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 cuda1179 wrote:

As far as selective service goes, how would they choose you if you had no Social Security number? Even for a citizen there is no legal requirement to ever have a Social Security number. You don't need one to pay taxes (that's what ITIN's are for), you don't need one for education, not for medical care, and according to legal precedence you don't even need one to gain employment.

If you can use your TIN for other things, I would think they should be able to come up with a way to use it for selective service registration. The TIN would still be attached to your person, just like the SSN, or so I would think? I don't know if the legislation for the selective service specifically requires a social security number right now, so I can't say.

But if I do remember the actual selective service requirements right, I don't think it should matter since they could just assign you some internal Selective Service ID because they can already track you down for notification since we are all required to update our Selective Service registration every time we move until we are 26. Which, I'm sure, is something we all complied with (or are still complying with for you younger folks)

On another topic, has anyone else heard that the US and Australia are both offering asylum status to Caucasian farmers from South Africa due to the flagrant human rights violations by the South African Government? Looks like GW isn't the only entity with a hard-swinging pendulum.

I am one hair away from deleting facebook. I rarely use it. The only reason it exists is so my gf could prove to others I existed. I stopped updating it ages ago. The am over the whole narcissism movement and seeing everyone's vacation and kids photos, or being forwarded dumb quotes.

There was a time showing pictures was boring and annoying.

But deleting facebook off my phone was one of the best things I ever did.

And just coming back from a family funeral, I was surprised that my younger cousins didn't use Facebook. Everyone uses Snap. So like all software and websites, Facebook will eventually come and go.

But the hording of information by facebook, internet companies, etc etc really bothers me. Its already too easy to write a book on someone in the US just by doing background checks, viewing Linkedin profiles, checking home values, when they are on vacations. etc etc.

My Grandmother, bless her heart, always told me my private things private. If she could only see what people are doing these days.

Pretty scary.

 deltaKshatriya wrote:
Gonna jump in on H1B, it's a means of importing talent from foreign countries for specialized work, and it's very popular in the tech sector. There have been criticisms that it's a means of lowering wages in IT, prompting that minimum bar, but at the same time, the issue is also that there's a bit of a shortage in IT for workers in the US, so companies like to import talent.

H1B contributes quite a bit to the economy by poaching other countries talent, though some feel that it's a means to get cheap labor. H1B visas are very limited and tightly controlled now, ever since the '08 crisis, so it's really difficult to justify one nowadays, especially given the min salary requirements.

I could never figure out the 'lowering wages' bit. All our low and medium wage workers here are traditional green card holders. You could ban H-1B and your 50k a year IT job will still have exactly the same amount of competition you did before. Worse you could say is that foreign VPs might be more likely to hire other foreign VPs/encourage outsourcing - even that's a stretch.

I haven't touched it since they opened it up to everyone. Nothing that your Mom and Grandmother can get into will ever be cool.

That being said, even when nothing changes, I can at least say that it was real nice to watch Zuckerberg squirm a little on TV. At one point I think I saw him visibly resist rolling his eyes.

That's not really an issue with Facebook though, and more just people wanting to feel important and scream their opinions everywhere. It's just the internet version of putting bumper stickers on your car.

But then, I use Facebook for the reasons you are over with: sharing vacation and kids pictures with family and close friends. I'm also not friends with every single person I know. If I wouldn't care to look at your vacation or family pictures in person, there is no reason for me to be your Facebook friend.

I also post almost nothing that resembles an opinion about anything. People on Facebook don't need to know how I feel about Trump, the economy, immigrants, religion, whatever. My opinion is my own, now here is a picture of a family milestone. I have my share of crazy uncles posting stupid political bs that is obviously fake before even taking 5 seconds to Google the claims, who then follow it up posting crap about fake news and people being gullible and falling for every fake story on Facebook. I just have them on mute, and that solves that problem.

