporting the author's thesis...

It's a hit job.

#FakeNews indeed.

**A Town Called Malus**

reds8n wrote:

WASHINGTON — When President-elect Donald J. Trump offered Rick Perry the job of energy secretary five weeks ago, Mr. Perry gladly accepted, believing he was taking on a role as a global ambassador for the American oil and gas industry that he had long championed in his home state.

In the days after, Mr. Perry, the former Texas governor, discovered that he would be no such thing — that in fact, if confirmed by the Senate, he would become the steward of a vast national security complex he knew almost nothing about, caring for the most fearsome weapons on the planet, the United States’ nuclear arsenal.

Two-thirds of the agency’s annual $30 billion budget is devoted to maintaining, refurbishing and keeping safe the nation’s nuclear stockpile; thwarting nuclear proliferation; cleaning up and rebuilding an aging constellation of nuclear production facilities; and overseeing national laboratories that are considered the crown jewels of government science.

“If you asked him on that first day he said yes, he would have said, ‘I want to be an advocate for energy,’” said Michael McKenna, a Republican energy lobbyist who advised Mr. Perry’s 2016 presidential campaign and worked on the Trump transition’s Energy Department team in its early days. “If you asked him now, he’d say, ‘I’m serious about the challenges facing the nuclear complex.’ It’s been a learning curve.”

Mr. Perry, who once called for the elimination of the Energy Department, will begin the confirmation process Thursday with a hearing before the Senate Energy Committee. If approved by the Senate, he will take over from a secretary, Ernest J. Moniz, who was chairman of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology physics department and directed the linear accelerator at M.I.T.’s Laboratory for Nuclear Science. Before Mr. Moniz, the job belonged to Steven Chu, a physicist who won a Nobel Prize.

For Mr. Moniz, the future of nuclear science has been a lifelong obsession; he spent his early years working at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. Mr. Perry studied animal husbandry and led cheers at Texas A&M University.

...ohh.. America

Jesus Christ. Draining the swamp huh? Getting the best people?

**Kanluwen**

Frazzled wrote:
If you believe thats why America got Trump you are living in a bubble and haven't learned anything from the election.

Really?

You have a "news" network that perpetuated around the clock coverage of crap like "Obama's not actually an American citizen" or "Black Lives Matter advocates for the death of police officers"...and you want to say that it's not a big factor?

Automatically Appended Next Post:

whembly wrote:

That's a hacktastic article where the author provides ZERO evidence in supporting the author's thesis...

It's a hit job.

#FakeNews indeed.

Remember, facts don't matter anymore. What you feel matters.

**A Town Called Malus**

whembly wrote:

That's a hacktastic article where the author provides ZERO evidence in supporting the author's thesis...

It's a hit job.

#FakeNews indeed.

So you are saying that Rick Perry is not woefully unqualified compared to his predecessors?

**Frazzled**

Kanluwen wrote:
Frazzled wrote:
If you believe thats why America got Trump you are living in a bubble and haven't learned anything from the election.

Really?

You have a "news" network that perpetuated around the clock coverage of crap like "Obama's not actually an American citizen" or "Black Lives Matter advocates for the death of police officers"...and you want to say that it's not a big factor?

Automatically Appended Next Post:

whembly wrote:

That's a hacktastic article where the author provides ZERO evidence in supporting the author's thesis...

It's a hit job.

#FakeNews indeed.

Remember, facts don't matter anymore. What you feel matters.

yes of course really.

*Over the past twenty years moderates have been driven from both parties.
*Obama was elected as a change candidate, right as the downturn was hitting.
*Sanders gained strong support as a true change candidate -and somone WHO IS NOT A DEMOCRAT-against the most establishment candidate since Eisenhower.
*On the other side, there were two change candidates: "Grandpa Drac" Cruz, and "Tweetmachine" Trump. The most extreme change candidate-and someone who has no relationship at all with the Republican Party-won.

Sure Fox is out there. So is MSNBC. Plus Salon. Plus Breitbart. Plus Slate. Plus Huffington Post. Plus Townhall. Plus Mother Jones. Plus NewsMax. Plus a whole host of even more extreme sites.