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No to Patraeus...nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

I'm hearing The 'Stache is a candidate:

YASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.

 whembly wrote:
In your opinion.

In the plain reality that your side just put Donald fething Trump in to the whitehouse. In that the last president before that was GW Bush. In that both of them and every other candidate going back to Reagan has kept following nonsense like the laffer curve and trickle down, and covered the unpopularity of those policies by trumping up wedge politics like guns, abortions and gay rights.

This is not how a healthy party operates, these people are not who a healthy party puts in to office.

Not really... otherwise, Democrats would be curbstomping the GOP till kingdom come...

You're confusing election results with actual policy substance. Winning an election doesn't mean your policies make sense or do any good. After all, Trump just won an election. GW Bush won two.

Electoral coverage is mediocre on the best days. A very large share of the electorate is not engaged, and many of the ones who are engaged are special interest voters or cheerleaders for their team. This doesn't mean we should despair and give up on democracy, but we should accept its limitations. Elections don't prove who actually has good policies.

What is "ordinary".

Parties with policy goals that are bounded by normal political conventions, whose policies are driven by factual and political realities. Parties that understand ordinary political norms constrain how they might pursue their goals, and also constrain how they act while in opposition.

It's cute that you think this current iteration of the GOP is espousing 'conservative values'. It's a "big government" party still... and that's pretty much it at the moment.

I think its cute that so many Americans think conservatism is defined by small government. Politics existed before Reagan, and it even exists outside of the US, you know.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Why is Trump so constantly worried about imagined voter fraud in an election he won? Such a sore.....winner?

While I do believe Trump is being a rather big crybaby about loosing the popular vote, especially since it doesn't matter, he might not be as totally crazy as it might seem. Okay, bear with me on this, as I'm going to dive into what it would have actually taken for Trump's claims to be true.....

According to a C-Span poll from a number of months ago, if non-citizen residents could vote they would have voted primarily for Clinton. That seems fairly obvious. I think they said they favored Clinton over 90% of the time. According the Government there are currently over 44 million non-citizen residents in the US (12 million of them illegal aliens). So, that means that if there was a 7% voter turnout of non citizens, that would have made up the 3 million votes that Trump lost the popular vote by. (of course that 7% counts children too, so realistically we would be looking at 9% voter turnout.)

Average voter turnout for 2016 was (according to CNN) 53.5%. That means that if non-citizens showed up at a rate of 18% of that of the General population it would have done it.

Also, there are currently 20 million ex-cons in the US that favored Clinton 4 to 1 should they be able to vote.


Now, do I believe any of this? Not really. Obviously there were a few of these groups that did break the law and voted, but no where near the numbers needed to substantiate Trumps claims. Hypothetically had the gap been much narrower, say 750,000 votes or so, he might not have been totally wrong.

 sebster wrote:

 whembly wrote:
In your opinion.

In the plain reality that your side just put Donald fething Trump in to the whitehouse. In that the last president before that was GW Bush. In that both of them and every other candidate going back to Reagan has kept following nonsense like the laffer curve and trickle down, and covered the unpopularity of those policies by trumping up wedge politics like guns, abortions and gay rights.

This is not how a healthy party operates, these people are not who a healthy party puts in to office.

Not really... otherwise, Democrats would be curbstomping the GOP till kingdom come...

You're confusing election results with actual policy substance. Winning an election doesn't mean your policies make sense or do any good. After all, Trump just won an election. GW Bush won two.

Electoral coverage is mediocre on the best days. A very large share of the electorate is not engaged, and many of the ones who are engaged are special interest voters or cheerleaders for their team. This doesn't mean we should despair and give up on democracy, but we should accept its limitations. Elections don't prove who actually has good policies.

What is "ordinary".

Parties with policy goals that are bounded by normal political conventions, whose policies are driven by factual and political realities. Parties that understand ordinary political norms constrain how they might pursue their goals, and also constrain how they act while in opposition.

It's cute that you think this current iteration of the GOP is espousing 'conservative values'. It's a "big government" party still... and that's pretty much it at the moment.

I think its cute that so many Americans think conservatism is defined by small government. Politics existed before Reagan, and it even exists outside of the US, you know.