I did the "download your Facebook data" thing, and man I am boring. I am connected to almost no company, except a handful I interacted with many years ago before I became more conscious about how I use Facebook.

 cuda1179 wrote:
A group of friends and I have been having the "what to do with Dreamers" discussion for a while now. One person is staunchly a "ship 'em all back" kind of guy, the other is "Make them all citizens now, regardless of any crimes they committed."

While these two friends are polar opposites on the spectrum, why is it that when this is debated on the news there is rarely a middle ground mentioned?

Why does no one ever say "If you are an adult illegal immigrant, you are prime for deportation, but if you were brought here as a child you have a chance to stay. No, that doesn't mean you are a citizen, no you can't pay in-state tuition, no you aren't eligible for welfare, you must stay out of trouble, no you can't sponsor another immigrant." Why is there never any reasonable compromise on this issue?

Because "the news" isn't news, it is entertainment. And reasonable middle ground isn't very entertaining.

Also, this is one of those issues that neither party wants to "solve". It would be dumb to say we are just going to give out citizenship to illegals without having control of the borders, but if we could prevent most attempts to sneak in it would be dumb to round up and send back all the people who have been here for years working and not committing crimes. It's kind of a manufactured controversy because it gets people riled up and drives them to the polls to vote for their side.

I use Facebook pretty much exclusively to maintain an active chat group with long distance friends, organize events (because like it or not everyone is on FB and inviting and organizing there is easiest) and interact with organizations that dont really have a physical presence (such as my local HEMA crowd and fencing school).

For those things, it works just fine. I rather like FB for those things.

Outside of that, total pointless garbage. Actually, the worst part is that, since everyone is on there these days (and not just your dormmates that all needed .edu addresses to register), and that it's now looked at as an almost entirely public place with everyone you know and everyone who knows you all connected, you cant even post garbage anymore, because someone will get mad about it

KTG17 wrote:
I am one hair away from deleting facebook. I rarely use it. The only reason it exists is so my gf could prove to others I existed. I stopped updating it ages ago. The am over the whole narcissism movement and seeing everyone's vacation and kids photos, or being forwarded dumb quotes.

There was a time showing pictures was boring and annoying.

But deleting facebook off my phone was one of the best things I ever did.

And just coming back from a family funeral, I was surprised that my younger cousins didn't use Facebook. Everyone uses Snap. So like all software and websites, Facebook will eventually come and go.

But the hording of information by facebook, internet companies, etc etc really bothers me. Its already too easy to write a book on someone in the US just by doing background checks, viewing Linkedin profiles, checking home values, when they are on vacations. etc etc.

My Grandmother, bless her heart, always told me my private things private. If she could only see what people are doing these days.

Pretty scary.

Fun fact, some android phones don't even allow you to delete FB

But yeah, once 'older' people started using FB the younger people moved on, away from the prying eyes of relatives. Problem is, half those companies likely do almost exactly the same things and the other half is owned by FB.

The funniest part about FB is still people loudly proclaiming to go on vacation on it and then finding out there home had been robbed. Yeah, you basically rolled out the red carpet for that one.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

The funniest part about FB is still people loudly proclaiming to go on vacation on it and then finding out there home had been robbed. Yeah, you basically rolled out the red carpet for that one.

This actually happened to someone I know. I was even FB friends with them at the time.

If you are going to post vaca pics, do it when you get back. I made my gf do it.

 Albino Squirrel wrote:

Because "the news" isn't news, it is entertainment. And reasonable middle ground isn't very entertaining.

Well, even accounting for editorial bias, we also need to account for the fact that even news channels are divided between "reporting news" and "news commentary and opinion programming". And "reporting" usually doesn't account for the majority of their programming.

Also, this is one of those issues that neither party wants to "solve". It would be dumb to say we are just going to give out citizenship to illegals without having control of the borders, but if we could prevent most attempts to sneak in it would be dumb to round up and send back all the people who have been here for years working and not committing crimes. It's kind of a manufactured controversy because it gets people riled up and drives them to the polls to vote for their side.

