Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:
No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.
If you are already a member then feel free to login now.
We're going to follow the laws of the United States, and in following those law, we will prioritize the removal of people who have criminal records in this country. And if we remove ten criminal aliens and we end up saving as a result one or two or three or four American lives, then that is something that is magnificent because somewhere across this country today there is some young child facing some unknown danger and that danger will be eliminated because of some enforcement action that we're going the take in the coming days. And that is something we should celebrate, not criticize.
So apparently our illegal immigrant population is planning to murder 1,200,000 to 600,000 citizens (with Trump's number of 3mil criminal aliens).
Maybe not murder, but assault, rape, steal from, or otherwise harm that many? Over the course of a few years, absolutely that might happen. Just look at Europe and how violent crime has skyrocketed since they started taking all those "peaceful" refugees from the Middle East (and other places).
Since no one's called you out for it yet, do you have any sources for this "skyrocketing" of violent crime in Europe. Even if you did, can you prove causation?
In the name of all that is sacred, I am tired of that Sweden-is-the-rape-capital (and Muslim are to blame!) canard being trotted around.....and I am not even Swedish.
-------------------------------------------------------
"He died because he had no honor. He had no honor and the Emperor was watching."
Steelmage99 wrote: In the name of all that is sacred, I am tired of that Sweden-is-the-rape-capital (and Muslim are to blame!) canard being trotted around.....and I am not even Swedish.
Most sources say it is not true, but as you can see there are sites that are promoting it.
thekingofkings wrote: Most sources say it is not true, but as you can see there are sites that are promoting it.
Well yeah, the fringe right holds to all kinds of lies and fantasies. It's pretty much what makes the far right work. So the argument that some far right people out there are claiming some kind of muslim wave of violence isn't news, or worth posting, unless someone wants to try and claim that its true (and please no-one claim that it's true, because it is crazy hogwash).
“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.
thekingofkings wrote: Most sources say it is not true, but as you can see there are sites that are promoting it.
Well yeah, the fringe right holds to all kinds of lies and fantasies. It's pretty much what makes the far right work. So the argument that some far right people out there are claiming some kind of muslim wave of violence isn't news, or worth posting, unless someone wants to try and claim that its true (and please no-one claim that it's true, because it is crazy hogwash).
The fact that Sweden seem to have of lot of rapes is worse that a straight up lie or fantasy - because it isn't a lie or a fantasy.
Sweden have in fact had an increase in rapes and they do statistically have more rapes than most other countries in Europe.
In order to understand the reason why this is the case requires something very special and very rare.
One needs to put aside ones bias and objectively ask why they (seem to) have a lot of rapes in Sweden.
Then one can suddenly realise that Sweden recently broadened their legal definition of rape, and ran a big campaign to increase public awareness to ensure that rape was reported.
This has had the completely expected result of more rapes being registered in statistics.
-------------------------------------------------------
"He died because he had no honor. He had no honor and the Emperor was watching."
whembly wrote: Trump and his peeps is stepping on his dick here almost every hour. It gets to a point where if folks complain about everything he does, then the truly obnoxious ones get lost in the noise. Hence my 'pick you battle' blub.
I've been thinking about something of a 'pick your battles' idea as well. Difference is that you seem to think its about going quiet on some of Trump's scams and screw ups. I think the opposite, I think it is about laying out every single feth up, every single stupid comment, every single graft he tries. What needs to change though, is that message needs to be repeated over and over again.
The issue in the past has been that people on the other side of the political fence have picked out random bits and pieces and argued those. Some times they've picked out single elements out of context, reframed them in a way that they don't sound as terrible, and other times they've just made up some crazy gak to defend it. End result is yet another back and forth over petty nothing, which hides the much more important overall story of the Trump/Republican disaster.
Picking battles then becomes about not engaging with people trying to do the latter. It's about not going down the rabbit hole in an endless back and forth over some really minor thing. Especially if you can tell the other person isn't being all that honest about the issue.
It doesn't mean not responding, but being smarter about how you respond, and how you close those conversations off.
And above all, it means making sure that as many of Trump's feth ups as possible are known to as many people as possible.
“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.
What Steelmage said. And before someone will come up with "Sources?", here is a wikipedia article dedicated to exactly this issue, citing scientific studies and official reports on the topic.