And you have a pretty naive view of politics and politicians.


For an Australian who seems to think he knows more about U.S. politics than Americans do, you have a pretty distorted view of how politics in this country works and conservatism in general.


Here's a fun fact for you: American conservatism isn't the same as "conservative" parties outside the United States.


But what do I know, right? Since I'm representative of "ground zero" of supposed lunacy on the American right and "deranged".

As for local news......
A state representative from my home town has brought up legislation that would limit public employee wage bargaining.

Here is how wage bargaining works in Iowa: If the public unions demand a raise, the state must bargain with them. If no agreement can be made the negotiation must be brought before an arbitrator. The arbitrator's decision MUST be based on the states authority to raise taxes to meet the wage increase demands, whether or not it's actually a good idea at the time. He will then split the difference.

So, this means that if the union makes pie-in-the-sky demands and refuses to negotiate they are basically guaranteed a raise. The government must then either raise taxes, or cut spending somewhere else to fit the raise into the existing budget.

This new legislation would remove the mandatory consideration of the state's ability to raise taxes. Teachers are up in arms.

 cuda1179 wrote:
Teachers are up in arms.

As well they should be...

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:
Teachers are up in arms.

As well they should be...

While I do support teachers, the ability to get what you want every time is a bit.... much

 cuda1179 wrote:
As for local news......
A state representative from my home town has brought up legislation that would limit public employee wage bargaining.

Here is how wage bargaining works in Iowa: If the public unions demand a raise, the state must bargain with them. If no agreement can be made the negotiation must be brought before an arbitrator. The arbitrator's decision MUST be based on the states authority to raise taxes to meet the wage increase demands, whether or not it's actually a good idea at the time. He will then split the difference.

So, this means that if the union makes pie-in-the-sky demands and refuses to negotiate they are basically guaranteed a raise. The government must then either raise taxes, or cut spending somewhere else to fit the raise into the existing budget.

This new legislation would remove the mandatory consideration of the state's ability to raise taxes. Teachers are up in arms.

Hrm, I could see both sides of this, if I'm understanding correctly, For the teachers, it does mean that even a reasonable and deserved raise that could be covered by a reasonable tax increase could be quashed if desired, but on the other hand, the current situation does seem open to abuse if the procedure is to just split the difference of demands.

 cuda1179 wrote:

Now, do I believe any of this? Not really. Obviously there were a few of these groups that did break the law and voted, but no where near the numbers needed to substantiate Trumps claims. Hypothetically had the gap been much narrower, say 750,000 votes or so, he might not have been totally wrong.

The issue is that there's zero evidence anywhere for hundreds of thousands of fraudulent votes, even that "small" of a margin hasn't been turned up in any investigation anywhere thus far, the largest estimates of potential voter fraud turned up by investigations was several multiple entire orders of magnitude smaller than that, and of those they found substantiated overwhemlingly it was incorrect paperwork rather than actual fraud, with actual fraud rates estimated to be one-in-several-tens-of-millions, or likely enough to count on one hand in the 2016 election.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:
As for local news......
A state representative from my home town has brought up legislation that would limit public employee wage bargaining.

Here is how wage bargaining works in Iowa: If the public unions demand a raise, the state must bargain with them. If no agreement can be made the negotiation must be brought before an arbitrator. The arbitrator's decision MUST be based on the states authority to raise taxes to meet the wage increase demands, whether or not it's actually a good idea at the time. He will then split the difference.

So, this means that if the union makes pie-in-the-sky demands and refuses to negotiate they are basically guaranteed a raise. The government must then either raise taxes, or cut spending somewhere else to fit the raise into the existing budget.

This new legislation would remove the mandatory consideration of the state's ability to raise taxes. Teachers are up in arms.

Hrm, I could see both sides of this, if I'm understanding correctly, For the teachers, it does mean that even a reasonable and deserved raise that could be covered by a reasonable tax increase could be quashed if desired, but on the other hand, the current situation does seem open to abuse if the procedure is to just split the difference of demands.

It's a perverse incentive to allow public sector unions to directly negotiate for pay/benefits against the state...