We can acknowledge that border crossings have been going way down for quite a long time now though. If we want to have an honest discussion about fixing illegal immigration, that should be at least a start. It's super easy to simply buy a round trip ticket to the US and never leave. That's how we showed up .

That was before I applied for my US passport, and before our Republican congressman Frank Lucas intervened on my mothers behalf to help her get a green card after exceeding her tourist visa and becoming an undocumented alien. That was all pre-2000 though, so it was a gentler and more compassionate GOP.

I'm 36, but I feel like an old man when it comes to social media. I have a Facebook account, but rarely update it. I have 5 pictures on it in the last 12 years. My only friends are close family, a couple friends, and people that I graduated high school with (only because it allows me to know when the next reunion is).

I've never bothered with twitter, Instagram, snapchat, or anything else. Nor have I ever had any of these things, even facebook, available on my phone.


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KTG17 wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

The funniest part about FB is still people loudly proclaiming to go on vacation on it and then finding out there home had been robbed. Yeah, you basically rolled out the red carpet for that one.

This actually happened to someone I know. I was even FB friends with them at the time.

If you are going to post vaca pics, do it when you get back. I made my gf do it.

I keep warning people about this as well. My wife's cousin has an active countdown (44 days) until her extended vacation. I'm almost tempted to rob her myself just to teach her a lesson.

 cuda1179 wrote:
I've never bothered with twitter, Instagram, snapchat, or anything else. Nor have I ever had any of these things, even facebook, available on my phone.

I've got a lot of respect for you for this. Keep it up.

Something has to be said of talking to important people directly. Seems to becoming a lost art these days.

KTG17 wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:
I've never bothered with twitter, Instagram, snapchat, or anything else. Nor have I ever had any of these things, even facebook, available on my phone.

I've got a lot of respect for you for this. Keep it up.

Something has to be said of talking to important people directly. Seems to becoming a lost art these days.

On the other hand, there are also times when issues (especially with businesses) are resolved more easily via social media because it is more visible.

In December, I was stuck at a DC airport because our plane had a pilot delay and then a weather delay when the airport shut down for a couple hours. People were on the phone forever, waiting on hold to talk to the airline and not really getting anywhere. I send a tweet to the airline that was basically "hey @airline, our pilot was late and we missed our departure, now the airport shut down and I'll miss my connection. Can you help me out?". I had a reply confirming that they changed my connecting flight before other people ever got off hold.

Social media is a tool. Sometimes people using it are tools. But if you know which one of the two should actually be the tool, it isn't so bad

It's all about how you use it. Email is fine, but it should be clear and concise, like a letter. There are to many emails at work that are written like a post-it note and not like professional correspondence. No, not every email needs to be a 3 paragraph letter. But it should have actual sentences, with capitalization and punctuation and stuff...

Agreed. I guess I am just looking at it from what seems to be the need for everyone to star in their own show, concerned about how many likes and replies they get.

There are no doubt good uses, but the filler, tracking, and so on, I have been fine dumping it.

Monetizing this stuff, and people trying to be influencers and stuff, are the cancer of social media.

Now don’t forget to SMASH that like button, hit subscribe, and comment on this post to get the latest updates from your boy d-usa!


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Unrelated: I’ve gotten 12 spoofed calls on my phone today. If Trump would have a plan on how to stop that gak and throw those donkey-caves in jail, I would personally campaign for him.

feth those spamming and spoofing donkey-caves.

In regards to dreamers and illegal immigration overall I feel like it is being approached in the wrong way. Obviously people want to come to the US, and realistically a significant number of them will get here regardless of what we do. The question really isn't 'how do we stop illegal immigration' but rather 'why aren't these people using LEGAL immigration?' Obviously there are a lot of reasons for that, and IMO those are what need to be addressed.

As a side note, NAFTA did more to reduce immigration from Mexico than any US border policy, ever. Because by improving Mexico's economy it made more people prefer to stay there. If we took the money we spend on building border walls and spent it on taking out cartels instead we would get much more bang for our buck in terms of illegal immigration and get to crack down on the drug trade on our side to boot.