I feel like this has been posted dozens of times, but every time it might be useful to convince a silent lurker to not fall into the "Sweden Rape Capital cuz Muslims" trap.
Peregrine wrote: No, the complaint is that Trump personally benefits from it and is treating the presidency like just another business deal to make money from. If, say, Trump donated the entire amount to charity (with no tax benefits claimed) then it wouldn't be a conflict of interest.
Even that wouldn't meet the standards of the right wing, if they were consistent from last year to this year. Remember all that Clinton Foundation money... that got paid in to her foundation, and not to Clinton? Yeah, apparently that was enough to conclude Clinton was bought and paid for, even though she didn't personally benefit. So why shouldn't that still be unacceptable, even if Trump gave the money to charity?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
jasper76 wrote: Again, I'm really only interested in results now. If I can keep a more of my money, that'd be great. I'm not rich, I work hard for my money, and it'd be super-duper if I could keep more of it.
If you’re only interested in results now, then go borrow as much money as you can from as many payday lenders and loan sharks as you can, and live it up big. You’ll have way more money than any tax cut will give. Sure tomorrow they’ll want their money back, but hey you’re only interested in results now.
And really, the loan shark is probably giving a better returns than Trump’s tax cut. Because with Trump’s tax cut you’ll be giving up six or seven trillion to the richest few, just so you can split the last trillion between yourself and about 300 million other citizens. Compared to that, a payday lender charging 20% doesn’t seem like quite so big a scam.
I really don't care what measures the Dems tried and failed at in the past to simplify the tax code. We have a united government now, and I hope they can succeed where the Democrats failed here. This last part, the simplification of the tax code, IMO should be a completely non-partisan issue. I'd really be content to pay exactly the rate of tax I am now if they would just simplify the code.
You actually think this government is united against backroom money from special interests? Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Co'tor Shas wrote: Yeah, the D's economic policy is certainly no worse than the R's (I used to say better in some ways, worse in others but I think that's sort of out the window with Trump). What they lack is good messaging, something the R's excel at.
Yeah, there's a big issue with both the Republicans and the greater economic knowledge of the community. To put it plainly - the economic policies of the Republican party are absolutely fething bonkers. This hasn't always been the case, post war up until the end of the 70s the Republicans were easily the party with real economic substance behind their reforms. But since then the Republicans have at each juncture always chosen the worst possible economic policy to rally behind. Reagan's laffer curve 'our tax cut will pay for itself because look at this nice drawing this Art guy gave me' was the beginning. He won two terms in big results, defined a new Republican party. His more sensible VP, who was even willing to move away from ideology and raise taxes when necessary... well that guy was a one term loser. It become clear where the GOP was going to go. So of course when GW Bush won office, then come hell or high water he was gonna get his tax cut passed. It didn't matter that trickle down never worked the first time, it didn't matter that dozens of papers had split out the effects of the Volcker recession and found the tax cut produced no boost to GDP, it didn't matter that trickle had failed utterly and all gains given to the top had stayed with the top... the clear political incentive was for Bush to ignore all that horrible reality stuff, and that's what he did. So you got a new tax cut, and again it didn't drive growth, and the gains given to the rich stayed with the rich. Meanwhile, like with Reagan the deficit blew out once again. Now we get to Trump, and he's promising the same bs, with the same make believe nonsense about how it won't blow the deficit because it will pay for itself, and while the cuts may go to the rich, don't worry this time it'll totally flow down to the poor.
Third time around its more than just being at odds with economic modelling, it's at odds with the immediate history of their own country. And on top of that Trump has also added protectionism, and we're seeing much of the rest of the Republican party shrug and just concede that to him. That's about the last element on which Republican economic policy had any kind of real world backing, and it's rapidly dying as well.
And while they were out of office, we saw the Republican party sit there and try to fight against stimulus during a recession. Actually pretend aggregate demand wasn't a thing. We had to sit there and watch Republicans and their coterie of pseudo-economic hacks pretend there was something controversial about the intro economics stuff they teach in highschool.
This isn't to say that economics is left wing, not at all. Even once you split out the conservative hacks who are ignored within economics and only work to give a fig leaf to Republican nonsense (Laffer, Moore, Kudlow), there is still a lean to the right. It's just the right wing there is based on stuff like promoting trade and innovation, and building responsive economics markets, stuff that the US political right either ignores or is actively hostile towards.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2017/02/13 09:29:14
“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.
jasper76 wrote: Again, I'm really only interested in results now. If I can keep a more of my money, that'd be great. I'm not rich, I work hard for my money, and it'd be super-duper if I could keep more of it.