Especially if said unions donate politically to politician's campaign coffers.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:
As for local news......
A state representative from my home town has brought up legislation that would limit public employee wage bargaining.

Here is how wage bargaining works in Iowa: If the public unions demand a raise, the state must bargain with them. If no agreement can be made the negotiation must be brought before an arbitrator. The arbitrator's decision MUST be based on the states authority to raise taxes to meet the wage increase demands, whether or not it's actually a good idea at the time. He will then split the difference.

So, this means that if the union makes pie-in-the-sky demands and refuses to negotiate they are basically guaranteed a raise. The government must then either raise taxes, or cut spending somewhere else to fit the raise into the existing budget.

This new legislation would remove the mandatory consideration of the state's ability to raise taxes. Teachers are up in arms.

Hrm, I could see both sides of this, if I'm understanding correctly, For the teachers, it does mean that even a reasonable and deserved raise that could be covered by a reasonable tax increase could be quashed if desired, but on the other hand, the current situation does seem open to abuse if the procedure is to just split the difference of demands.

.

Yeah, I can see both sides too. As it currently stands the arbitrator must always assume that the state will always have as much money as it needs and the people will be happy to pay it. On the other hand I don't want to ham string teachers either. Finding a non-biased arbitrator is supposed to be what does that though. Someone that can look at the records and say, "Gee, you haven't had a pay increase in 5 years, the cost of living has gone up 2%, but the state is in an economic downturn and they are all ready cutting other programs by necessity. I think a 1.2% raise this year seems fare, but we should check on it again in a year."

 whembly wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:
As for local news......
A state representative from my home town has brought up legislation that would limit public employee wage bargaining.

Here is how wage bargaining works in Iowa: If the public unions demand a raise, the state must bargain with them. If no agreement can be made the negotiation must be brought before an arbitrator. The arbitrator's decision MUST be based on the states authority to raise taxes to meet the wage increase demands, whether or not it's actually a good idea at the time. He will then split the difference.

So, this means that if the union makes pie-in-the-sky demands and refuses to negotiate they are basically guaranteed a raise. The government must then either raise taxes, or cut spending somewhere else to fit the raise into the existing budget.

This new legislation would remove the mandatory consideration of the state's ability to raise taxes. Teachers are up in arms.

Hrm, I could see both sides of this, if I'm understanding correctly, For the teachers, it does mean that even a reasonable and deserved raise that could be covered by a reasonable tax increase could be quashed if desired, but on the other hand, the current situation does seem open to abuse if the procedure is to just split the difference of demands.

It's a perverse incentive to allow public sector unions to directly negotiate for pay/benefits against the state...

Especially if said unions donate politically to politician's campaign coffers.

In some ways absolutely, in other ways, at least with respect to specifically the wage bargaining, it's just doing collectively what would otherwise be done on an individual basis while compensating for a potentially heavily asymmetric imbalance in wage bargaining power that could artificially drive wages down, at least in theory. I do have issues with public sector unions engaging in direct contributions however, that gets weird, because how do they get to politically advocate for themselves, like any other workers, without an inherent conflict of interest issue arising that can't be resolved without quashing that right? Not sure if there's a great answer.

Also, whatever mojo the police unions have, the teachers unions need to take notes, because they clearly aren't getting the idea

 cuda1179 wrote:

Yeah, I can see both sides too. As it currently stands the arbitrator must always assume that the state will always have as much money as it needs and the people will be happy to pay it. On the other hand I don't want to ham string teachers either. Finding a non-biased arbitrator is supposed to be what does that though. Someone that can look at the records and say, "Gee, you haven't had a pay increase in 5 years, the cost of living has gone up 2%, but the state is in an economic downturn and they are all ready cutting other programs by necessity. I think a 1.2% raise this year seems fare, but we should check on it again in a year."

Yeah, though in such negotiations both sides and three outside bystander groups will come to the arbritrator with 9 different values for each of those numbers

 Vaktathi wrote:
[]Yeah, though in such negotiations both sides and three outside bystander groups will come to the arbritrator with 9 different values for each of those numbers

Not exactly sure why you have the laughing emoji. That's probably the most accurate statement made in this thread so far.

 whembly wrote:
You have to remember, Flynn was sacked by the Obama administration, and immediately in public he became a sore thumb.