EDIT: So as a side side-note I just saw this, somewhat amusing: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/dea-seizes-fake-disney-figurines-filled-with-meth/ar-AAvMiWI?li=BBnbfcL

 ChargerIIC wrote:

 deltaKshatriya wrote:
Gonna jump in on H1B, it's a means of importing talent from foreign countries for specialized work, and it's very popular in the tech sector. There have been criticisms that it's a means of lowering wages in IT, prompting that minimum bar, but at the same time, the issue is also that there's a bit of a shortage in IT for workers in the US, so companies like to import talent.

H1B contributes quite a bit to the economy by poaching other countries talent, though some feel that it's a means to get cheap labor. H1B visas are very limited and tightly controlled now, ever since the '08 crisis, so it's really difficult to justify one nowadays, especially given the min salary requirements.

I could never figure out the 'lowering wages' bit. All our low and medium wage workers here are traditional green card holders. You could ban H-1B and your 50k a year IT job will still have exactly the same amount of competition you did before. Worse you could say is that foreign VPs might be more likely to hire other foreign VPs/encourage outsourcing - even that's a stretch.

I don't disagree with you: this whole lowering wages thing is partly a myth. Problem is that perceptions will always remain that way just due to psychology. Fact is that finding qualified workers is tough in the US for a variety of reasons. Here's an interesting article on it: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/23/why-we-have-a-shortage-of-tech-workers-in-the-u-s.html

Prestor Jon wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
So am I to assume that everyone would be completely opposed to privatizing all teaching jobs? Because we're fresh out of realistic options at this point. State governments don't want to pay teachers a fair wage, from what I see, and if we're going to pay for our children's education anyway, might as well skip that unnecessary government step.

Sure. How do you guarantee EVERY child can still go to school afterwards, even kids whose parents barely make enough money to buy food and can't possibly afford tens of thousands of dollars for tuition at a for-profit school?

You do realize that children in low income communities both urban and rural are already languishing in underperforming public schools failing to achieve an adequate education with no hope for a better outcome because their parents are too poor to send them to a better school, right? It’s not like the current system of a centuries old outmoded process designed to churn out minimally qualified factory labor for the industrial revolution without interfering with planting/harvesting farming schedules is ensuring that every student is meeting or exceeding federal and state mandated grade level standards and test scores. We shouldn’t be so heavily invested in the stays quo when it’s been leaving the poor kids behind and stuck in the same vicious cycle for decades.

Of course I do, I attended exactly that sort of underperforming public school back in the eighties. Not only do I understand exactly how bad the problem is, I understand how long it's been continuing.

Throwing the baby out with the bathwater is not a viable solution. Eliminating public schools just means that any kid not lucky enough to be born to a wealthy enough family gets NO education, instead of even the minimal one they're getting now. If there's not much use for minimally-educated workers, there's NO USE AT ALL for someone who can't even read or add. If you think the system we have now is bad for vicious cycles, how bad would it be for a whole class of people who have no job opportunities at all?

KTG17 wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:
I've never bothered with twitter, Instagram, snapchat, or anything else. Nor have I ever had any of these things, even facebook, available on my phone.

I've got a lot of respect for you for this. Keep it up.

Something has to be said of talking to important people directly. Seems to becoming a lost art these days.

Some of my employees REALLY don't get this at all. Part of my work policy is that if you need a sick day, you need to call into THE STORE, talk to a MANAGER, and do it in a time appropriate manner. If you know you are sick at 8am, and wait until 4:45pm to call in sick for your 5pm shift, this is a problem. You also can't call random employee X, as that isn't letting a manager know. Texting also doesn't work as you don't know if the manager had their phone on them or even if they checked their phone.