If you’re only interested in results now, then go borrow as much money as you can from as many payday lenders and loan sharks as you can, and live it up big. You’ll have way more money than any tax cut will give. Sure tomorrow they’ll want their money back, but hey you’re only interested in results now.
And really, the loan shark is probably giving a better returns than Trump’s tax cut. Because with Trump’s tax cut you’ll be giving up six or seven trillion to the richest few, just so you can split the last trillion between yourself and about 300 million other citizens. Compared to that, a payday lender charging 20% doesn’t seem like quite so big a scam.
I really don't care what measures the Dems tried and failed at in the past to simplify the tax code. We have a united government now, and I hope they can succeed where the Democrats failed here. This last part, the simplification of the tax code, IMO should be a completely non-partisan issue. I'd really be content to pay exactly the rate of tax I am now if they would just simplify the code.
You actually think this government is united against backroom money from special interests? Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
Why would I want to borrow money from a loan shark? I don't even like borrowing money from a reputable bank. Call me old-fashioned, but I like to make my money from work and from investment...you know, because then the money is actually mine. If I could keep more of MY money through a lower tax rate, that would be great. I don't want anyone else's money without earning it through work, and I certainly don't want a loan, especially a high interest one. I hope that clears up what I meant.
As to your second point, what I meant was that both houses of Congress and the Executive Branch are now united under the same party's leadership. I'm sorry if I wasn't clear on that, as well.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2017/02/13 12:26:55
The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all
We love our superheroes because they refuse to give up on us. We can analyze them out of existence, kill them, ban them, mock them, and still they return, patiently reminding us of who we are and what we wish we could be.
"the play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king,
I think it's high time we all dropped this pretense that such a thing as the Republican Party even exists.
It exists in name only, American conservatism having died a long time ago...
What we have is this hollowed out shell, this lurching zombie, that should have been put out of its misery years ago.
That somebody like Trump was able to hijack the GOP speaks volumes...
I hope I live to see the day that the GOP and the Democrats, and our two zombie parties in the UK (Conservatives and Labour) are swept away, consigned to the history books, and replaced by political parties that actually believe in something, rather than this wretched bunch we have know that are in hock to big business and corporate interests.
"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
The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all
We love our superheroes because they refuse to give up on us. We can analyze them out of existence, kill them, ban them, mock them, and still they return, patiently reminding us of who we are and what we wish we could be.
"the play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king,
WrentheFaceless wrote: So this far after the election people are still attacking Hillary, is it because Trump is that bad, anything to deflect away from what he's doing?
So, if someone specifically asks me why I didn't vote for Clinton, I can't list the reasons because it's "attacking" her? Gotcha. I'd have done the same thing if someone asked me about the 2000 election, but then I guess that doesn't fit your agenda.
whembly wrote: With the latest IC issue with Mike Flynn... (guy who lied to Trump/Pence over content of call to RU ambassador whilst Obama still Prezzy).
I hope Trump realizes that Flynn needs to go...
Not gonna happen.
Flynn is the major Russian connection in Trump's administration, so he'll stay. Even if Flynn somehow got tossed out, he'd be replaced with another Putin mouthpiece, just like Carter Page and Paul Manafort. Because Trump's in too deep with Putin to allow a complete severing of that tie.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2017/02/13 14:52:44
Abstinence education works! Nobody can prove otherwise!
Utah just has a weird vibe. A friend of GC is going to BYU and some of the stories are...weird like almost cultlike weird.
-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
jasper76 wrote: I don't want anyone else's money without earning it through work, and I certainly don't want a loan, especially a high interest one. I hope that clears up what I meant.
Shouldn't that mean you'd be in favour of paying high taxes to pay society back for providing the structures you've used to make the money in the first place?
For thirteen years I had a dog with fur the darkest black. For thirteen years he was my friend, oh how I want him back.
jasper76 wrote: I don't want anyone else's money without earning it through work, and I certainly don't want a loan, especially a high interest one. I hope that clears up what I meant.