It's kind of amazing that someone so bad at spycraft would be appointed by administrations from both sides. I mean, forget Flynn's whackadoo conspiracy stuff, this guy phoned a Russian embassy official and then appeared blindsided when US spy agencies had a record of the call. I know that calls to foreign diplomats are assumed to be bugged. How the feth was Flynn oblivious to that?

EDIT: Well dip me in butter Seb... Flynn has just resigned. I guess you were wrong buddy.

Dude, read. This is what I said "If I am, we'll know it when Trump publicly condemns Flynn's behaviour and fires him unceremoniously."

Negotiating for people to resign is how you make these kinds of things go away as quietly as possible.

 oldravenman3025 wrote:

 sebster wrote:

 whembly wrote:
In your opinion.

In the plain reality that your side just put Donald fething Trump in to the whitehouse. In that the last president before that was GW Bush. In that both of them and every other candidate going back to Reagan has kept following nonsense like the laffer curve and trickle down, and covered the unpopularity of those policies by trumping up wedge politics like guns, abortions and gay rights.

This is not how a healthy party operates, these people are not who a healthy party puts in to office.

Not really... otherwise, Democrats would be curbstomping the GOP till kingdom come...

You're confusing election results with actual policy substance. Winning an election doesn't mean your policies make sense or do any good. After all, Trump just won an election. GW Bush won two.

Electoral coverage is mediocre on the best days. A very large share of the electorate is not engaged, and many of the ones who are engaged are special interest voters or cheerleaders for their team. This doesn't mean we should despair and give up on democracy, but we should accept its limitations. Elections don't prove who actually has good policies.

What is "ordinary".

Parties with policy goals that are bounded by normal political conventions, whose policies are driven by factual and political realities. Parties that understand ordinary political norms constrain how they might pursue their goals, and also constrain how they act while in opposition.

It's cute that you think this current iteration of the GOP is espousing 'conservative values'. It's a "big government" party still... and that's pretty much it at the moment.

I think its cute that so many Americans think conservatism is defined by small government. Politics existed before Reagan, and it even exists outside of the US, you know.

And you have a pretty naive view of politics and politicians.


For an Australian who seems to think he knows more about U.S. politics than Americans do,

Let's stop right there. He does. So do most of the people in this thread. So does almost anyone with more than a high school education. Because the average American knows barely anything about US politics. They think they know a lot, but once the falsehoods are taken out there simply isn't much left.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I mean seriously... look at who we elected. We really can't be that well informed.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Let's stop right there. He does. So do most of the people in this thread. So does almost anyone with more than a high school education. Because the average American knows barely anything about US politics. They think they know a lot, but once the falsehoods are taken out there simply isn't much left.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I mean seriously... look at who we elected. We really can't be that well informed.

Given the revisionist history pushed in colleges across the nation along with early indoctrination to leftist policies, the correct statement is that there "simply isn't much right". And how exactly does being informed/misinformed/uninformed change the fact that the Democrat candidate doubled down on incredibly bad policy from her predecessor, and the two alternative parties who should have had a CLEAR runway this time around couldn't pick more charismatic people to run?

What exactly were these bad policies?

 oldravenman3025 wrote:

 sebster wrote:

 whembly wrote:
In your opinion.

In the plain reality that your side just put Donald fething Trump in to the whitehouse. In that the last president before that was GW Bush. In that both of them and every other candidate going back to Reagan has kept following nonsense like the laffer curve and trickle down, and covered the unpopularity of those policies by trumping up wedge politics like guns, abortions and gay rights.

This is not how a healthy party operates, these people are not who a healthy party puts in to office.

Not really... otherwise, Democrats would be curbstomping the GOP till kingdom come...

You're confusing election results with actual policy substance. Winning an election doesn't mean your policies make sense or do any good. After all, Trump just won an election. GW Bush won two.