The worst I've had it was when someone just couldn't understand why they were in trouble for posting on my facebook wall that they were "sick". They posted that message at 4:40pm, scheduled to work at 5. And by "sick" they meant their legs were too sore from a combination spin class and weight lift they did earlier that afternoon.

Apparently Paul Ryan announced he is leaving Congress today by not seeking re-election in November.

 Ahtman wrote:
Apparently Paul Ryan announced he is leaving Congress today by not seeking re-election in November.

Covered 3 pages back fella!

 Just Tony wrote:

Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
but if there were less government run schools to fund, then maybe the schools left could have a higher caliber staff and curriculum.

Could. . . but wouldn't. I mean, it doesn't take a genius to see what DeVos and her ilk have done with privatized education.

At that point, you vote with your wallet. Like every other privatized service on the planet.

I realize I'm trying to pitch capitalist solutions to pro-socialist persons here, but since we AREN'T the EU, we need to work in the confines of the US economic system, and stick with what works.

Two things.

1) The EU system is, in essence, the same system that America used for much of it's history, most notably during America's strongest economic period (the 1940s to the 1970s) so it's not exactly incompatible with the U.S. economic system.

2) The EU (and former American) system is quite literally beating the pants off the modern American system for less (sometimes FAR less) money per child.

 whembly wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
If Trump gets impeached I can't see any way possible Pence remains a viable candidate. I think he's irrevocably tainted by association.

Was Gore tainted from Clinton's impeachment? I don't really recall...

Well, he lost, so....

Doesn't really answer my question...

I'm generally curious... He lost Florida by 537 votes.

Had Clinton never been impeached, I wonder if we would have a Gore Presidency...

Very likely. Despite the Florida votes, consider the effect in other states. Had Clinton not been a factor, Gore may have won enough of the others to make it a moot point. While I have a general dislike for Democrats and an absolute loathing of liberals/progressives, I voted for Gore. I would have voted for Biden or Webb had they been put forward, even over my own candidate (Johnson)

 thekingofkings wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
If Trump gets impeached I can't see any way possible Pence remains a viable candidate. I think he's irrevocably tainted by association.

Was Gore tainted from Clinton's impeachment? I don't really recall...

Well, he lost, so....

Doesn't really answer my question...

I'm generally curious... He lost Florida by 537 votes.

Had Clinton never been impeached, I wonder if we would have a Gore Presidency...

Very likely. Despite the Florida votes, consider the effect in other states. Had Clinton not been a factor, Gore may have won enough of the others to make it a moot point. While I have a general dislike for Democrats and an absolute loathing of liberals/progressives, I voted for Gore. I would have voted for Biden or Webb had they been put forward, even over my own candidate (Johnson)

I don't know. Gore has gotten both preachy, and hypocritical over the years. Scolding Americans for driving large cars, yet taking a weekend pleasure cruise on a private yacht that puts out more pollution in that weekend that a year of family driving. Then there is his seudo charity and questionable documentaries.

The MO state congressional committee just released their report on Grietin allegation, and whoa momma that's some hella testimony.

If true, he's a sexual predator that need to be thrown in jail.

 deltaKshatriya wrote:
Gonna jump in on H1B, it's a means of importing talent from foreign countries for specialized work, and it's very popular in the tech sector. There have been criticisms that it's a means of lowering wages in IT, prompting that minimum bar, but at the same time, the issue is also that there's a bit of a shortage in IT for workers in the US, so companies like to import talent.

There is no shortage of IT-qualified workers in America. There is, however, a shortage of American people willing to work for under $100K in San Francisco (it's estimated the MINIMUM annual income to afford a house in SF is $175,000) after going in debt tens of thousands of dollars to get IT qualified in the first place. In short, tech companies don't want to pay a living wage for San Francisco, but don't want to leave the area to attract American talent either.

 cuda1179 wrote:

 thekingofkings wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
If Trump gets impeached I can't see any way possible Pence remains a viable candidate. I think he's irrevocably tainted by association.

Was Gore tainted from Clinton's impeachment? I don't really recall...

Well, he lost, so....