Shouldn't that mean you'd be in favour of paying high taxes to pay society back for providing the structures you've used to make the money in the first place?
No... he's already paying taxes in various forms...
jasper76 wrote: I don't want anyone else's money without earning it through work, and I certainly don't want a loan, especially a high interest one. I hope that clears up what I meant.
Shouldn't that mean you'd be in favour of paying high taxes to pay society back for providing the structures you've used to make the money in the first place?
I already do pay taxes...I have for my entire working life, and even longer than that when you account for sales taxes. Do I want to pay higher taxes? No, I do not. Should I be in favor of paying higher taxes? No, IMO I already pay too much in tax between federal, state, and local taxes, and I would like to pay less. But honestly, I'd be happy to pay the rate I am now if the tax code would be simplified, so I wouldn't have to pay a tax preparer to decipher the tax code for me.
This message was edited 5 times. Last update was at 2017/02/13 15:37:37
We're going to follow the laws of the United States, and in following those law, we will prioritize the removal of people who have criminal records in this country. And if we remove ten criminal aliens and we end up saving as a result one or two or three or four American lives, then that is something that is magnificent because somewhere across this country today there is some young child facing some unknown danger and that danger will be eliminated because of some enforcement action that we're going the take in the coming days. And that is something we should celebrate, not criticize.
So apparently our illegal immigrant population is planning to murder 1,200,000 to 600,000 citizens (with Trump's number of 3mil criminal aliens).
Maybe not murder, but assault, rape, steal from, or otherwise harm that many? Over the course of a few years, absolutely that might happen. Just look at Europe and how violent crime has skyrocketed since they started taking all those "peaceful" refugees from the Middle East (and other places).
Well considering that illegal immigrants commit fewer crimes per capita than american citizens (other than the crime of being here and the stuff related to that), no, it's BS. And moving goal-posts doesn't make it any less BS.
you're quoting a conservative news and opinion site, who's sources for the first few claims are...other conservative news sites, we're looking at an infotainment echo chamber, and the article research attribution for your counter claim is...
"Fox News sorted through myriad "local, state and federal statistics""
That sounds a wee bit...thin. Even if there's good data somewhere in there, there's lot of mess intentionally masquerading as good data.
Immigrants are not a scourge of criminals, as a whole anyway. I will admit that some of the sources listed in the NYT article do conflate "immigrant" with "illegal immigrant". This topic came up on another board I read (although rarely post on) a while back. I'll see if I can find the citations. There were a couple of things worth mentioning.
An influx of Asian immigrants has lowered the crime rate amongst immigrants as a whole. For some reason Asians tend not to commit crimes.
Also, many of the crime statistics use "reported crimes". Immigrants as a whole, and to a larger extent illegal immigrants, are much less likely to actually report crimes, mostly out of fear of police. This is especially true if the perpetrator is a friend or family member. As most crimes are done by friends or family, especially in the case of sexual assault, this can lead to massive under reporting in immigrant communities.
Now, some might point out that 27% of federal inmates are illegals while illegals only make up 3.5% of the US population. This is true, but not really adjusted for socio-economics either.
Also, what crimes are we talking about? Total crimes? Specific crimes? Illegal Immigrants are significantly less likely to own cars or drive them than citizens, which means that citizens commit a vast majority of vehicular crimes due to simply driving more. If the focus is on serious crimes things get a bit wonky. According to the US Government Accountability Office the murder commission rate for illegal aliens in 2009 was 58 per 100,000 people, while the US overall murder rate was 5.8. That's 10 times as much.
whembly wrote: Looks like you're interpreting "drain the swamp" to fit your needs... 'tis why I've largely ignored snark like these as I took it as "get the current peeps out of there".
But, it really isn't a dismissal... it's more of a call to 'pick your battle wisely'... know what I mean?
Nope, feth that. You spent a fething year talking about Clinton receiving a six figure sum for giving speeches to Wall St. Now Trump is charging a seven figure sum to the government simply because he doesn't want to spend too many days in Washington, and that becomes small potatoes.
No... I spent a fething year over Clinton's email shenanigans/pay-to-play Foundation/Benghazi fiasoc... I spent very little, if at all over her Wall St. speeches... if anything, I was pointing out her hypocrisy there.
That's just a complete fail whembly. It can't be more obvious how you pick and choose what matters based on nothing but team loyalty. As I've said to you a lot of times now, until you stop giving your party permission for all of its bs, they're never going to stop shovelling it.