Electoral coverage is mediocre on the best days. A very large share of the electorate is not engaged, and many of the ones who are engaged are special interest voters or cheerleaders for their team. This doesn't mean we should despair and give up on democracy, but we should accept its limitations. Elections don't prove who actually has good policies.

What is "ordinary".

Parties with policy goals that are bounded by normal political conventions, whose policies are driven by factual and political realities. Parties that understand ordinary political norms constrain how they might pursue their goals, and also constrain how they act while in opposition.

It's cute that you think this current iteration of the GOP is espousing 'conservative values'. It's a "big government" party still... and that's pretty much it at the moment.

I think its cute that so many Americans think conservatism is defined by small government. Politics existed before Reagan, and it even exists outside of the US, you know.

And you have a pretty naive view of politics and politicians.


For an Australian who seems to think he knows more about U.S. politics than Americans do, you have a pretty distorted view of how politics in this country works and conservatism in general.


Here's a fun fact for you: American conservatism isn't the same as "conservative" parties outside the United States.


But what do I know, right? Since I'm representative of "ground zero" of supposed lunacy on the American right and "deranged".

I can only come in support to Sebster by saying that he has often impressed me quite a lot by his understanding of both US and International politics. There are only a handful of people frequenting this site that shows equal quality in their political analysis. Sorry for the brown-nosing Seb, but its true!

And by saying that there is absolutely something ... "garish" ... about US politics, in general, but with the Republican Party in particular. The more or less recent push toward mass mis/disinformation as a valid tactic, the downgrading in quality of candidates, the overall tone and (lack of) content in debates... the disgusting hypocrisy in the bile reserved for H. Clinton... As much as I despise our crooked liberals, our biblethumping cons and our racists rednecks, there is nothing in the world that could tempt me to trade them for yours.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Let's stop right there. He does. So do most of the people in this thread. So does almost anyone with more than a high school education. Because the average American knows barely anything about US politics. They think they know a lot, but once the falsehoods are taken out there simply isn't much left.



I mean seriously... look at who we elected. We really can't be that well informed.

Hrm, being fair, the US is far from the only nation with this issue, the roulette wheel just finally came up with our number. Stupid people doing stupid things for stupid reasons exist everywhere, and stupid politicians make it into positions of power from time to time. We just happened to get the daily double on our spin.

I mean, if nothing else, we're still doing better than the Philippines

 cuda1179 wrote:


Not exactly sure why you have the laughing emoji. That's probably the most accurate statement made in this thread so far.

Probably should have been a

 Just Tony wrote:


Given the revisionist history pushed in colleges across the nation along with early indoctrination to leftist policies,

Exactly what kind of revisionist history and "early indoctrination to leftist policies" are we talking about here? I don't recall a political commissar hanging out in the faculty lounge of any institution I've attended...

I recall some commisars, but they were mostly ranting about heresy.

 oldravenman3025 wrote:
And you have a pretty naive view of politics and politicians.

Sentence 1, a personal criticism with no evidence or argument to substantiate it.

For an Australian who seems to think he knows more about U.S. politics than Americans do, you have a pretty distorted view of how politics in this country works and conservatism in general.

Sentence 2, a personal criticism with no evidence or argument to substantiate it.

Here's a fun fact for you: American conservatism isn't the same as "conservative" parties outside the United States.

Sentence 3, a personal criticism backed up by a cliche that shows a misunderstanding of how conservatism has evolved and branded itself in the US. But at least there's an actual argument here so it beats the last two sentences, even though its wrong.

But what do I know, right? Since I'm representative of "ground zero" of supposed lunacy on the American right and "deranged".

No, you're not really anything. You're just a guy posting on the internet, same as the rest of us. Your argument that you gave, which I quoted a while back, that was an example of the foundational issue which has led to modern US conservatism going so badly astray.

 whembly wrote:
It's a perverse incentive to allow public sector unions to directly negotiate for pay/benefits against the state...

Wait, I thought you were a conservative? How can you be against private citizens negotiating contract terms to sell their labor for whatever price they can get on the market? Are you now against free markets and in favor of state-controlled business?

 oldravenman3025 wrote:
American conservatism isn't the same as "conservative" parties outside the United States.