Doesn't really answer my question...

I'm generally curious... He lost Florida by 537 votes.

Had Clinton never been impeached, I wonder if we would have a Gore Presidency...

Very likely. Despite the Florida votes, consider the effect in other states. Had Clinton not been a factor, Gore may have won enough of the others to make it a moot point. While I have a general dislike for Democrats and an absolute loathing of liberals/progressives, I voted for Gore. I would have voted for Biden or Webb had they been put forward, even over my own candidate (Johnson)

I don't know. Gore has gotten both preachy, and hypocritical over the years. Scolding Americans for driving large cars, yet taking a weekend pleasure cruise on a private yacht that puts out more pollution in that weekend that a year of family driving. Then there is his seudo charity and questionable documentaries.

Most of his "crazy" happened well after the election. I will give him credit for conceding with grace instead of generally being a douche about it.

 nels1031 wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:
Apparently Paul Ryan announced he is leaving Congress today by not seeking re-election in November.

Covered 3 pages back fella!

Sadly once these posts start groaning under the weight of their page count it can be easy to miss something. I blame Frazzled, of course.

After months of denying he was considering leaving politics, Paul Ryan leaves politics. It was a final lie to complete a political career that was just a long string of lies.

If that sounds harsh, that's probably because you don't know Paul Ryan very well. Ryan first came to national attention during the Bush administration's push to privatise social security. Ryan put up his own bill that went far to the right of Bush's plan, privatising everything and turning the private accounts in to long term tax minimization options for high income earners. The CBO said it would increase deficits $2.5tn in its first decade, and increase the deficit in every single year thereafter for the full 75 years the policy was studied. Even in the age of Bush's free spending this was miles past the limits of acceptable spending. In addition to this, Ryan supported both of Bush's deficit financed tax cuts, his deficit financed Medicare expansion, and his deficit financed war.

After Republicans got smashed in 2006 and 2008, Paul Ryan decided to claim he'd always been a deficit hawk who's goal was always to bring the budget under control. He started releasing his own zero deficit budgets. These budgets established for Ryan credibility as a serious policy wonk focused on deficit control. And why not, after he had a smart sounding voice and used powerpoint, he must be very serious. Problem was the budgets were an obvious con. They consisted of massive tax cuts for the rich, and a bunch of magical asterixes that showed big revenue from unmentioned loophole closures and big savings from unmentioned expenditure cuts. Ryan's plan was to cut taxes, then make everything balance through some stuff he'll figure out later on.

After Ryan's unsuccessful run on Romney's ticket in 2012, Ryan realised he needed to pivot again, he decided that he was serious about talking about poverty. So he started talking about how he cared about the issue. He didn't actually talk about anything to resolve the problem, in fact he continued to support health and social security polices that were certain to make the problem worse.

Come 2016 and Ryan was now Speaker of the House, and very seriously talked about tax reform. That isn't just tax cuts, that means going through thousands of tax exemptions and identifying loopholes and carve outs for special interests and writing an in depth policy that will fund a broad tax cut by removing those special rules. It's serious work, a way of producing a tax cut without impacting the deficit, and Paul Ryan certainly talked about it a lot. Then in 2017 when Republicans got to add the presidency to their congressional control, Paul Ryan got to work. Except, of course, talk of tax reform went immediately out the window, Ryan removed the non-partisan tax reformers from the process entirely, he brought his own staff and his biggest lobbyists in to closed sessions, and produced a tax bill with a $1.5 trillion deficit impact, that was full of new loopholes for special interest, particularly real estate developers and hedge fund managers.

Within a month of passing a bill that will add $1.5 trillion more to the deficit, Ryan returned to pretending to being concerned about the deficit. He announced the deficit had to be addressed, and the only way to do it would be cutting social security and medicare. After a few months of that nonsense going absolutely nowhere, with Democrats leading in polls by more than they did when they produced the 2006 blue wave, it leaked that Ryan was leaving politics. He denied this, and then claimed he was leaving because he achieved everything he set out to do, and is leaving politics to spend more time with his family.