You seem to think that we all should start out in neutral positions in staking out opinions...
feth that seb. We're all political creatures coming from very different 'starting points'.
Maybe I should've fleshed out my original point.
Part of the problem during the Obama years, was that there were SO MANY scandals/valid criticisms, such that the volume of each one of those 'drowned each other out'. Probably the only one that really stuck to the Obama administration (and Democrats) are the lead up to PPACA and it's implementation. Even that isn't a true 'scandal'... as its more of general governmental incompetence.
When critics attacks everything, then true transgressions gets lost in the noise.
It's the 'Political Misdirection Tactic™', or 'stray voltage' that politicians exercise to shift the attention. Most are more discreet about it... but, Trumpo and his flunkies are blatantly using it as a crudgel... AND MOST OF THE MEDIA ARE OBLIVIOUS TOIT!
So all the criticisms of Trump vacay'ing to his resort and the cost associated with that... (gee... it's interesting that the media is all the sudden interested in that now ) is wasting bandwidth, ESPECIALLY Trumpo is really RIPE for valid criticism. I've made numerous comments/snark that I'd rather pay for the high cost of Obama vacay'ing / golfing... and I feel the same way about Trumpo... at least they're not doing Whitehouse stuff fething things up.
Utah just has a weird vibe. A friend of GC is going to BYU and some of the stories are...weird like almost cultlike weird.
Considering it's a Mormon school. . .
On the subject of Utah, I did watch a video (some of y'all may have seen it) of a Jason Chaffetz town hall meeting, and I think it's glorious that the regular people are pushing back, and "attacking" him and his cronies. Basically speaking thin the TH event, he was asked questions that he couldn't wouldn't answer, and people were demanding that he "do his job," and support them, the small guys who actually got him into office in the first place.
You seem to think that we all should start out in neutral positions in staking out opinions...
feth that seb. We're all political creatures coming from very different 'starting points'.
No... I don't think we "should" start out in neutral positions, because as you say, we're all political in some way, and our natural leanings are going to help form an initial opinion. However, when presented with facts, we should be prepared to shift those opinions. Something that I have rarely, if ever seen from you in these threads.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/02/13 16:05:48
WrentheFaceless wrote: So this far after the election people are still attacking Hillary, is it because Trump is that bad, anything to deflect away from what he's doing?
So, if someone specifically asks me why I didn't vote for Clinton, I can't list the reasons because it's "attacking" her? Gotcha. I'd have done the same thing if someone asked me about the 2000 election, but then I guess that doesn't fit your agenda.
What agenda? The election was 3 months ago, who cares about what Hillary supposedly did or didnt do. Why bring it up again if not to deflect from what Trump is actually proven to be doing.
Alpharius wrote: ...we're veering into that territory that gets threads locked again - and brings us one step closer to my dream becoming a reality here on Dakka Dakka.
What's that dream? Closing OT?
"Our fantasy settings are grim and dark, but that is not a reflection of who we are or how we feel the real world should be. [...] We will continue to diversify the cast of characters we portray [...] so everyone can find representation and heroes they can relate to. [...] If [you don't feel the same way], you will not be missed"
https://twitter.com/WarComTeam/status/1268665798467432449/photo/1
From the FB page of one of the Mar-a-Lago members who happened to be present when Trump stopped by on Saturday
Spoiler:
That Mar-a-Lago member deleted his FB post with photos of Trump's team apparently reading North Korea docs by iPhone flashlight.
Glad to know that freedom is so secure.
The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all
We love our superheroes because they refuse to give up on us. We can analyze them out of existence, kill them, ban them, mock them, and still they return, patiently reminding us of who we are and what we wish we could be.
"the play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king,
From the FB page of one of the Mar-a-Lago members who happened to be present when Trump stopped by on Saturday
Spoiler:
That Mar-a-Lago member deleted his FB post with photos of Trump's team apparently reading North Korea docs by iPhone flashlight.
Glad to know that freedom is so secure.
This is insane. Where's the outrage? How is this gak allowed to happen?
Hey, remember when Podesta's recipes were going to going to lead this country to destruction? But allowing aides to canvass documents with their phones and Mar-a-Lago members to take pictures whenever they want is totally okay.