Still, my curiosity is piqued. What shape do you suppose takes this particular aspect of American exceptionnalism?
Compare your Republican party with our Conservative Party of Canada.

Small government party? Check!
Feth environmental regulations? Check!
Lower the taxes? Check!
Christian religious roots? Check!
Agricultural/oil Industry powerbase? Check!
Get tougher on criminal? Check!
Anti-immigration party? Check!

The core values are essentially the same, probably simply because the éventail of Western values isn't that large. The rethorics and the tactics aren't the same, though, and from an external perspective, it all adds up to Republican party politics being a crapshow of such proportion that even Harper would be nauseated.

 Vaktathi wrote:
[]Exactly what kind of revisionist history and "early indoctrination to leftist policies" are we talking about here? I don't recall a political commissar hanging out in the faculty lounge of any institution I've attended...

This was in the previous US politics thread, but I'll repeat it. Some new history books are not only omitting the story of the Alamo, but denying Texas independence all together. No mention of Mexican political instability. No mention that whites were welcomed with open arms by the Mexicans of the time (as it opened trade routes with cheaper goods). No mention that the Mexican government was ignoring the entire region and the people in it. No mention that half the Mexican people in the area supported the Texas Revolution. No mention that Texas won a war of Independence. No mention that there was a legal treaty signed and a border made at the Rio Grande. None of this. What do many new history books state? US forces invaded Mexico and stole the Southwest......

 cuda1179 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
[]Exactly what kind of revisionist history and "early indoctrination to leftist policies" are we talking about here? I don't recall a political commissar hanging out in the faculty lounge of any institution I've attended...

This was in the previous US politics thread, but I'll repeat it. Some new history books are not only omitting the story of the Alamo, but denying Texas independence all together. No mention of Mexican political instability. No mention that whites were welcomed with open arms by the Mexicans of the time (as it opened trade routes with cheaper goods). No mention that the Mexican government was ignoring the entire region and the people in it. No mention that half the Mexican people in the area supported the Texas Revolution. No mention that Texas won a war of Independence. No mention that there was a legal treaty signed and a border made at the Rio Grande. None of this. What do many new history books state? US forces invaded Mexico and stole the Southwest......

What course are we talking about, at what level, and with what time is this class being taught in?

If we're talking 4th grade history taught for a half hour a day then I'd be surprised they touch on the Mexican American war at all, particularly beyond "Davie Crockett died at the Alamo" (that's literally all I was taught over 20 years ago as a wee lad). If we're talking high school or 101 level college history, then they may spend *a* day on this, and they're going to cover the big picture end results, which, to be fair is basically the US marching in an taking the entire Southwest, and anything deeper's gonna come from a higher level course that absolutely will get into these sorts of things. Individual state level history for all 50 states, particularly for states other than the ones the school resides in, is not something usually gone into great detail in most public schools. Some of these things are also either arguable or opinion (like the idea that the Mexican government was just ignoring the region, as opposed to being simply incapable of properly administering much of anything and most of the southwest having almost no population or infrastructure to administer anyway), but would only be gotten into either way in usually a higher level course (at least outside of Texas).

That said, is there a source for history books actively going out of their way to not mention Texas won a war of independence (as opposed to just not getting into that sort of detail within the scope of the course?)

 Vaktathi wrote:
Hrm, being fair, the US is far from the only nation with this issue, the roulette wheel just finally came up with our number. Stupid people doing stupid things for stupid reasons exist everywhere, and stupid politicians make it into positions of power from time to time.

Oh definitely, there are stupid people. More than that, there’s quite intelligent people who happily buy in to stupid political ideas because they don’t face immediate personal consequences. I mean, if you develop a stupid idea about picking fights with guys three times your size because you believe you have the soul of a kung fu warrior, then you will probably start to reconsider your idea when you get stretchered in to the back of the ambulance. But with politics people can believe stunningly stupid things and the consequences will vary rarely come back on you.

We just happened to get the daily double on our spin.