To cap off his career perfectly, Ryan finished by telling yet more lies.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
In response to your other point, and it's something I've wanted to say for a while, but is this Trump/Russia circus still rumbling on?

Dude, it's barely started.

I'll be surprised if it adds up to anything more than a hill of beans. Short of murder or burning the declaration of independence, the only way Trump is leaving 1600 is if he loses the next election.

It's already amounted to more than a hill of beans. Trump's major national security advisor, his campaign chairman and his personal lawyer have all been indicted or linked to serious federal crimes, in addition to a bunch of other players, for a total of around 20 people .

I think you're simplifying the various pressures of how this stuff plays out. It isn't just 'will he get indicted or not'. If Trump is shown guilty of serious crimes, then individual congressmen will come under pressure, it may not flip them to a point where they will put forward indictment motions, but it is likely to put them in a position where they will communicate to the president that's where they're going and request he step down before that happens. At which point Trump will be getting constant feedback of weakening support, while being constantly asked about his part in crimes, and unable to move forward on any part of his agenda. It made Nixon leave. It might not make Trump leave. It might not even get to that, as Trump might prevent Mueller's findings coming to light, or Mueller may not have anything damning on Trump. But to claim that nothing can come of this is not a very sensible take.

A lot of people seem to be fantasizing about Watergate

The crimes that have already secured guilty pleas in Trump/Russia are already a lot more serious than the Watergate break-in.


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 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Even back then it was a real headscratcher, nothing he stands for really makes him stand out from the crowd, he has zero experience in government and is terrible in public which is not so handy for a potential politician. His only claim to fame is FB, which would have given him a pretty incredible tool to campaign with though, given that he could hold full control of whatever campaign adds would be allowed. But even being the guy behind FB, how many people could realistically pick out his face from a crowd?

Trump won, which caused a lot of people to think that we were moving in to a new age of celebrity politics. When you add in Zuckerberg having the massive ego you'd expect of a guy who created more wealth than almost anyone on the planet by his early 30s, its natural he thought he'd be a shot at the presidency.

But I agree on how silly the idea was. As you say, while everyone knows his name, his face is barely known, his speeches barely resonate on the public. A guy like Steve Jobs had a real cultural impact, that could transition in to a presidential even. Even Trump was a known figure and something of a cultural force before his presidential run. Zuckerberg on a personal level wasn't. But after Trump's win, people suddenly thought a lot of crazy stuff was possible.


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 Albino Squirrel wrote:
I don't understand this bizarre fantasy that the republicans are going to want to impeach President Trump. And even if they wanted to, for what crime?

This thing where people will ask what crime Trump is publicly known to be guilty of, while the Mueller investigation is still operating in complete secrecy needs to stop. It's a silly line of argument. At some point the Mueller investigation will end. It is possible, I guess, that Trump will come out with a clean bill of health. It's also possible that Mueller will spend several hours reading out charges ranging from money laundering and bank fraud to conspiracy to defraud the United States. It's not known at this point.

As such, it is entirely sensible to talk about what various people might do in the event that Trump or even just his close associates are indicted of serious crimes.


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KTG17 wrote:
Ok well, new to ordering air strikes and dealing with the consequences of that, that part, yes.

Sure, but just before this you said most people worked their way to the presidency through being city councilmen, state senators and congressmen. None of that gives you any experience in ordering air strikes and dealing with the consequences. Even people who've come up through the military have a totally different experience, as they might order operations, but they are based on strategic direction given by the president. Anyone who comes in to the presidency will find the experience of making life and death decisions with international consequences to be a new and very confronting experience.

Other presidents have also struggled with that responsibility, you wouldn't be human if you didn't. There's a reason the presidency ages men so badly. The point is none have dealt with it in such an erratic and frequently bizarre way as Trump. This isn't because Trump is new. It is because it is who Trump is. The man loves to talk, and in the moment he'll say anything that sounds good. When faced with the consequences of his actions he frequently changes course. Trump's catchphrase was 'you're fired', he leveraged it to claim he was going to clean out Washington. But in real life barely anyone has been fired from Trump Org, even those who really screwed up were shifted around. Trump loves to talk, and he will wound off on a subject long before he's actually thought about it. So when it comes to act, Trump will see the consequences of his action and will be forced to face those for the first time.


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 Ouze wrote:
Ryan has said he wants to spend more time with his family, but I think it's pretty obvious a dude who ran for VP and hoped to one day be President, who then settled for Speaker of the House.... he can't be too stoked about his imminent downgrade to Minority Leader - with all the recriminations that are sure to accompany said downgrading. Why not get off the ship as soon as you see the leak?

And how is he going to go back to his old grifts anyway? Return to minority and start producing his imaginary budgets again, with the promise that next time when he's in power he'll actually try to do the budget balancing and tax reform he promised?

The con was finished.


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 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Sort of. . . the crash happened because of stock market shenanigans (IIRC, it was farm/grain prices bottomed out due to oversupply or some such). The president having a response demanded of him, signed some trickle-down legislation that was touted as something that would help/solve the problems (it was being highly suggested to him by JP Morgan's replacements and his ilk, much the same as today) but instead deepened the problem as well as drew even more industries into the depressed market.

Ah, okay. Thanks. This is an area I need to read more about.


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KTG17 wrote:
Lets face it. The Republican party is a mess, and the democratic one is essentially leaderless. I am not even sure we can identify the Republican party anymore. I think its a twisted version of its former self.

I think both parties will become pretty fractured for awhile.

Parties in opposition always look leaderless. Democrats are bubbling along as an okayish party, same as they always are, with a range of policies that are broadly popular. Democrats will return to power, and they'll do it as pretty much the same party they are now. Perhaps the only change will be stronger positions on health and income equality.

Its certainly true that Republicans are a mess. And the problems go way beyond Trump, who certainly didn't help matters. Thing is the policy ideas of the Republican party are extraordinarily unpopular, and while that didn't hurt them in the last decade when they had no power to enact policy, now they control congress and the presidency it's brought people's attention to what the Republicans actually want to do with the party.

Republicans will be a stronger, recovered party at some point in the future as well. But the next viable version of the Republican party will be very different to what they are today.


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 d-usa wrote:
I think that there is more of a "hate established policies and/or the status quo" group that ended up splitting between Trump and Bernie, but that the fundamental core of both parties remains more-or-less intact.

There's also the issue that the Sanders wing has largely fizzled out. Sanders created Our Revolution to fund a range of candidates like himself and drag the Democrats to the left. They gave money and a large amount of social media support to a range of candidates from city council level up to federal, and their impact so far has been exactly nothing. They've helped some city councilors, but in elections of any scale they've been stomped so bad they've had to change their strategy to just backing the same candidate as the Obama/Clinton wing, just to pretend they're having some impact.

Part of the reason is a lot Democrats have taken up Sanders positions on issues like healthcare, letting the wind out of Sanders protest position. But the other reason is that 2016 was just a very weird time for a lot of reasons, and some people gained a political energy they're never going to get at any other time.


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KTG17 wrote:
As far as Ryan is concerned, he's prob one of the last 'in the middle of the road' guys left to lead. And honestly, if Trump does get impeached, he probably would prefer to be out of politics when it happens. But his big fantasy was tax reform, which he did, and now wont have to be around if it turns out to be a bad plan to implement.

Paul Ryan was never middle of the road. He's one of the key architects in taking the Republicans from Bush 'compassionate conservatism' to hardline 'starve the beasters'.

And that wasn't tax reform. Tax reform requires actual, you know, reform. Changing stuff to close loopholes, which you can use to finance a tax cut or maybe even use to reduce the deficit. Instead, the Republican bill was just a deficit financed tax cut that actually add new loopholes.