It’s not a very popular belief because it’s so safe and easy to bash politicians, but there is actually a very important place for a political class. They place a filter over what ideas enter the mainstream, what ideas are accepted as part of mainstream debate. It means if some random guy driving home from work decides that money is meaningless because it isn’t backed by gold, the political class recognises him as a kook and excludes him. He can still run for office, but as a kook, and he will only attract other kooks to vote for him. It isn’t nice to think of political parties serving as a gatekeeper on what is acceptable, but it is important.

Of course, the gatekeepers are by no means perfect. Good ideas will get excluded sometimes. And other times stupid ideas will get brought in. But there’s a question of extent there, the stupid ideas that sneak through might are things like tough on crime policies*, not stuff like abandoning NATO.

The problem comes when the gatekeepers stop working. When they invite in crazy and radical rhetoric to boost short term gain, and end up ceding respectability and even power to the crazies. Maybe Trump was a black swan event, or maybe he was the product of a couple of decades of Republican strategy that degraded their own party.

Because maybe Trump is miles outside the norms of Republican politics, but if he hadn’t won then who was next? Cruz? He might actually be just as crazy (goldbug…), and he’s probably even more spiteful, albeit a lot vain. Who were the sensible options? Kasich? That guy ran from beginning to end through the primary, and his name recognition was still woeful by the end. Can anyone imagine Kasich running and winning with this Republican base? I mean, imagine the changes that would have to happen to the Republican voting base to make Kasich a viable candidate, and you’ve probably also listed the changes that would make it impossible for Trump to win.


*There are tough on crime strategies that work. Extra policing numbers, community renewal, this stuff is shown to work in one fashion or another, but it’s really expensive. So while the rhetoric is great, when they win office and have to pay for this stuff, it suddenly gets cut down to the stuff that is cheap, at least in the short term. That means laws to increase sentences, which simply don’t work.

Hey man. 20 years did nothing but improve the guys rep when he got out. Clearly another 5 would really teach him a lesson!

 LordofHats wrote:
Hey man. 20 years did nothing but improve the guys rep when he got out. Clearly another 5 would really teach him a lesson!

Add in that longer sentences will only dissuade people who are good at weighing up risks against reward, and properly accounting for their needs beyond the short them, and that excludes most people engaged in criminal behaviour

 Frazzled wrote:
Isolated does not equal pariah. Your use of pariah is off.

But Frazzled, don't you know that hyperbole is THE BEST THING EVAR??!!???!!?111one1
Yeah, pariah was hyperbole. Still, will he stop alienating people once the US become isolated? Basically, pariah is the direction where he is heading, not the place he is right now.

Prestor Jon wrote:
No amount of stupid Trump tweets or awkward face to face meetings or phone calls with Trump changes the fact that the EU, China and most of the rest of the world is economically linked and codependent.

For now. But doesn't Trump want to back off from free trade agreements? Might be we will have to switch a bit and invest more heavily into other markets.

Prestor Jon wrote:
we're the only country capable of doing the heavy lifting when it comes to protecting NATO countries and projecting military power globally

Ahah who needs to project military power globally? That's not a requirement to protect NATO country, and some of those countries are perfectly able to protect themselves and neighboring countries.
Also about that global military power, didn't Trump said that those bases in Japan and South Korea were too expensive?

Really, Jon, you seem to believe that the current status quo is eternal and that nothing the POTUS can do will change them. Do you think he can't ruin your economy? Do you think he can't close your foreign military bases? Do you think other countries can't step up their military game?

I'm really wondering whether Trump's willingness to affront foreign leaders, even close allies, is just his own character and his own rich-business-man bluster, or if parts of this is orchestrated by Bannon and other, perhaps smarter "aides".

Because it might make sense from Bannon's perspective to alienate allies and basically "the rest of the world", because he can use any withdrawal of agreements and relationships from EU, Australia and so on and say: See, our so-called "allies" are abandoning us, it's high time it's really "America first" for us, everyone who's not with us is against us and that's why President Trump needs more executive powers to...and so on.

With the current, poisoned media atmosphere he might get that message across for enough people not to see how Trump started this (possible) decline in international relationships.

(With quotes attributed to him like “What we are witnessing now is the birth of a new political order” I'm not surprised he's called Darth Bannon already...)

So, did Flynn fall foul of the Logan Act?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan_Act